The Fort Myers Military Museum presents its mobile museum bus in Cape Coral

Ralph Santillo recalls a time when children taught much more about the US wars and the soldiers who fought them in school books.

That was decades ago, he admits. And nowadays things are different.

Nowadays, he says, most wars only get a handful of pages – and then it goes on.

“They have three or four pages from each era,” said Santillo, founder and CEO of the Southwest Florida Military Museum in Fort Myers. “I don’t know how you can cover what you need on three or four pages.

“There’s really not much in there that can get her interested in the story.”

This is where the new Southwest Florida Mobile Museum comes in. Santillo hopes to bring the traveling museum to schools, festivals, and other locations in southwest Florida.

The big move: Only six weeks after closing, the Cape Coral Military Museum finds a new home in the Edison Mall

Before: Cape Coral Military Museum closes; new homes needed for artifacts, veteran services

This is actually the second version of the mobile museum – a bus full of exhibits related to most of the major US wars. The first bus broke down a few years ago, but Santillo says it was a huge hit during its roughly four-year run.

“Our main focus was getting to schools,” he says. “What I realized – and all of us older veterans – is that the younger people really know very little about the sacrifices the military has made over the past 100 years. So we want to bring that closer to them. “

The new bus will make its official debut on Thursday July 29th during a fundraiser at the Lake Kennedy Senior Center in Cape Coral. But the former Bloodmobile has already had a low profile reveal at the Shell Factory in North Fort Myers – its home when it’s not on the go – as well as the annual Red White & Boom Fourth of July celebration in downtown Cape Coral.

And the response so far has been positive.

Children often ask a lot of questions, says Santillo. And sometimes they go a step further and visit the Southwest Florida Military Museum, a full-size museum in the former Disney Store on Edison Mall. This museum has more valuable, rarer, and more detailed exhibits.

“That piques their interest,” says Santillo.

The bus was donated by the Collier County Fair, where it will be on display in March 2022. The mission of the traveling museum fits in well with the previous exhibition theme “Salute to Heroes”, which included soldiers and war veterans, says exhibition manager Rhonda Ward.

The fair had planned to turn the 1988 Blue Bird bus into a STEAM education bus that would go to local schools, Ward says. But when that didn’t work – thanks in part to the pandemic – they decided to donate it to the Southwest Florida Military Museum.

“We really didn’t want it to just sit here,” says Ward. “It will help them and it will help us. It will offer something to the trade fair visitor, and it is also an advertisement for you (the museum) and brings your cause outside. “

It took Santillo and a team of volunteers about six months to renovate the bus. They ripped out its seats, shelves, and partitions, repainted and carpeted it, and then installed exhibits related to World Wars I and II, the Vietnam War, the Gulf War, and other major U.S. conflicts.

Finally there was a decorative cover that was paid for by the Humana health insurance company (which also sponsored the last bus). The exterior of the bus features a red, white, and blue color scheme with a US flag, military aircraft, battleship, and more.

The Collier County Fair board members – including some military veterans – have not seen the bus in person, but they all saw photos and videos at a recent board meeting.

“It’s great,” says Ward. “Everyone said ‘Wow’.”

Inside the bus, glass cases display artifacts from the Civil War to modern times, including:

• Military uniforms and helmets from different wars
• A rusted canteen from the Battle of Spotsylvania during the Civil War
• A sword from World War II
• Silly String for the detection of trip wires in Iraq and Afghanistan.
• A gas mask, knife and first aid kit from the Korean War
• A drawing of the Battle of Fort Myers, which took place in February 1865 during the Civil War
• A Vietcong ammunition clip belt from the Vietnam War
• Mini-busts of the leaders of World War II, Franklin Delano Roosevelt and Winston Churchill
• A WWII navigation compass for pilots and an instruction manual for air riflemen
• And a periscope that was used for trench warfare during World War I.

“We tried to get a little bit of everything from every era, starting with the civil war,” says Santillo.

He plans to change the exhibits from time to time so that people will always see new things when the bus rolls into the parking lot.

The old bus drove to schools in southwest Florida once or twice a week, usually with two or three military veterans, to speak to the students and answer their questions. Santillo hopes to do this again as soon as school starts again.

“The kids liked it,” he says.

But first they have to get more volunteers to occupy the bus. The Southwest Florida Military Museum lost most of its volunteer pool when it moved from Cape Coral to Fort Myers last year. Most of these volunteers lived in the Cape, says Santillo.

Once they are fully occupied, they plan to take the bus to other events and schools in the area.

To volunteer or learn more about the museum and bus, call 541-8704 or visit swflmm.org.

Connect with this reporter: email crunnells@gannett.com or connect on social media at Charles Runnells (Facebook), @charlesrunnells (Twitter), and @ crunnells1 (Instagram).

When you go

What: The official debut of the Southwest Florida Mobile Museum

When: 3 p.m. – 6 p.m. Thursday, July 29th

Where: Lake Kennedy Senior Center, 400 Santa Barbara Blvd., Cape Coral

Entry: Free

More about the event: The fundraiser includes bus tours, a food truck, drinks, prizes, vendors, a DJ, and patriotic songs from the Lake Kennedy Choir.

The Shell Factory: The mobile museum can also be seen at the Shell Factory in North Fort Myers. It’s open for tours during the Saturday Flea Market, usually from around 8:30 a.m. to 12:00 p.m.

The information: 770-6871 or swflmm.org

See similar https://www.news-press.com/story/entertainment/2021/07/20/military-museum-debuts-mobile-museum-bus-cape-coral-naples-schools-festivals/7965503002/

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