The USMC Museum

Last month I visited the USMC museum in Quantico for the first time. It featured a schoolchild art exhibit on the theme Welcome Home. This entry by Jessica Wu, grade 12 in N. Quincy High School in MA was judged best in show. Excuse the surface glare. To me this surreal piece is haunting and gripping because it can be interpreted in different ways. It can be seen, as in almost all other entries, as a joyous reunion of returning or triumphant vets with their families. It could be so here, as the vet stands in the open door, his lower body dissolving into his cast shadow as his wife holds his picture to her bosom and sheds a tear. Her young daughter sees the entering spectral image and reacts with joy. Will the woman turn and fling herself into his arms in the real world? Or is something amiss here, is this a dream of the woman and will he ever return in the real world? I scoured the background for clues, looking for the equivalent of a Gold Star on the walls. The 2 pictures over her left shoulder offered no clue. The clock is frozen at 3:05--what notable event in history or in the past occurred at 3:05 pm? (3:05 am?) The calendar is circled at the 12th day of the month. Why? Are those flip-flops on the welcome mat, or peace symbols? Where is the boy who could be associated with the basketball, as the girl can be associated with the doll house? Is that a leggo or a transformer toy with the other two toys, and why is it there? Is this a picture of loss, or of a return to "normalcy?" I think that it's a great piece.

Here is another, more representative piece in the show, which came in first in its sub-class, submitted by a 7th grade schoolboy if I remember correctly. It shows that the day is joyous, as the returning Marine rushes to embrace his wife but also that times are tough in America as the spouse is in a wheelchair. She is crying, tears of joy no doubt. Or perhaps it's his mother?

Displayed prominently at the museum, along with scores of other weapons, is a tommy gun, the most iconic American personal weapon of WW2, instantly recognizable around the world, the 45 calibre Thompson submachine gun with a 20-round clip. It was designed by US officer John T. Thompson for WW1 to clear a trench of the enemy, a "trench broom" as he called it, but it wasn't patented until 1920, too late that war so it was marketed to law enforcement agencies and adopted with gusto by the gangsters of the Prohibition era. Entering WW2, American services had no other effective submachine gun so they purchased as many tommy guns as could be produced according to military specifications for combat. It was an expensive and time-consuming weapon to make, with metal-milling needed for the firing parts and the barrel, and polished wood used for the stock. It later came out with a 30-round magazine. It was replaced late in the war with the "grease gun," a 30-calibre submachine gun easily produced with stamped metal parts and a wire shoulder stock. But there was no replacing the image of the venerable Tommy Gun in American arms in WW2; think Sgt. Saunders (Vic Morrow) in the 60s TV series Combat.

 Check out this cover from the Saturday Evening Post periodical from October 1942, showing an American scout pushing through the jungle, probably on Guadalcanal, looking for Japanese positions while cradling the iconic 45 caliber tommy gun.