Currahee Military Museum Looking for More Veterans to Showcase

The Currahee Military Museum is asking the public to submit names of their loved ones who served in the U.S. Military for their Veterans Showcase.

For the entire month of March, 13 veterans who fought in World War II and are still living are being featured. Museum Executive Director Brenda Carlin says the Veterans Showcase honors a different group of veterans every month.

“We do this every month. Sometimes there’s specail occassions. We change it monthly and it’s a different theme. Like in May we always do the Junior ROTC. In November, it’s the Marines,” she said.

The Veterans Showcase is maintained by Linda Hack.  She said they are always looking for more veterans to include in their monthly showcases.  Currently, she has over 800 biographies of veterans in her database.

Forms are available at the museum for people to pick up and fill out.  Hack said they’re looking for different kinds of information about veterans to include in the showcase.

“We want to know when they served in general. Then, specificially if they would list units and commands they were with, the location and when. If they were in the Navy, the name of the ship, and you were in Europe or in the Pacific. And then their awards and medals. And if they were assigned to a special detail. We had some who were POW’s. Whatever was unique to their specific military service,” she said.

Hack said she is also interested in showcasing families with a long military history.

Right now, she is looking ahead to a special June showcase that will feature those who supported the war effort during the second world war here at home.

“We want to feature what was going on in the homefront – 1942, 1943,” she explained. “What were the churches doing to support the soldiers? What was the Red Cross doing in town? What was the Elks Club and VFW doing during that time? So, all of the different organizations and businesses in town at that time, we want their history so we can do a showcase on Homefront during the D-Day time period.”

If you would like to submit your name or the name of a relative who served in any branch of the military, you can pick up a form at the Currahee Military Museum.

The Currahee Military Museum is located in Toccoa at 160 N. Alexander Street, at the train depot, and is open Monday – Saturday 10am to 4pm and Sunday 1pm to 4pm. For more information on the Veterans Showcase, contact Linda Hack at 706-573-7852.