Major General Winski on TN Wings of Liberty Museum
In this episode of Signature Required, Major General Brian Winski (Ret.) joins us to discuss the Wings of Liberty Museum at Fort Campbell. This $40 million project honors the history of the 101st Airborne Division, 5th Special Forces Group, and 160th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. General Winski shares his vision for making military history engaging and accessible through immersive exhibits and cutting-edge technology. He also reflects on his military career, the importance of ROTC programs, and how these experiences shape his mission to inspire future generations.
About Major General Winski
Major General Brian Winski is a distinguished veteran of the U.S. Army, bringing 37-years of military service to his post-military mission: the creation of the Wings of Liberty Museum at Fort Campbell. He is currently leading the development which is a significant initiative aimed at honoring elite military units.
The museum is set to open in 2025 and has been developed and nurtured for generations, receiving support from community leaders, local donors, and soldiers who have served at Fort Campbell. In 2022, the foundation secured $20 million in funding from the State of Tennessee, along with an additional $1 million from Montgomery County and another $1 million from the City of Clarksville. While there is still progress to be made toward the total estimated project cost of $45 million, General Winski remains hopeful that community support will help meet this goal. His dedication to preserving military history is complemented by his personal insights and deep family ties to service, fostering an engaging educational experience that inspires future leaders.
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Spencer Patton 00:06
Major General Winski, welcome to signature required.
Major General Winski 00:09
Thanks. Good morning.
Spencer Patton 00:10
We are really excited to have you today. You are a historian. You are a servant to our nation. You are a retired two star general who served 37 years in the US Army, commanding formations at every level. Your career includes multiple combat deployments in Iraq, Afghanistan and other regions. In retirement, you are focused on honoring military history through your work with the Wings of Liberty museum project in Clarksville, Tennessee. You and your wife, Kimberly, are proud parents of two US Army officers, we have done some research on you, and you're up to a pretty big project out there at Fort Campbell. And so we have five things that are jumping off points for our conversation. We'll probably get to all five, but let me read these five things in, and then you get to start explaining the project that you're up to and start it from off one of these five. Number one, the Wings of Liberty museum will celebrate the history of units like the 100 and first airborne and the 100 and 60th Special Operations Aviation Regiment. Number two, the museum is a $40 million initiative with state and local grants plus ongoing fundraising efforts. Number three, the museum is expected to draw around a 750,000 visitors annually, including veterans and Fort Campbell soldiers. Number four, the building, now under construction, will be 40,000 total square feet with a 9000 square foot atrium for public events, education and military ceremonies. And number five, admission to the museum will always be free, ensuring broad public access.
Major General Winski 01:51
Wow, those are five great waypoints to have a great discussion about.
Spencer Patton 01:54
We're gonna have a blast. So what are you up to $40 million project? You're building something big out there?
Major General Winski 01:59
Yeah, it's a significant, significant museum, you know, and it's it exists, and we're building it to honor the history and legacy of the great units that call for Campbell home, the 100 and first Airborne Division. You mentioned, the fifth Special Forces Group, which is called Fort Campbell home since the early 1980s and then the 1/60 which grew out of the 100 and first in the early 1980s as well. They call Fort Campbell home. So we want to honor the history and legacy of those three units. You know, for those that don't know too much about Fort Campbell, it's only about 50 miles northwest of Nashville, right on I 24 home to about 26,000 soldiers in those three units and some other units and activities on post. About 45,000 family members there as well. So Fort Campbell itself, in terms of a city, is in the top few from all of Tennessee, very significant population. Again, those great units Call Fort Campbell home and have for a lot of decades. And it's long overdue to have a great museum that's easily accessible to the public, that honors the history and legacy of those units. There's a great museum on post now, but you know, it was built in the early 1960s it was sufficient for that era when there wasn't a whole lot of history. It was clear since Desert Storm that we needed to really expand that. And that's when the foundation was formed, and the efforts to raise the funds to build this museum began. You know about about the resources and where we're at with construction. We started build the build in June. The foundations laid. The walls are getting prepped right now. We'll have the walls up by Thanksgiving. We'll have the roof on it by December, and then we'll really bring it to life as we install the artifacts and the exhibits and everything that's going to be the heart of the museum. So the building will be done late summer next year, we're going to hand it off to the army. The army will put its artifacts in there, and then by the end of the year, next year, it'll be open to the public.
Spencer Patton 03:43
Wow, wow. Fort Campbell for those that are in middle Tennessee, we know and love Fort Campbell. It is a fixture of our state, but you spent a second describing Fort Campbell for those that are less familiar, so maybe do a little bit more about those that maybe don't have a military background at all of understanding what Fort Campbell is, what it's serviced, what its purpose for, and just give us a good overview.
Major General Winski 04:11
Yeah, great point. So Fort Campbell was built in World War Two. It was a big training facility for all the forces that fought in Europe. After World War Two, there was a significant downsizing of the army. So the hunter and first fought in World War Two, but deactivated and reactivated in the late 1950s at Fort Campbell. And that's when it was determined that Fort Campbell was going to become one of the long and during main installations that house significant units like the hunter and first and the other units that Call Fort Campbell home. So a lot of improvement over the decades. You know, it's one of the sizable army installations. You know, Fort Liberty In North Carolina is the biggest in terms of population. Fort Cavazos in Texas, the biggest in terms of land mass. And then we're the third largest in both of those. You know, it's a substantial installation with significant units on it, but not too big that where you get gobbled up by it. Um. You know, 10s of 1000s of acres constitute the training area. It really goes from Clarksville all the way out to the periphery of Land Between The Lakes to the west there. And again, it's home to about 26,000 soldiers. And the main units are the 101st and fifth Special Forces and the 1/60 Special Ops Aviation Regiment.
Carli Patton 05:19
Okay, so you're saying these numbers rather quickly. Can you give us a little bit more detail about who is there in these different regiments and what their specialties are? Sure?
Major General Winski 05:28
So I'll start with the biggest unit, the 101st that's this icon here, if you've seen the longest day Saving Private Ryan, Band of Brothers that those movies and that mini series chronicled the history of the 101st in World War Two. That's when the division was born. And it was really a result of, you know, the Advent between World War One and World War Two, the Advent and development of the airplane. It soon became apparent that we'd want the capability to drop soldiers behind enemy lines, to bypass their fortifications, bypass where they have their main defenses positions, and drop soldiers at points of vulnerability behind the lines, which is the 101st forte in World War Two. So the 101st was formed and then trained like you saw in band of brothers all all across Georgia, the southeast United States. It deployed to England, and then its first major combat action was World War Two, where the 100 and first spearheaded the invasion in Normandy on D Day, and then was central to the second major campaign, which was september of 1944 if you saw the movie, a bridge too far the jumps to seize all the bridges that would ultimately lead the allied forces into Germany. That was the 100 and first, second major campaign. And then the third major campaign, if you're familiar with the Battle of the Bulge in World War Two, which was the Germans last thrust to try to get forces to Antwerp, to ultimately get a position of advantage there, and kind of force the allies to the table to sue for sue for peace. There was a key town called Bastogne where seven highways intersected, and the Germans had to have it to keep the momentum of their offense, and the Allies needed to retain it to slow the Germans down, get the defenses coherent again and ultimately push them back to the east. And the hunter and first was licking its wounds from Holland and Normandy, accepting new replacement soldiers, etc, but the high command knew immediately that that mission was so critical that the hunter and first was given the task of going in there, establishing a perimeter around that town, cutting all those lines of communication and roads, knowing that they were going to be surrounded by up to 20 times the force that was defending the town. And they fought bitterly in really tough winter conditions, and that battle probably showcases the tenacity and grit of the Screaming Eagle soldier better than anyone I know. So that's the 101st history in World War Two. You know the Korean War. One of the units that's now part of the 101st the 187 infantry. They were central to a lot of actions in the Korean War. They made a couple of combat jumps there and fought for the three years of that war. The 101st was reactivated in the late 1950s again, that's when it first started calling Fort Campbell home. And then through the Cold War Vietnam, you know, the importance of stopping communism, and the spread of communism in Vietnam in the 1960s resulted in the deployment of US soldiers, US forces. And the 101st was one of the first major units to deploy to Vietnam. It served in Vietnam from 1965 the entire division 1967 all the way to the end in 1972 when it came back to Fort Campbell. And really the big change for the 101st in World War Two to Vietnam was they kind of, with the advent of the helicopter, traded in parachutes for the lift helicopter, where they were able to do the same thing, overfly enemy defenses, strike points of vulnerability in their rear areas, but do it via helicopter assault. And that was perfected through the 70s and 80s, and really put the test in Desert Storm. And that's when I first joined the 101st my very first assignment was, you know, at Fort Campbell, starting in late 1989 and, you know, with within the first year there, Saddam Hussein invaded Kuwait, as we recall, you know, and we deployed immediately to protect Saudi Arabia, and ultimately to to eject him from Kuwait. So what we did there was further perfected, and put the test again in the invasion of Iraq, and then all the campaigns in Iraq, Afghanistan, Syria and other areas since 2001 are things that we want to highlight in this museum. So that's kind of the history of the 101st now fifth Special Forces Group is of, you know, critical unit that if, if anybody was a Green Beret in Vietnam, they were in fifth Special Forces Group. Fifth special forces group formed at Fort Bragg, deployed to Vietnam, and then was the Special Forces Group in Vietnam for the duration of the conflict in the early 1960s until the early 1970s and then following Vietnam, they redeployed to Fort Bragg, and then in the early 80s. It was determined that fifth Special Forces Group was going to focus on the Middle East, and then they moved here to Fort Campbell, and they've been at Fort Campbell since then, aside from when they've been deployed, the 1/60, special ops Aviation Regiment, the third unit we're honoring in this museum is, as the name implies, a special ops Aviation Regiment, a specially selected, specially trained air crews, specially configured and designed aircraft. This was all born of the Iran hostage crisis. And if you recall 1979 early 1980 there was an attempt to rescue them, Eagle Claw desert, one which failed. And it was in large part because of a host of factors, but there was no dedicated special ops aviation element available to support that kind of mission. So the 1/60 grew out of the one the 101st and its first major combat action was Grenada, and it fought in Panama, and, of course, every chapter in Iraq and Afghanistan, and a host of you know, unnamed operations that they're they're central to that. You know, from their formation to today, are the hallmark of what they do. So three great units, three great histories. Hundreds of 1000s of soldiers have served in these units over the years, over the decades, and we really want to build this museum to honor the history and inspire everybody that visits from these incredible stories.
Carli Patton 11:26
So I heard you say your very first base was Fort Campbell. Where are you from?
Major General Winski 11:32
Originally, Wisconsin is where I grew up and came in the army and trained down in Georgia. So that was my first duty station, but only for about eight months or so, and then Fort Campbell was really my first assignment, and it was a, you know, it just really impacted me. I think every success I've enjoyed since has been a result of those who trained me and got me ready to be a platoon leader in Desert Storm. And then the non commissioned officers and the soldiers of my platoon helped in my development, and it was just an incredible experience. And, you know, I knew after that first tour I wanted to stay in long term, and I knew I wanted to serve at Fort Campbell as often and as long as I could have. And over my 30, you know, 30 plus years in over, really, 15 years of that. We're at Fort Campbell. My service there spans five decades, late 1980s through the 2021 time frame. So I've called it home. It's where my kids grew up. It's where they went to school. They were part of that community. It's an awesome part of the country. Tennessee is an awesome state to live in at Fort Campbell. All that you love about Nashville is 50 miles to the east, and you got Land Between The Lakes 50 miles to the west, if you like hiking and watching Eagles fly and fishing and all that kind of stuff. So it's it's just been a hands down our favorite place to be stationed at, and that's what drew me back to this project and leading this effort, because it's been such a big part of mine and my family's life.
Carli Patton 13:00
Now, did you come from a military family? Was this something you always knew you wanted to do?
Major General Winski 13:05
I knew early on I wanted to serve in uniform. My family, my grandfathers were in the in the army. My father was in the Navy. My uncle was in the Marine Corps. My mom was in the air, air force, National Guard. So we got everything covered my space force, but I was, I missed that one by a couple of years. But, you know, I just knew from a, you know, playing Army as a little kid that, you know, I was drawn to it. You know, I knew I wanted to serve in the forces which protect our country and our way of life and be surrounded by folks who make that same commitment. That's what's really special about serving in uniform. And every, you know, assignment that I had was awesome. So I just decided to stay in for the long term. And, you know, made it a made it a lifetime career.
Carli Patton 13:52
Well, Spence and I have so much military in our family. I've got a cousin that's a ranger. I have one that's flying helicopters in the Navy. Spence has could go on and on to is your wife also from a military.
Major General Winski 14:05
Yeah. So her dad fought in the Korean War. And my wife's been an Army nurse, a Department of the Army civilian nurse works in the military hospitals where we've been stationed so and she's labor and delivery in women's health. She's delivered 1000s of army babies at Fort Campbell, at Fort Bragg, at Fort Hood, and all the places we've been stationed. So Daniel, that's that's awesome. And our children are in the military as well. As you'd mentioned. Our our daughter and her husband are both helicopter pilots at Fort. Campbell and our son just left the Rangers. He's at Fort liberty, formerly Fort Bragg, now for his his second assignment, wow.
Spencer Patton 14:42
It's so fun to get to listen to a true historian talk through your total command of the facts and the story and the narrative. And I can also appreciate that for someone that has lived it to have to take it to. To a increasingly large audience that knows very little about military history. How do you approach that on a daily basis? Because you could think about the objective of the museum to say, we are going to give the most thorough in depth explanation, and I could understand the mission behind that? Or you could say we're gonna try to tell something that is much more accessible and is more entry level. Yeah, so how do you wrestle those two things? Great point.
Major General Winski 15:33
Yeah. You know, we want to inspire So with regard to the museum, we want to inspire everybody who visits. And the best way to do that is through the stories of the soldiers that served in these units, and that's what we are really working on. You know, once we complete the physical construction of the museum, the resources we have left, and the resources and fundraising is perpetual in this kind of endeavor. But we want to really get interactives and add tech to everything. So if a group of kids is looking at the display on D Day as an example, which is a Sherman tank coming ashore and paratroopers from the 101st that jumped in the night before guiding them into position to close with and destroy the Nazis defending that area. Kind of thing we want, you know, any visitor, but especially kids, young people, to, you know, take that in and then have a mechanism to delve into specific aspects of what they're seeing and, you know, steer them towards whatever really inspires them or really interests them, whether that's the specific actions of some of the soldiers that are reflected in the diorama, whether it's the vehicle that they're looking at or the weapons that they're looking at. You know, tell me more about the m1 grand and how many were made during World War Two? Were they made? Oh, that was in my hometown, you know. Tell me more about this soldier and his family. And, you know, things like the helmet here that I brought as a piece of décor in my office, you know, well, you know, whose helmet would that have been? It's a lieutenant colonel icon. It's a third of the 506 icon. And it's got the vertical stripe on the back of a leader. So that would be Lieutenant Colonel William Wolverton. Bull Wolverton, who was killed sadly before His feet touched Free French soil, but led and trained that battalion during its train up and trained him so well that in spite of the loss of the leader, they still performed incredibly well. So that sort of thing, the accessibility you mentioned, is key too. That's another big difference between the current Museum, which is in the heart of Fort Campbell, right in the middle of it, on base. On base, built when it was relatively easy to get on base for everybody since 911 the security restrictions, etc. It's intimidating for someone who's not familiar to try to get on base, and I know it detracts or prevents folks who otherwise would be interested in visiting the current museum from doing so. So our footprint is going to be on the periphery of Fort Campbell, if you're familiar, it's where highway 41 a intersects tiny town roads, so right in the middle of post. And we have it right on the periphery in a 35 acre campus that has its own gate, so people will be able to just drive into that footprint, into the museum parking lot, hop out of their car and go take in the museum and all that it offers. And it's always going to be free, free to the public, free to educators that want to explore archives and operational records, or students that are doing deep research on stuff. Again, it's a it's a resource, not just for Clarksville, Montgomery county, Middle Tennessee, but the nation. Anybody who's interested in those units, this will be the place to come learn about their history.
Spencer Patton 18:34
Help us understand the capacity in which you're doing this. Is this something that you've been commissioned to do by the army. Is this something that the state is having you do? Are you doing this as a private citizen?
Major General Winski 18:46
Yeah, we're doing it as a foundation. We're a 501, c3, nonprofit. The foundation was formed to really gather the resources, the fundraising, and then get it designed to build this museum. Again, it's been underway for a lot of years. And the history of it is, is really, you know, the cost of things have outpaced the fundraising. You know, there's been some grants in the past that allowed the previous foundation leadership to buy a lot of exhibits and think the guts of the museum. But think of it like this, we're now building a house, and we bought the furniture for it 20 years ago. It's not, it's not gonna fit right in there, you know. And some stuff's gonna have to get, you know. And there's been a lot of history made since then as well. So that's another one of our endeavors. But as a foundation, our main purpose is to build this museum, to educate, honor, inspire. But we also have objectives in terms of long term education programs. We have a education committee that's kind of building steam as we speak. And we've had a couple of guest lecture series, hosting one down at Austin Peay, right in Clarksville, and the second we just did on 911 here in the Vanderbilt campus, where we had Night Stalker 160 of special ops pilots that flew in the horse soldier. Amber braze of fifth Special Forces Group into northern Afghanistan right on the heels of the attacks on our nation 23 years ago. What a incredible, poignant way to reflect on the attacks on our nation and everything that's happened since, through hearing the stories from those who were on the cutting edge of that effort in northern Afghanistan early on, fifth group Legion, Legionnaires and Night Stalkers of the 1/60 incredibly powerful panel from Team sergeant, from one of the Special Forces odas through the group commander at the time, so folks who were talking to Afghan partners, to the commander who's talking and getting guidance from the SEC def every single day, and then door gunners on the Black Hawks, the special Black Hawks that went in through the commander of the battalion that led, you know, the 1/60 aviation effort in the northern mountains of Afghanistan as well. So those sorts of things are what we want to do for the long term. But most important to us right now is building this building. And we've, we've got it underway. We've poured the foundation, over 600 yards of concrete. We could have, I stayed tongue in cheek, 42 games of simultaneous pickleball on this foundation slab right now. It's, it's huge. It's the exhibit hall the entrance way, and then we're going to have an atrium. So the exhibit hall will be about 40,000 square feet. It'll talk chronology of the history of all the units. And then war fighting functions. So it'll talk engineering in World War Two and contemporary military, police, support, communications, things of that nature. And then we'll have a great entrance way that'll be the handshake to the public and all who are visiting. And then the nice atrium that you see that glass portion, will be in public event space, education event venue, things like promotions, things like retirements, you know, things of that nature. I predict we'll have a wedding in that bad boy Well, yeah, in the first six months.
Carli Patton 21:56
So, yeah, you're talking about the military application over here, like, can our daughters get married there someday? What are all the options? I love how you talk about your family and how involved your wife is and your mission, and how you always knew and now your boys are serving in the army. Every military family I know talks with such passion and courage about what it means to be a military family, but in the US right now, recruitment is down. Not as many people are enlisting. Where do you think is this disconnect between your experience and the experience I see of other military families? What's being communicated to young people today?
Major General Winski 22:32
That's a great point and a great strategic challenge for not just the army, but all the armed forces. Young people you know, folks that directly influence them, immediate family members, etc. It's pretty rare to have an immediate family member, you know. So for a high school age kid right now, they probably don't have an immediate family member that served, because again, two generations prior, the draft stopped. It wasn't compulsory, so folks generally serve for longer periods of time, but there's less total number of people who did serve, so they're missing, you know that fundamental storytelling, mentorship, sharing of experiences from aunts, uncles, et cetera, that served, and it's just again, since Selective Service went away, you see the same People generally staying in for much longer and going on, you know, more deployments, etc. You know they, you the kids of soldiers that join the military. It is disproportionately higher than the, you know, their their classmates in any given school system or whatever. I think it's, I'm certain it's because they, they see it, they live it. They know. You know, the military is a values based organizations, filled with people of character, filled with people who have made this extreme commitment of serving in the forces which protect our country and our way of life, knowing they may give their life in that defense. You know, that's complete commitment to something that's incredibly important to your nation. So I think military kids just see that they're exposed to it, and they're drawn to it. And it shouldn't be that much of a surprise. You know, a lot of lawyers. Kids become lawyers. A lot of you know, pick a profession. You know, the kids understand it, and they have some insights, and they have some mentorship along that line. So they may be drawn to it, but my son and daughter both wanted to serve early on, to give back before they take from this nation. And I'm just super proud of them, and they're both serving today and thriving.
Carli Patton 24:33
Tell me about the importance of ROTC programs for our audience. We were talking a little bit about Austin. Peay has a really robust ROTC program. I know that Vanderbilt does tell me the power of that. Yeah.
Major General Winski 24:45
So, so officers are in their commission through really three ways, the service academy, so for the Navy, Annapolis, the Naval Academy in Maryland, for the Army West Point, and then for the Marine Corps, they're also in Annapolis. And then the air. Force Academy out in Colorado Springs, and the Coast Guard has an academy as well. So that's a four year, you know, committed. They're there full time. Then they commissioned about a for the army, about 1000 lieutenants a year. ROTC commissions about 4500 to 5000 a year. There's ROTCs all across the United States. And I was commissioned through ROTC, as was my daughter. She went to LSU, and I went to Wisconsin, Milwaukee. So ROTCs are generally, you know, about a couple 100 cadets in all four years. Austin Peay is a little bit bigger, because get a lot of soldiers that separate from the army, stay in Clarksville, because it's such an awesome place to live and raise a family, etc, and then go to school at Austin Peay and enroll in the ROTC program there. So for the size of the university, Austin Peay has an exponentially larger ROTC detachment than most places do. So ROTC is important. Again. About 4500 or so are commissioned, and largely they serve in the Army Reserve, the army, National Guard, but a fair amount in the regular army as well. And it's an important source of leaders for all three components of the army. And again, it produces the most lieutenants. Then there are some unique, fairly unique commissioning avenues for medical doctors, etc. They can have a direct commissioning program, and then there's an officer candidate school where a certain number, it's generally about 1000 a year, that are serving in the ranks, are selected for this, and they go to an officer training program over the course of a few months, and then earn their commission that way, a much more quick approach compared To ROTC, which is typically a four year or service academy, which is four years as well.
Carli Patton 26:44
Spence and I just were in Colorado for work, and we took our kids and we toured the Air Force Academy, and our oldest daughter saw it, and she immediately said, I think it would be really hard to be there for your first year, but by the end, it looks like you get to be in charge of everybody else, right? It looks really cool. And I just was thinking what a gift it was that she could see this type of education and see another path for her leadership skills. This is obviously neither Spencer nor I have served our country in that way. So how for those of us that are trying to raise children and to make them see this as a viable career path. What else should we be doing?
Major General Winski 27:24
Well, when we're done, visit the Tennessee Wings of Liberty Museum. Because, well, things like that will, will open some apertures, you know, and and then, you know, I would seek out and find, you know, if there's an interest in one of the service academies or one of the branches of service, find somebody in your family, extended family, that served in the Air Force, and just share and talk about his or her service in the Air Force and what it meant to them and and whatnot. You know, my son went to West Point. My daughter went to LSU ROTC, as did to her husband. And she said, early on, I want to be an army officer, but I want to have fun as a student and priorities. And she did great. But the service academy, that's, it's a, it's a different environment. So they're, if they're interested in that, they're going to want to talk to someone who went through that experience. Because it is pretty, it is pretty unique. You know, it's a complete commitment for four years. But as you said early on, there's a premium place, you know, it's very rigorous academically, but there's a premium placed on Cadet leadership. They run everything, and they're responsible for, you know, the day to day operations and training events and things of that nature, in addition to their academic requirements. So it really prepares them for what awaits them as a lieutenant. But it is something that they want to talk to, somebody that they know and trust, to kind of gain some insights before moving on a path of commitment to something like that.
Carli Patton 28:50
What would you say to the mamas out there, to the parents that, okay, we're so proud of our kid. They're making this choice. They want to serve our nation, but inevitably, there's a lot of uncertainty that comes with sending your child into the armed forces. What would you say to a parent?
Major General Winski 29:09
Yeah, you know, I mean, the Armed Forces is an incredibly professional organization. You know, before we send troops or any organizations into harm's way, we're absolutely 101% certifying of training them, ensuring they have the best possible equipment, ensuring they're prepared for what awaits them, to whatever mission or contingency that they're going to be placed against. There's always going to be a premium on leadership. There's always an opportunity to gain additional responsibility and additional leadership opportunities during the course of your time in the in the military, whatever that may be, you know, again, and now, my perspective now is father of a couple and father in law to a few soldiers here, you know, and they've deployed since they've been commissioned to Afghanistan and other areas, all. Them have, and you know it, there's obvious apprehension as a parent, you know, knowing that your your children are going into harm's way. But, you know, I have the benefit of some insight as to what they did to prepare for it, and how prepared they are for it. And I, you know, sit here with absolute confidence again, with a couple of them deployed right now that they're trained and prepared and absolutely ready for anything that awaits them based on the mission they begin been given and what they're doing.
Spencer Patton 30:27
Well, I've got a playful question for you, I'm sure. So as we think about museums, you would be a pretty intimidating guy to go along to any museum along with because some people consume museums where they read every little bit and they go through it and they know it, and you can't get anything past them because they know it. And other people are through a museum really quickly, like Carli, and I have that experience as we go through different ones, is that I think everyone in a relationship, there's one person that does read every placard and one person that's like, Hey, I'm just like, gonna do a dot around here and
Carli Patton 31:04
they marry each other, yeah, right, in every museum henceforth.
Spencer Patton 31:09
So it's a two part question. One, what do your kids think about their dad being a museum guy? They're like, Oh, Dad, I always knew that he was gonna do something like this. Or is this kind of a little bit out of little bit out of left field?
Major General Winski 31:23
No, no, that's definitely they knew this would be a natural line of drift for me when I retired, I do some other things as well. This opportunity didn't really surface until shortly after I retired, and Lieutenant General Mike Oates, who spent a lot of time at Fort Campbell as well. He and Pete Kinney, the chairman of our board, a guy named Scott Brower, who was former commander of fifth Special Forces Group, they really spearheaded the effort and harnessed Curtis Johnson, our representative down in Clarksville, there, to get this, this state grant in the works. And that's what really made this possible. Had it not been for that, we probably would be at a position where, hey, the museum is what it is. We have, what we have. Let's do what we can to improve the museum on post. But that might have been the end of it. Now, again, it's been coming soon for so long. What's really helping now is people are able to physically see that that Foundation's in that the walls are going up before Thanksgiving, that the roof will be on it by Christmas, and the inside work will happen, and we'll start really filling it with these artifacts and stuff, you know, in the fall time frame of next year. So that's helped us with a couple of very significant benefactors just in the last couple months, get us over the finish line to pay for everything that you see on that depiction, the exhibit hall, the entrance and the atrium, so but yeah, the kids saw it coming. They knew. And I'm you are right there. There are some, some, you know, types of folks that visit museums, and inevitably, it's somebody that's drawn immediately to the signature display in there, which in our case, is going to be a very special MH 47 Chinook helicopter, a 160 a special ops aviation variant of that. And that'll be an indoor exhibit at the very end. And you know we're gonna, that's where we're gonna start with the interactive and the tech stuff, where people will be able to go inside that helicopter hear the sounds of the machine guns firing. Here are the radio calls being made, if it's inserting a platoon of rangers, you'll hear and smell and feel and see what it's like to be in one of those helicopters on a mission in eastern Afghanistan, or pick your location. And then that particular aircraft has a very special history in terms of its serving with the 1/60 in every chapter of their history. So really excited about that. So some folks will see that immediately and get drawn to it, but we have a whole bunch of other really cool stuff that, you know, again, tells the history of all these units, really, starting with World War Two. These are all relatively young units. You know, no history before World War Two. So right off the bat, you're going to see this D Day exhibit with a Waco glider, one of only a few left in the world, the old glider that they would tow behind a cargo plane to bring in heavier equipment and soldiers and stuff like that. And then the Sherman tank linking up at the paratroopers on Utah Beach and them guiding them in to continue the assault on the Germans. To a Korean War exhibit, to a Vietnam artillery crew Firebase exhibit to a Cold War exhibit that kind of shows some unique things about Fort Campbell. What we really want to expand also are the contemporary exhibits covering the contemporary conflict in Iraq, Afghanistan and Syria. So I think it'll it'll scratch the itch of every type of museum goer. And again, it's free. It always will be. So if you do one speed round and you check out just the highlights, and then mark your calendar, because it'll be one of those museums where you leave, man, I wish I could have spent another day in there. We'll spend another day in there. You know, come back the following weekend and and finish it up. For the long, long term, we're also going to have. Outdoor exhibits, you know, aircraft. We have to kind of restore them and move them and stuff as part of that, you know, that'll be a little longer term objective, but it'll, like I said, 35 acre thing, it'll be great green space to just, you know, family walk or run or, you know, just do if there's a class visit, a storybook trail kind of scavenger hunt thing and things of that nature.
Spencer Patton 35:23
I can imagine as someone that's gone through different construction in our own business, when you're in the middle of building something and trying to dream something to life, all of a sudden, everything in the world around you, you start noticing, ooh, I'd like to do that. I'd like to do that. And we should incorporate this. So you may or may not, in your role, have a ton of influence over the direction of the museum, but you might so have you gone and toured a lot of museums? Absolutely okay? So maybe tell us a couple that have stood out.
Carli Patton 35:51
Yeah, we had to twist your arm to go look at all those other military shocks.
Major General Winski 35:57
Man, one great thing about most of the ones that were, that were built in the last, you know, decade, even five years or so, is they are public facing museums. So like us, they're not buried in an installation where it's a gauntlet to get to them. They're on the periphery generally, and they're immediately accessible to the public. The National Museum of the US Army just opened a couple years back, and that's at Fort Belvoir in Northern Virginia, so right in the DC area, this is the Museum of the United States Army, 1775 to present. So that's your Definitive Collection and storyline of the history of the army. And I'd really encourage you to check it out. It's, it's an awesome experience, another free museum, world class Smithsonian like just facility that tells the story of the US Army. So super proud of that at Fort Cavazos, formerly Fort Hood, they just opened a museum like ours that really showcases the mounted word tanks and mechanized warfare. And it's a lot of vehicle displays, and the storyline talks about the evolution of all that and whatnot. That's a very similar one. There's one at Fort Moore, formerly Fort Benning, Georgia, which is another must CEO. It's right off post, again, easily accessible. And it's the Museum of the of the infantry, the history of the infantry, again, from 1775 to present. So where our museum doesn't really address much earlier than World War Two, here you have incredible displays of trench warfare in World War One, and, you know, the plains wars in the 19th century, things like that. So there's a lot of museums that have just kind of gotten to the point where we are soon to open and ours will really tell the story of fighting from the sky. You know, vertical envelopment, parachute assault, helicopter assault. You know, the aviation there at Fort, Campbell, with the 101st and the 1/60 and all that fifth group does, you know, generally fight from the sky in some form or another, and that's that's really the storyline behind our museum.
Carli Patton 38:03
I can't believe you waited this long to ask us the drone question, yep, where do we see the drones that I know that are
Major General Winski 38:13
Like in the intelligence war fighting function display? It'll be an intelligence analyst watching the image projected from a drone with the drone hanging from the ceiling of the
Carli Patton 38:25
Will that be in our museum? Like, as if I am part of this, our Tennessee Museum?
Major General Winski 38:31
Yes, absolutely.
Carli Patton 38:34
I love that you're showcasing everything from World War Two to now, because there has been so much innovation. But gosh, as we've traveled, we've been to DC and all over the place, seeing how long and hardy these aircrafts are, right, too, and how many different deployments they can do. I mean, I love new technology, but it's pretty incredible how our military builds things to last and how we are stewards of them.
Major General Winski 38:59
My daughter and son in law fly aircraft older than them every single day that MH, 47 in there goes back to the 1960s you know, the 60s, early 70s. You know, the twilight of the Vietnam era, heavily modified since, and a lot of innovation and technology applied to it since, but it's still the same basic airframe. I mean, a lot of those are just timeless, classic building blocks that these innovative soldiers and units have modified to meet some very unique mission profile specifics.
Carli Patton 39:28
That's good stewardship.
Spencer Patton 39:30
Carli and I have had the opportunity to interview a number of different nonprofits and foundations and sometimes the benefactors of who that is going to resonate with is pretty obvious based upon their mission. And in some way, I could kind of say, All right, if I had to guess who some major benefactors might be, I might be able to guess, but I could be totally wrong. So maybe just talk for a second, because I know fundraising is a big part. Of what still has to happen to bring this thing to life. So maybe you can just talk for a minute about someone that maybe has never even thought about giving to something like this, why they should, and then maybe just a little bit of a picture of some of your benefactors why they decided to make this a meaningful part of their legacy.
Major General Winski 40:19
We wouldn't be here if it weren't for some significant grants from the state, the county, the city, and then a federal grant that goes back to about the 2008 time frame, those were significant, multi million dollar grants that made the construction possible. To start construction, we had to have, since we're gifting this to the army, we had to have the total cost of the construction in in our pockets, you know, ready to go, to avoid the obvious issue, you know, well intended foundation. Hey, let's get started with the building. We don't have enough, but the fundraising will come, and all sudden, you got a half built Museum. The fundraising dies, and it just becomes a white elephant kind of thing. So, so we had to get the resources to build the museum, and then we had to prioritize some things. We knew the rough size that it had to be to house, what we wanted it to house, we kept our eye on the focus, which is the content, storyline and the experience in the museum is the most important thing. So we had a couple rheostats, you know. One was cost and fundraising, and then the other was adjust the design to meet the parameters of what we have. And we did a little bit of both. We kind of scaled it a little bit, we kind of refined the design a little bit to take advantage of some new construction techniques and whatnot that didn't necessarily exist when the first design was built, and just took a fresh look at it, and then we have a great team helping us with this Commonwealth development group built the big F and M arena and Ford Ice Center there in Clarksville. They just did that and did it during COVID, under budget, ahead of schedule. So great. I
Spencer Patton 41:56
like those phrases, under budget, ahead of schedule.
Major General Winski 41:59
Knock on wood. We're still there with this. They're doing a great job, and they assembled the right team and and even the subcontractors, and the general contractor, Barton malow, and the subcontractors, gave us very favorable gifts, very favorable bids on this thing, in some cases, almost a gift in kind kind of deal, yeah. So we know that what's depicted on this schematic here, we know this is going to happen, and we're going to have it, you know, the atrium, the entrance, and the 40,000 square foot exhibit hall. We're going to have that, you know, at the end of next summer, early fall, ready to get the exhibits in and bring it to life. So that's a good place to be. We knew we couldn't start until it was assured that we we'd finish it. And then the the army pre accepted it, essentially, but it went all the way to the Secretary of the Army level of approval. So, but fundraising continues. Like I said, you know, we got this awesome house that's gonna we're gonna cut the ribbon on here in, really, seven, eight months or so. But the furniture we bought 20 years ago, some assembly required, some some modification required, and then we want to cover those new chapters and more coverage of fifth Special Forces in the 1/60 so that's a huge fundraising effort, and a single benefactor in Clarksville, a pillar of the community, a wonderful gentleman who has helped us in terms of his generosity and his support of This over the decades, he and his families just made a commitment, a multi million dollar commitment, to kind of get us over the finish line with bringing that Chinook exhibit to life and making an experience, not just an exhibit, and then starting get the nucleus of some of the interactive and tech stuff going, and then as we raise more Money, we'll just grow that tech and interactive piece more and more. As I also mentioned again, fundraising will be in perpetuity, because it's kind of like anything. You're always improving your position. You know, you build a new house, you're already thinking the first remodel. You know, down the road, we want to add, not remodel, but we want to add that outdoor exhibit space. We want to add an outdoor space where you could have ceremonial events, retirements, promotions, things like that. We got a plan, but we want to expand the memorial bricks, things where families typically buy bricks that have the rank and name of their loved one, and we put those in and units will buy them with their icon as a fundraising mechanism and as a rally point. So you know, a family comes, let's find, you know, grandma's brick, or Aunt, Aunt Barbara's brick, or whoever it might be. Or a unit comes for reunion, and they see their icon there, and they know it's going to be there in that campus of awesome history forever. So so long term, there's some big things we still want to do, but our focus right now is just getting this thing open. I think you know that ribbon cutting was a seminal event in June, because it was a no kidding. You know, I'm sorry I said ribbon cutting ground breaking in June because there's a No kidding. Groundbreaking. I mean, we we turned some dirt with some ceremonial entrenching tools and shovels. But we had bulldozers scraping out the foundation bed the very next day, so people are seeing that. People know what's actually happening, and that, in turn, has helped quite a bit with gentlemen like the one benefactor I talked about, and several others as well, that are making significant commitments to put their name on that and see it to fruition with the way we want it to be.
Spencer Patton 45:27
I think it's just a really special thing to see your heart coming, really your whole life story in a way of giving back that has been your entire life's narrative. I mean, you have served your country in a way that is not only generational, both older than you and younger than you, but to come and tell the story for the state of Tennessee in something that we're really, really lucky to have Fort Campbell here, and the economic impact and the cultural impact that it has upon Our state is cool. And I tell you one other thing general that I appreciate about what you've done here is you have approached this build very entrepreneurially. And I don't know if that is or isn't, a feature of the army. I probably could make an argument that it might not be as much as anything, because there's a lot of process and procedure that keeps everybody safe. But here you've had to be very scrappy, and you've had to build before you have all the money for the whole vision. You've been able to take something that has sat dormant for it sounds like decades, and bring it to life. And I think that leadership makes it very clear why you've had the career that you've had in serving this country. So we're excited to be able to get behind this and push and bring awareness to what you're really doing. And kudos for having it be just off base too, because I think you're right for people that don't have a military background, it's super intimidating to go on base. I mean, you're like, I don't think I have anything on my record, but I don't really find out.
Major General Winski 47:06
Yeah, right.
Spencer Patton 47:08
There could have been a ticket or, you know, I'm gonna so in any case, we're really excited to see it come to fruition. And thank you so much for telling thanks for having me. Yeah, appreciate it.
Carli Patton 47:17
Thank you.
Major General Winski 47:18
Thanks.
Spencer Patton 47:22
Today we have major general Brian Winski, President and CEO of the Fort Campbell historical foundation. That was a really fun conversation from a really impressive human being.
Carli Patton 47:37
I can't believe we got to do that honestly, his story about his family for generations being in military service, I was blown away.
Spencer Patton 47:47
I was partly worried that it was gonna show up here in full uniform, like, with all of it, and I would just be so intimidated that I'd be like, All right, I'm gonna have to take this seven times before I can get this intro right, because I can't mess this up.
Carli Patton 47:58
No, you can't. I was, I was sitting in my closet this morning like, what does one wear on a podcast with a major general?
Spencer Patton 48:06
A couple takeaways that I have is one to serve for 37 years like he has, and then to be able to come out and do something so entrepreneurial that there isn't a handbook for how to create a museum and how to do it on a shoestring budget and how to fundraise. He's got a really diverse skill set that, had he taken a different path and been a business leader, he would have been phenomenal in that space. So it's part of, I think, just the principles of leadership that it served him extraordinarily well and serving our nation, thank goodness. And it's serving him really well in the next chapter of his life, in giving back. But it's just as fascinating to see him step into the room, and the leadership that you feel off of him is just immediate.
Carli Patton 48:58
He definitely has a presence. Yes, yeah, and his almost photographic memory of everything to do with Fort Campbell and all of the regiments and the people that have served, I just have left talking to him with such gratitude for our state and what we do for the nation as a whole, and it really left me thinking about what makes Tennessee special and Fort Campbell is a huge part of that, the value that it puts into our entire state, of what it means to be a military family, what it means to sacrifice, what it means to put others above yourself. I mean, I think that permeates our whole culture.
Spencer Patton 49:38
Something else that I took away is that our military takes on a lot of heat and a lot of damage for a lot of stuff. They're accused of being wasteful at times, incompetent. Woke a number of different things right now, and sitting across from him, I had not only none of those things, but. Had a true rejection of that to say, when men like him have been in charge and are still just a little bit removed from being in charge, none of those things have taken deep root inside of our military. Clearly, the organization, like every organization, will have things that have to be worked on and improved in budget challenges. But I really did feel a pride for Tennessee, pride for our country, and concern over some of the numbers that he's talking about that it's been well publicized for a couple decades that we're seeing real drops in the number of people that are serving, that feel compelled to serve. And so I think he's bringing an interesting message to say, Let me teach you via a narrative. Let me show you these stories. And I think he phrased it open a new aperture for how people think about serving your country, and I could really see that be successful, especially on the doorstep of Fort Campbell itself to say, here's history, but here's where you can make it a reality for you or your family.
