The Armed Forces Museum, honoring the service and sacrifice by Mississippi's Servicemen and Women

The Armed Forces Museum is located within the Camp Shelby Training Site, Hattiesburg, Mississippi. The museum is opened from Tuesday to Saturday, 9am to 4.30 and showcases exhibits that tell the stories of the heroes and heroines of the Republic and to educate visitors the price that was paid for freedom and prosperity today.

Admission to the museum is free and opened on all Patriotic Holidays including Armed Forces Day, Memorial Day, Fourth of July, Patriot Day and Veterans Day. As the museum is within an active military post there are entry requirements for visitors. These requirements are valid photo identification for each adult, valid vehicle registration and proofs of insurance, private firearms are not permitted and all vehicles and persons may be subject to a search.

The museum building is over 16,000 square foot of exhibition space, theater, gift shop, Medal of Honor Tower, central courtyard, library, archive and monuments that are dedicated to the units that trained at the camp. There are over 17,000 artifacts in the museum including weapons and vehicles.

Tours of the museum are run daily and it is requested that a reservation is made for the tour. Educational Programs are held at the museum for school children and adults to gain an insight and understanding of the armed forces. These programs include interactive History Hunts, a War gaming Program for students in grades 9-12, educational camps for children aged 6-12 that run during the day or overnight during the summer and the Learning Foot Locker Program where artifacts are presented in the classroom by the Museum Educator.

Galleries within the museum are the Nineteenth Century conflict exhibiting the War of 1812, Mexican War, American Civil War and the Spanish-American War. An exhibition of World War I which contains artifacts from the war at sea, in the air and on the land, an interactive walk through `Trench Experience' is included in this gallery. The World War II gallery is the largest in the museum and exhibits the expansion of Camp Shelby, Women in War and Prisoner of War camps within the Mississippi. The Korean War Gallery exhibits the breakout from the Chosin Reservoir, Mig Alley and the weapons and equipment used by the US Air force. Galleries for the Vietnam and Gulf War Gallery are also located within the museum.

At the museum there are special exhibits such as the Camp Shelby and Mississippi National Guard Today, this exhibit allows visitors to explore the role of the Mississippi Army and Air National Guard and how they support in times of disaster in today's time - The War against Terrorism that traces the terrorist threat that faces the US from the time of the attack on the World Trade Centre in 2001. The Purple Heart features the recipients of the Purple Heart Medal and the Congressional Medal of Honor that displays the Medal of Honor recipients that served or trained at Camp Shelby.

A day at the Armed Forces Museum will leave visitors feeling a great sense of pride in their American history and how the armed forces will protect the Nation.