Please join the Broomfield Veterans Museum in their parking lot for a ceremony honoring veterans. Featuring military living history enactors and their vehicles as well as music, this annual event is a ‘must see’. After the program, stay for tours of the museum! 
It has been 20 years since the terrorist attacks brought death and destruction to the American homeland—and touched off a 20-year war in Afghanistan. To commemorate the nearly 3,000 lives lost on that September 11, 2001, the Broomfield Veterans Museum has installed a new exhibit that recounts the events of that tragic day.
Nineteen persons with a connection to Colorado were killed on 9/11—either because they were in the buildings that were hit by the hijacked planes or were in the planes themselves. Their stories are told in vignettes at the museum. For example, Kathryn LaBorie of Colorado Springs was the head flight attendant on United Airlines Flight 175 that crashed into the South Tower of the World Trade Center in New York, and Jason Dahl of Littleton was the chief pilot aboard United Airlines Flight 93 that crashed into a field near Shanksville, Pennsylvania. It it believed that passengers and crew members on Flight 93 fought with the hijackers in an effort to prevent the plane from reaching its target—thought to be either the White House or U.S. Capitol.
The new exhibit is scheduled to remain on display until later this year to remind visitors of the tremendous blow the attacks made on Americans’ feelings of security and changed the course of history.
On Monday, May 30, 2022, the Broomfield Veterans Museum will host a Memorial Day picnic and celebration at the Broomfield County Commons Park, 13200 Sheridan Blvd., Broomfield. The ceremony will go on rain or shine and include a posting of colors, a flyover, the Pledge of Allegiance, the National Anthem, an invocation and remarks by Broomfield civic leaders. Following the ceremony, if weather allows, there will be a concert by the Rocky Mountain Brassworks and lunch (burgers and hot dogs for sale from the Broomfield Lions Club). There will also be military apparatus on display. The event is free and will be from 11 AM to 1 PM at Broomfield County Commons Park.
On Saturday, March 27, 2021, the museum hosted a group of Civil War reenactors who set up camp on the front lawn to mingle with visitors and give them a “first-person” view of the war that began 160 years ago. A sutler’s store, a mounted cavalryman, and a mountain howitzer provided a backdrop for plenty of family photos, and a talk by local Civil War expert Bob Moulder made for a complete immersive experience.
The following Saturday, John Peticolas, a member of the museum’s board of directors, gave a lecture about a relative who fought on the Confederate side.
The museum currently has a special Civil War exhibit featured as part of the rotating Forefathers Exhibit series.
The museum is reopened and hosting Coffee and Conversation events in a safe and socially distanced manner. However, if you prefer to watch from home, we invite you to tune in via our YouTube livestream.
If you’ve never attended a Coffee and Conversation event, we invite you to join us for one of our free Saturday events, starting at 10 a.m. Enjoy coffee, donuts and networking with fellow veterans and history buffs. Plus, you’ll hear a great presentation from a veteran or historian. You can also access our entire library of recorded Coffee and Conversation presentations on our YouTube channel.
27 February – Bill Niles served in the US Navy Submarine Service from 1980 to 1988 with tours on the USS Queenfish (SSN651) and the USS Omaha (SSN692) based out of Pearl Harbor. He achieved the rank of E-6 and his job focused on the maintenance of alarm, warning, control and interior communication systems for the submarines. Bill will share his experiences of what it is like to train to be a submariner and then serve on a nuclear attack submarine.
13 March – Bob Moulder joined the US Navy in 1952 and served as a radioman on the USS Hector, USS Ajax and the USS Pinola. Most of his service was spent in Japan and Korean waters during the latter part of the Korean War. Bob is a Civil War expert and amateur historian who will present a talk titled, “Civil War Guns, Swords and Stories,” as told through artifacts from his extensive personal collection. This is in conjunction with a special Civil War exhibit at the Veterans Museum.
27 March – John Peticolas served a 25 year career in the US Navy and Naval Reserve, retiring with the rank of Commander (0-5). As a pilot he flew multiple different aircraft including the A-6 Intruder, the A-4 Skyhawk and P-3 Orion. In conjunction with a special Civil War exhibit, John will tell the story of his great-grand uncle, Albert Brown Peticolas, a young lawyer from Victoria, Texas, who joined other troops from his state in the 1862 Confederate invasion of New Mexico.
On November 11, 2020 the Broomfield Veterans Museum hosted an outdoor, socially-distanced ceremony to honor America’s veterans. The event was held on the front lawn of the Broomfield Veterans Museum. Museum President Lew Roman welcomed veterans and guests, Rick Schneider of the American Legion Post 58 gave the Invocation, and Gulf War Veteran Ryan Wolf gave a keynote speech.
Many thanks to the following organizations assisted with the implementation of the event: City of Broomfield, Colorado, American Legion Post 58, Broomfield, Colorado, American Military Living History Association, • Mile High Fife and Drum Corps, • Bugles Across America, Tenth Mountain Division Reenactment Group, InnovAge Image Company, and Daughters of the American Revolution.
The ceremony was video streamed to public thank to Sara Farris (link here) and a digital copy was also taken by Steve Kutala. Media coverage included reporters from the Broomfield Sentinel, Broomfield Enterprise, the Boulder Camera and there was a TV crew from the Spanish speaking TV station Telemundo.
The museum has installed a new exhibit that commemorates the 75th anniversary of the end of WWII and honors local veterans and Colorado companies which played a major role in ensuring the Allied victory.
On display are stories and artifacts related to local D-Day participants such as Robert Rudzinski, a Navy corpsman (medic) who took part in the landings at Utah Beach, Normandy; Coast Guardsman Wil Staub who served aboard a landing craft bringing American soldiers into hotly contested Omaha Beach; and Bob Hilbert, who was a part of the 1st Infantry Division amphibious assault landings at Omaha Beach.
Also honored are airman Bob Caron of Denver, who was the tailgunner on the “Enola Gay”—the B-29 bomber that dropped the atomic bomb on Hiroshima, and sailor Clyde Brunner, who witnessed Japan’s formal surrender aboard the USS Missouri; Brunner later became Broomfield’s second mayor.
Encompassed by a 20-foot-long timeline of the most significant events of the war, the display also highlights the contributions of Colorado companies, such as the Gates Rubber Company (maker of military tires); Schaeffer Tent and Awning Company (which made tents for the military); Coors Porcelain (producers of ceramic insulators required for the atomic-bomb manufacturing process); Coleman Motor Company of Littleton (which produced heavy trucks and cranes); and the Remington Arms Plant in Lakewood (manufacturers of over 6 million bullets per day) — all of which did much to bring about victory.
Also on display are the once-top-secret Norden bombsight that was touted to provde American bomber crews with “precision” aerial bombing capabilities; a brief history of the Holocaust; and the Colorado National Guard’s role in liberating the Dachau concentration camp in April 1945.
It is anticipated that the exhibit will be up until the beginning of 2021.
Another recent addition to the museum is the full-scale fallout shelter in the Cold War Room. This fallout shelter replicates in perfect detail the type of basement shelter that many Americans built during the 1950s and 1960s when fears of an imminent nuclear attack by the Soviet Union or Communist China were very real. The fallout shelter chillingly reminds visitors of a frightening time in U.S. history.
In celebration of the 75th anniversary of the end of World War II, the Broomfield Veterans Memorial Museum brings you one more Virtual Coffee & Conversation.
Background: In 1945, the author Gertrude Stein lived as an ex-patriot in the French countryside under the Vichy French government. As a Jew and an American, she had lived in fear of the Nazi regime during the years of the war. When American soldiers from the 47th Infantry liberated her town, she gratefully welcomed them into her home. On page 34 of her 1945 book Wars I Have Seen, she described that joyous day, “How we talked that night, they just brought all America to us every bit of it, they came from Colorado, lovely Colorado, I do not know Colorado, but that is the way I felt about it lovely Colorado and then everybody was tired out and my were we happy, we were, completely and truly happy and completely and entirely worn out with emotion.”
Imagine the release of tension that the liberation of France brought to people like Stein and so many others! As you do so, enjoy this presentation from Lew Moir about underground tunnels in Europe and how they were used during the war.
In the Coffee & Conversation from April 2019 linked here and embedded above, Lew Moir describes four different tunnel systems used in Europe during World War II.
African Americans in the military have long had to fight a two-front battle. They fight against the enemy (whether against the British in the American Revolution, Confederates during the Civil War, fascists in World War II, or the North Vietnamese and Viet Cong during the Vietnam War) and they also fight against racism in the United States.
This two-front battle is a tragic outcome of the legacy of slavery and oppression of black people in the United States. The persistence and dedication of the thousands upon thousands of black members of the armed forces throughout America’s history is truly remarkable. These men and women continually strove to upend the systems of discrimination and disenfranchisement in the United States, revealing their courage and determination in the face of rampant and unrelenting racism.
At the outset of World War II, James G. Thompson, a black member of the segregated U.S. Army wrote, “Being an American of dark complexion and some 26 years, these questions flash through my mind: ‘Should I sacrifice my life to live half American?’ ‘Will things be better for the next generation in the peace to follow?’…‘Is the kind of America I know worth defending?’”
Thompson’s questions helped to galvanize the “Double Victory” campaign—the fight against racism at home and fascism overseas—during World War II. Sadly, Thompson’s questions still have relevance today, as America continues to grapple with societal turmoil inherited from the past.
