We went because Julie and I were looking for new places to go and the Military Museum was in the guide book, so we decided to go one afternoon. We went with our excellent friend and chauffeur, Cesar, and two young Salvadoran boys. The museum was at what appeared to be some sort of military base and a training facility perhaps.
The museum had a series of rooms (maybe 10 or so) and each room represented a different time beginning in the colonial period through today. It was essentially just displays of weapons, uniforms, some pictures, and various military equipment. There wasn't a whole lot of information, most of the pieces in the displays had a little information- what it was, when it was used, and where it was made.
There were a couple of rooms for the Salvadoran civil war, a room for the Peace Accords that were signed to end the civil war, a room about the Salvadoran military involvement in Iraq, a room about the UN, and a room about the process of keeping the "peace" since the end of the civil war. There were some tanks out front, a couple small planes, and some helicopters. The coolest and most random thing at the museum was probably the "Pope Mobile" that was used when the pope visited El Salvador some years back.
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| Some of the many guns- these were from the civil war |
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| The "Pope mobile" |
A few things really stuck out as we were at the museum. The first was that about 75% of the weapons were made in the U.S. To me this means a couple of things. One, it means that the U.S. likes to sell or provide weapons to El Salvador- they are good friends like that. Two, a lot of weapons and military equipment are made in the U.S. I'll let you draw your own further conclusions.
Another thing that struck me was how much this museum was such a tribute to war, violence, and the things that are used to kill people. It was really eerie walking around looking at all the guns and other equipment that had been used to kill people. Here all this stuff was displayed in a way that told the story of history based solely on the weapons being used and the conflicts/wars the weapons were being used in. Granted it was a military museum, but it bothers me that this museum (and many other museums, history classes, textbooks, etc., etc.) framed history based on violence. Maybe I'm a little biased, being the pacifist that I am, but it seems that it might be nice to frame the story of our past in a better way than around wars. War is so glorified far too often.
I was really hoping learn more at the museum. I don't know if they don't have the resources or the desire to add more information or explanation to the displays in the museum. It's really up to the visitor to the museum to draw conclusions- or maybe the people who put together the museum think that the message should be obvious to the visitor and no explanation is needed. I was really interested to see how the museum would explain or portray the civil war, but I wasn't really able to glean much information which was a real disappointment.
A huge part of the story was left out of this museum. We saw the weapons. In a few rooms there was a focus on a particular military leader who had been an especially important or brave leader. What we did not see was the effect of the weapons. We did not see the injury, the blood, the death, the suffering, the pain, the loss, the devastation caused by those weapons that were so proudly displayed. We did not see the story of the victims. The stories of the victims of violence in El Salvador and all over the world are the stories that we so desperately need to hear.
Outside of the museum there was a huge 3-D topographical map of El Salvador. It was really neat to see El Salvador portrayed this way. I'm slowly struggling to learn El Salvador geography. In all my travels around the country I try to pay attention to directions, but I still don't have a real good conception of where things and places are located in the country. It's the mountains that make it so difficult to travel around and to get a good understanding of the geography. Seeing this topographical map helped me to have a better idea of just how many mountains/volcanos there are and just how big they are!
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| The brownish-beighish spots are little houses/buildings where there are cities! |
