National Museum of the Marine Corps

As we were driving home from Georgia on the 14th, we once again passed this funny looking building on I-95 near Quantico. All you can see from the interstate is the spire on the top and we decided this time that we were going to make a trip back down and see what it was all about.

Saturday was a gorgeous day and I wanted to go to the IKEA anyway, so we headed back down 95 to check out the National Museum of the Marine Corps.

We were really surprised by how large the museum is. The building is designed to reference the flag raising at Iwo Jima and it situated on 135 acres. The building itself is 118,000 square feet and has several exhibit halls dedicated to Marine service in different conflicts. We looked thorough the World War II and Vietnam exhibits. They have the actual flag from Iwo Jima on display. They have a number of planes, tanks and firearms of all sizes, uniform insignia and even an Academy Award.

This is in the gift shop. It is a model of the Iwo Jima statue made out of Lego blocks. I couldn't resist.