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The Medal of Honor Museum aboard the USS Yorktown reopened after an extensive renovation in May 2024.
Photo by Sarah Ellis Owen
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Interactive elements in the museum include the rucksack lift, where visitors can simulate the struggle of carrying a soldier’s 50-pound rucksack on their backs.
Photo by Sarah Ellis Owen
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Artifacts, including soldiers’ medals and items they carried with them during wars, are on display throughout the Medal of Honor Museum.
Photo by Sarah Ellis Owen
Darling I love you with all my heart and I know you do me. Just be true until we can be together again and maybe we won’t have so much to worry about then. I must close. Kiss Sharon for me and let her know I love her and you too.
Love,
Vernon McGarity
Words from a 23-year-old Army soldier, held captive in Germany in 1945, capture a small sense of the personal sacrifice that underlies every war. The words are memorialized inside what museum designer Mark Catton describes as one of the best-kept secrets in South Carolina, the Medal of Honor Museum aboard the USS Yorktown aircraft carrier at Patriots Point in Mount Pleasant.
“We tell the story of the commitment that these gentlemen make and the fact that they have integrity and they have courage,” says Catton, who first experienced the Medal of Honor Museum some 13 years ago and then was called on to revitalize it a decade later. “These guys run to the sound of gunfire. … They’re not doing it because they want a medal. They’re doing it because it’s what they’re trained to do and they don’t want to let the guy standing next to them down.”
If you visited the museum in the past, it likely would be unrecognizable to you now since its substantial renovation and reopening in May 2024. Visitors to the renovated museum are welcomed by a mural depicting the “everyman” soldier and representing each American war and branch of the military, along with an “etching wall” containing the names of thousands of Medal of Honor recipients. Inside, the interactive and environment-driven exhibits—from a Civil War-era log cabin to a bamboo hut in Vietnam—aim to engage visitors far more deeply than reading plaques on a wall.
Army Technical Sgt. Vernon McGarity was stationed near Krinkelt, Belgium, during World War II when the Germans attacked on Dec. 16, 1944. McGarity was wounded but refused evacuation, instead leading his men in fighting for more than a day as they held their position. The wounded McGarity repeatedly charged into fire to help his fellow soldiers, but he was taken as a prisoner of war in the aftermath of the battle. McGarity was held for the rest of the war as a prisoner in a German camp, and upon his release, he was awarded the Medal of Honor.
Alongside McGarity’s story are hundreds of artifacts belonging to and honoring the more than 3,500 Congressional Medal of Honor recipients, spanning every branch of the military and every major American war and conflict since the Civil War.
You’ll see dog tags worn by Army Capt. Ronald E. Ray in Vietnam. A pocket-sized New Testament Bible carried by Army Technician 5th Grade Robert D. Maxwell in World War II. Body armor worn by Army Sgt. Ryan M. Pitts in Afghanistan. You can peer through a night vision goggle simulator, step inside a partial replica of a helicopter air ambulance, try lifting the weight of a soldier’s 50-pound rucksack on your shoulders, or get a taste of boot camp on pull-up bars. “Easter eggs,” as Catton calls them, sprinkled throughout the museum include “Kilroy was here” graffiti that was popular during World War II and wacky string that was carried by soldiers in the War on Terror to help detect trip wires.
The Medal of Honor itself gets the spotlight with educational displays on its history and design through each military branch and examples of the medals encased alongside stories of the men who received them—“Many of them so young, just in their 20s when they acted as heroes,” Catton says.
Catton says he hopes that by entering an immersive environment, visitors will slow down and take time to engage with the experiences and stories of the medal recipients.
“I think if they think for a minute about these core values, (they’ll) realize, ‘Thank goodness that there are others in this country who put others before themselves,’” Catton says. “It’s just that simple. These guys did not want to let their buddies down.”
GET THERE
The Medal of Honor Museum is aboard the USS Yorktown at Patriots Point Naval & Maritime Museum in Mount Pleasant, South Carolina.
Where: 40 Patriots Point Road, Mount Pleasant
Tickets: Entrance to the Medal of Honor Museum is included with the price of admission at Patriots Point. Tickets are $23 for children aged 6–12 and $28 for adults and teens aged 13 and up, with discounts available for seniors, military members, first responders and teachers.
Get more information at patriotspoint.org or by calling (843) 884-2727.