"Telling the Army story, . . . one Soldier at a time."

The U.S. Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) seeks to educate a broad audience on the heritage of the Army. The AHEC acquires, preserves and makes available historical records, materials and artifacts to the public. The AHEC’s vision is to become the premier center for US Army heritage focused on research, education and interpretation.

The United States Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC), in Carlisle, Pennsylvania, is the U.S. Army's primary historical research facility. Established by Secretary of the Army Thomas White in 2001, the AHEC consists of the Military History Institute (MHI), the Army Heritage Museum (AHM), a Museum Store and Conservation Center, and a visitor services staff. The Army Heritage and Education Center is part of the U.S. Army War College but has its own 56-acre campus on Carlisle Barracks.

The AHEC seeks to preserve and interpret the heritage of the U.S. Army. The staff acquires, preserves, and makes publicly available Army-related library and archival materials. The Center also develops interpretive exhibits and educational outreach programs to foster a greater understanding of the Army's central role in the growth, development and protection of the nation and its way of life.

The Current Campus

As of 2006, the Army Heritage and Education Center has two major buildings on its Carlisle campus, Ridgway Hall and a museum storage facility.

Ridgway Hall opened to the public in 2004. Home of the Military History Institute, the 66,000-square-foot hall holds over 11 million items (books, periodicals, manuscripts, photographs, military publications) on U.S. Army history, including the largest American Civil War photograph collection in the world. Along with a reading room for researchers, the hall also has several small exhibits that display artifacts and photographs from AHEC holdings.

Staff in Ridgway Hall—including staff for the yet-to-be built Visitor and Education Center and U.S. Army Conservation Center—oversees the acquisition and conservation of all AHEC holdings, the cataloging of books and other items, the processing of archival collections, the transcription of oral histories, the writing of research bibliographies and other finding aids, and patron and visitor services.

The 8,000-square-foot museum storage facility holds most of the Army Heritage Museum's artifacts and curatorial work space. It is not open to the public.

Also on campus is the Army Heritage Trail, a one-mile (1.6 km) walking path of outdoor exhibits and markers on various eras in U.S. Army history. Notable exhibits include a replica American Revolutionary War redoubt from the 1781 Siege of Yorktown, cabins built to resemble those of French and Indian War and American Civil War encampments, several replica camp buildings from World War II and a Vietnam Firebase. Another exhibit recreates a typical section of trenches from World War I, shellhole-marked no-man's land, and a corresponding German pillbox. The trail is open to the public year-round during daylight hours.

The trail hosts a few large living history events during the year. Re-enactors also spend time on the trail on most weekends.

History

The U.S. Army Military History Institute pre-dates the Army Heritage and Education Center by over 30 years. Formed in 1967 as the Military History Research Collection, a branch of the U.S. Army War College Library, the institute became the primary repository for unofficial army historical materials. (Official U.S. Army records and other materials belong to the National Archives.) For most of its existence, the institute was housed in Upton Hall on Carlisle Barracks. Built in 1941 as an academic building for the Medical Field Service School, Upton Hall was adequate as a library but ill-suited for the size and preservation needs of a major archive.

Secretary of the Army Louis Caldera began the development of the Army Heritage and Education Center in May 1999 when he authorized the development of an Army museum at Carlisle. His successor, Thomas E. White, formally established the AHEC and approved the construction of a new facility, the present-day Ridgway Hall, in 2001. He stated: "We will relocate its [the institute's] documents and holdings—the unofficial history of the United States Army—into a newly built state-of-the art archive, give that facility responsibility for administering historical documents and photographs Army wide, and associate it with an educational facility and a museum"

The center, including the holdings of the institute, relocated from Upton Hall to Ridgway Hall in 2004, officially opening on September 24. The Army named the building for former Army Chief of Staff General Matthew B. Ridgway (1895-1993), commander of the 82nd Airborne Division in World War II and of United Nations forces in the Korean War.

The Army Heritage Museum, established in 1999, held its artifacts mostly in storage in various places on Carlisle Barracks before the construction of its storage facility beside Ridgway Hall in 2004. Most artifacts are now relocated there in anticipation of future indoor exhibit space in a yet-to-be built visitor center and museum.

By 2005, the Center created the Army Heritage Trail and began placing historical markers and large artifacts such as tanks and field artillery on it for public view. The first permanent structures, the Civil War cabins, officially opened in October of that year.

Future plans

Along with further expansion of the Army Heritage Trail, the Army Heritage and Education Center plans three additional buildings for the near future.

The Visitor and Education Center, expected to open in 2011, will serve as the entrance point of all visitors to AHEC campus. It will have a lecture hall, cafe, museum shop, and other facilities for hosting large groups—such as from veterans associations and school tours—and providing educational programming. Construction will begin on the Center in the summer of 2009. Private funding for the project was raised by the Army Heritage Center Foundation.

The U.S. Army Conservation Center, slated to open in 2010, will improve paper and object conservation of AHEC collections by providing facilities for conservation and analytical laboratories, artifact storage, conservation science research, and public educational opportunities. The building will not be generally open to the public. Funding for this project was included in the federal FY 09 Defense budget.

The 50,000-square-foot Army Heritage Museum is scheduled to open to the public in 2012. Museum staff will use the facility to exhibit its many artifacts relating to the service of individual Soldiers in the U.S. Army.

Affiliated organizations

The Army Heritage and Education Center is supported by a private foundation, the Army Heritage Center Foundation, which helps the Center with development and educational efforts. It oversees fundraising for the construction of the Visitor and Education Center and the Army Heritage Museum.

Both as an Army museum and as a military history research facility, the Center is subordinate to the U.S. Army Center of Military History in Fort McNair, Washington, D.C., which is "responsible for the appropriate use of history throughout the U.S. Army".