Meet the General Who
Conquered the Desert
by Mike Levitt
American veterans of WWII, and students of America’s ongoing fight for freedom are among the thousands who annually visit the General George S. Patton Memorial Museum in …well, actually not “in” anywhere. “In between,” would be a better location description. As in …in between Palm Springs and the Arizona border.
But don’t museums rely heavily on admission fees and corporate donations? And so don’t they have to be built where there are already large numbers of potential visitors? Yes. And, yes. All of that makes sense…and dollars.
So…what’s a museum doing 30 sand-filled miles from the nearest large city? Smack dab in the middle of the Southwest desert? It’s certainly not your usual museum location.
True, it isn’t. But then the Patton Memorial Museum isn’t your usual depository of well-organized displays and climate-controlled exhibits, either.
Due to its arid and isolated location in the poor-man’s Sahara, to visit the Patton Museum is to experience the environment endured by the one million US troops who trained in that area under Patton during WWII. The museum was opened in 1988 to mark the entrance to Camp Young, what was once the headquarters entrance to the largest warfare training facility in world history: 18,000 square miles. All desert. All cactus. All snakes, scorpions, tarantulas, sand storms. All parts of the Desert Training Center that was to become know...
The complete article can be found in the current issue of RV Journal, available at quality campgrounds, RV dealers, parts, and service suppliers. Subscriptions are also available for this quarterly publication.
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