Sorry I’ve not been posting. Forgive my absence; things are just bonkers here! I’m doing my genealogical certification currently and working on a new website to boot! My first grand-baby is about to come and I’ve been so swamped planning a baby shower, which is really hard to do from states away!
I had meant to post something on August 7th for Purple Heart Day but I’m glad I held off for a few because The National Purple Heart Hall of Honor museum launched its new website today and the revamp is beautiful! A few months ago, I took a tour of the museum’s interior redesign while writing an article for my school newspaper and it was just amazing. Everything had been updated and reorganized, changing a cramped interior into something roomy, sleek and modern with new digitized panels and interactive displays. There are still the letters home, the old guns/cannons and, of course, an original Merit Badge (what most people think of as the Purple Heart). They also installed a beautiful, new larger-than life-sized bronze statue as a focal point that is positively moving.
Much like its building revamp, their new website has been overhauled completely. You can now access additional pictures and narrative stories if provided when the recipient was enrolled into the Roll of Honor database (accessible online & in person at the museum) . Enrolling a recipient is free, relatively easy to do and is very important…. why? Unlike the Medal of Honor, the government, for reasons unknown, doesn’t maintain a compiled list of those who have been awarded the Purple Heart so there is no definite number of how many have been actually been awarded through the years, let alone the names of the recipients. The Roll of Honor is a wonderful way to make sure their names, their stories and their service is remembered.