TEXAS — The National Medal of Honor Museum opened less than a year ago, and it’s already scooping up national acclaim. A recent USA Today 10 Best ranking from the outlet’s Reader’s Choice Awards named it the best new museum in the U.S.
From the Civil War to the global war on terrorism, the museum showcases the lives and service of those who have received the Medal of Honor, which is awarded to those who risked their life in combat beyond the call of duty. It opened last March in Arlington.
There are over 3,500 Medal of Honor recipients, and about 60 who are still living. The museum recently hosted a Veterans’ Day event that welcomed hundreds of visitors.
“Through personal artifacts and heart-stopping simulations, this shrine to valor drops you into the split-second decisions that defined extraordinary courage,” USA Today said. “Rather than glorifying war, the National Medal of Honor Museum focuses on the human capacity for sacrifice, with quiet spaces for reflection between galleries that chronicle acts of heroism from the Battle of New Market Heights (1864) to the Medal of Honor Ceremony that symbolically marked the defeat of Nazi Germany.”
The museum is located near Globe Life Field, home of the Texas Rangers, and AT&T Stadium, home of the Dallas Cowboys.
Other new museums in the ranking’s top 10 include the Edelman Fossil Park & Museum of Rowan University in Mantua, N.J., the National Public Housing Museum in Chicago, Ill., and the Cleveland Museum of Natural History in Cleveland, Ohio.