March 5, 2017 Special Display on Fort Ord at Library, March 17

The Library of Congress’s Veterans History Project will present a special display of materials relating to the former Fort Ord, once the largest U.S. Army base in the American West, on March 17.  The presentation is being held in conjunction with two films that will be shown at the National Gallery of Art on March 18.

The display, which is free and open to the public, can be viewed from 11:30 a.m. to 1:30 p.m. on Friday, March 17, in the Whittall Pavilion, on the ground level of the Library’s Thomas Jefferson Building, 10 First St. S.E., Washington, D.C.  Tickets are not needed.  Materials from the Library’s Geography and Map and Prints and Photograph divisions will be included.

Now decommissioned, Fort Ord was located near Monterey, California.  The special display caps a three-year collaboration with faculty and students from California State University at Monterey Bay and with Cal State professor and documentary filmmaker Enid Baxter Ryce’s Planet Ord project to collect materials from veterans who served at Fort Ord.

The two films will be shown at the National Gallery of Art as part of the D.C. Environmental Film Festival at 2 p.m. on Saturday, March 18.  In “A Land for War,” Ryce documents the lands and ruins of the historic Fort Ord and portrays the impact of the military base on the terrain and the people.  The film’s original musical score is by Lanier Sammons.  The second film, “Fort Ord: A Sense of Place,” is a compilation of the university students’ documentary and experimental shorts focused on the ecology, community and history of the base.  The film also features oral histories to be included in the Library’s Veterans History Project.  For further information, visit dceff.org/film/a-land-for-war/.

Congress created the Veterans History Project in 2000 to collect, preserve and make accessible the first-hand remembrances of America’s war veterans from WWI through the current conflicts, so that future generations may hear directly from veterans and better understand the realities of war.  For more information, visit loc.gov/vets/ or call the toll-free message line at (888) 371-5848. Follow the Veterans History Project on Facebook at facebook.com/vetshistoryproject.

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