National Infantry Museum
The dirt is the detail that stays with you. Inouye Field, the 2,100-seat graduation ground at the National Infantry Museum, is sprinkled with soil collected from the battlegrounds of Yorktown, Antietam, Soissons, Normandy, Corregidor, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq, and Afghanistan. Every newly minted infantry soldier who crosses that field walks on earth from every war the United States has ever fought. Named for Daniel Inouye, the Medal of Honor recipient who lost his arm charging a German machine gun nest in Italy, the field sets the tone for a museum that treats the infantry not as an abstraction but as the sum of individual soldiers making impossible choices in terrible places.
From Post Hospital to Purpose-Built
Until 2008, the museum's collection was crammed into the former Fort Benning Post Hospital, where space and conditions were inadequate for preserving the artifacts of two and a half centuries of infantry warfare. In 1998, the National Infantry Foundation was formed as a 501(c)(3) nonprofit to plan, raise funds for, and eventually operate a proper home. The result opened in June 2009, with General Colin Powell delivering the keynote at the grand opening. The 155-acre campus sits just outside the gates of Fort Benning. The museum receives no federal, state, or city funding. Through a lease agreement with the Army, the foundation is reimbursed for approximately 30 percent of its annual operating expenses. Admission is free. The rest comes from donations, memberships, the Giant Screen Theater, the Fife and Drum Restaurant, DownRange combat simulators, and event rentals.
Walking Through Every American War
The galleries trace the American infantryman from the Revolution to the Global War on Terrorism. Interactive multimedia exhibits put visitors inside the decisions soldiers face. The Officer Candidate School Hall of Honor and the Ranger Hall of Fame preserve the names and stories of those who distinguished themselves. A Paradrop VR Simulator lets visitors experience the sensation of a parachute jump. But the most powerful exhibits tend to be the quietest: uniforms worn thin by hard use, letters home that were never answered, equipment that tells its own story through dents, burns, and field repairs. The museum emphasizes the seven Army values -- loyalty, duty, respect, selfless service, honor, integrity, and personal courage -- not as slogans but as the thread connecting a Continental soldier at Yorktown to a specialist in Helmand Province.
Patton's Quarters and the Company Street
World War II Company Street is a collection of seven buildings constructed at Fort Benning between 1940 and 1942, restored to their wartime appearance. A chapel, barracks, mess hall, orderly room, and supply room stand alongside the sleeping quarters and headquarters building used by General George Patton while he commanded the 2nd Armored Division at Fort Benning before deploying to North Africa in 1942. The buildings are open for tours on weekends and by special arrangement. Walking through them, you can see the scale of a wartime Army that was still learning how to become the force that would cross the English Channel two years later.
Memorials That Keep Counting
The museum's memorial landscape keeps growing because the wars keep going. The Vietnam Memorial Plaza contains a three-quarter-scale replica of the Vietnam Wall from the National Mall in Washington, D.C. The Global War on Terrorism Memorial, dedicated in October 2017, includes the names of more than 7,000 service members killed in action since September 11, 2001. A 13-foot steel beam pulled from the wreckage of the World Trade Center, donated by New York City firefighters, anchors the memorial's design. A Korean War Memorial featuring four larger-than-life bronze statues was dedicated in 2024. Heritage Walk connects these memorials along a corridor the museum calls the Corridor of Valor and Sacrifice. The museum has won USA Today's Readers' Choice Award for Best Free Museum in 2016, 2020, and 2021, and TripAdvisor's Hall of Fame recognition for sustained excellence.
From the Air
The National Infantry Museum is located at 32.389N, 84.955W on a 155-acre campus just outside the main gate of Fort Benning, south of Columbus, Georgia. The campus includes the large Inouye Field stadium, which is visible from altitude. Columbus Metropolitan Airport (KCSG) is approximately 9nm to the northeast. Lawson Army Airfield (KLSF) at Fort Benning is roughly 3nm to the south. The Chattahoochee River runs north-south about 2nm to the west and provides a reliable visual navigation reference.