ANNISTON ARMY DEPOT, Ala. -- Within its walls, you can find the uniforms and flags of past wars, the table used by Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf during the signing of the 1991 cease-fire agreement with Iraq and numerous guns and knives.
The historical clearinghouse located at Anniston Army Depot is a division of the Center of Military History, which is a directorate of the Office of the Administrative Assistant to the Secretary of the Army, located in Washington, D.C.
They are tasked to archive the history of the U.S. Army, specifically through artifacts.
"Our office is part of the museum division and we document the history through three-dimensional artifacts," said Leslie Rankin, curator for the U.S. Army Center of Military History.
The center is the Army's sole clearinghouse, a form of warehouse, for the 65 Army museums.
"We hold items in trust for the U.S. Army," said Rankin.
The building has 40,000 square feet of storage and nearly all the vertical space available is used to store crates, boxes and cabinets of artifacts.
All artifacts are catalogued in a database and every two years the facility completes an inventory cycle.
Not only does the clearinghouse collaborate with the Department of the Army to preserve artifacts, it also works with all activating and inactivating units to ship or receive their heraldic and unit property. This includes the unit's flags, their silver, awards and memorabilia.
Sometimes, the unit property can be unusual, such as the fiberglass Kodiak bear sent by the 70th Engineer Battalion, a deactivated Alaskan unit.
The battalion assisted with the construction of 250 miles of the Alaska-Canada Highway and, during that mission, the bear became their mascot, moving with the unit to every post. As an important part of the unit's history, the bear is now stored with the rest of its property in Anniston.
The artifacts rest in a controlled environment, in acid-free paper or acid-free boxes to ensure there will be no damage to the object while it is in storage.
Each crate or storage location has an inventory list displayed. That way, employees can quickly see what is supposed to be in each location.
All items in the inventory are managed through a computer program controlled by the center's higher headquarters in Washington, D.C.
All pertinent information associated with each item is researched and kept on file. Employees are quickly working to digitize these files for each artifact.
"The documentation allows us to track the family history of each item," said Rankin.
Items without a complete history are researched by the center's employees.
In the course of this research, they sometimes run across items that don't need to be preserved.
"At one point in time, we had 200 pairs of Vietnam-era men's boxer shorts and we did not need 200 pairs," said Rankin.
A large number of the artifacts in the warehouse are flags.
Vietnam era or older flags, or ones of special significance due to a military action, cannot be used in any manner other than for display purposes. These flags are recorded by the center and specific instructions are given for their care and use whenever they leave the facility.
The center's employees also work with a variety of weapons.
"The center is the largest holding for small arms in the Army museum system," said Rankin.
Small arms are the most carefully guarded items in the building. Each time a crate of weapons is opened, the entire crate is inventoried.
According to Cindi Nemeth, who is tasked with the small arms inventory for the center, there are 36,566 small arms in the Army museum system. Of those, 16,542 are located at ANAD.
The center works with civilian marksmanship programs to dispose of weapons without intrinsic value and to acquire weapons that hold value as an artifact.
"It's often a quid pro quo system," said Rankin.
Retrieving any item from storage for display or other purposes can be a long procedure and it is often more so with weapons, especially if the requesting museum has specific requirements.
"It is not an easy task to call the clearinghouse and get an item," said Nemeth.
Nemeth said many callers need a very specific weapon -- a particular model manufactured in a particular year by a certain company, for example.
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