Airborne & Special Operations Museum, Military museum in Cool Spring Downtown District, Fayetteville, United States.
The Airborne & Special Operations Museum is a military museum in downtown Fayetteville, North Carolina, dedicated to the history of US airborne and special operations forces. It holds original uniforms, weapons, personal gear, and large pieces of military equipment arranged across themed galleries that follow the development of these units over time.
The museum opened in 2000 to mark the 60th anniversary of the first US airborne test platoon, which was formed in 1940 at Fort Benning. Since then the collection has grown to cover later conflicts, bringing the story up through the wars of the early 21st century.
The museum sits in downtown Fayetteville, a city shaped by its long connection to the military base formerly known as Fort Bragg. Many visitors are veterans or their families, and for them the displays carry a personal weight that goes beyond what is shown in the cases.
Admission is free, which makes a visit easy to fit into any schedule without advance planning. Allow enough time to see both the indoor galleries and the outdoor area where large military vehicles and equipment are on display.
One of the displays holds a rotor blade recovered from a Black Hawk helicopter shot down during the 1993 Battle of Mogadishu, the engagement later known through the book and film Black Hawk Down. The blade was retrieved after the operation and eventually made its way into the museum's collection.
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