28-05-2025
The newly opened National Medal of Honor Museum in Texas has SC roots
The National Medal of Honor Museum in Arlington, Texas. (Photo Courtesy of the National Medal of Honor Museum)
Carlyle Blakeney and Darwin Simpson took different paths to Patriots Point, but their volunteer work there culminated in the National Medal of Honor Museum that opened this spring — just not in South Carolina as they initially dreamed.
Blakeney, of Charleston, has spent all of his 80 years in the Palmetto State. Simpson, 81, is a native of Arkansas who split much of his adult life between the Army and being an executive for a chemical conglomerate. He's lived in Spartanburg since McKesson Pharmaceuticals brought him to South Carolina in 1982.
They eventually met while volunteering at Patriots Point, a state-owned naval and maritime museum in Mount Pleasant, and found a common passion.
Simpson and Blakeney, who came from a military family but could not enlist due to hearing issues, met recipients of the Medal of Honor, the nation's highest award for valor in combat, through their volunteer work.
Since its creation during the Civil War, the medal has been awarded to 3,528 people. Only 61 are still living, according to the Congressional Medal of Honor Society, headquartered at Patriots Point. Since 1994, the society has operated the Medal of Honor Museum aboard the USS Yorktown in Charleston Harbor.
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Medal of Honor museums, memorials or exhibits can be found in at least seven states. And in 1999, Congress designated three sites, including the museum on the World War II aircraft carrier, as national Medal of Honor sites.
But Simpson, Blakeney and others at Patriots Point envisioned a single, large 'official home' of the Medal of Honor on land that pays homage to all recipients and educates visitors about them, Blakeney said.
The pair's efforts ultimately helped lead to the construction of a 100,000-square-foot national museum that opened in Arlington, Texas, in March.
It's expected to draw millions of visitors each year. Every awarded combat hero is named at the entrance.
'They became recipients because of some historic battles they've been in,' said Simpson, who retired from the Army in 2003 as a major general. 'Most of them have been wounded, shot up and everything else. And some of them are not capable of getting out and about even to this day.'
South Carolina has 33 Medal of Honor recipients. Many of their stories were known to Blakeney and Simpson because both had stints on the governing board of Patriots Point.
'They're all remarkable,' Blakeney said.
When Blakeney, a real estate broker in Charleston who served in the ROTC at Clemson, and Simpson first discussed the idea of a National Medal of Honor Museum in 2012, they hoped to put it at Patriots Point. It made sense to establish the national museum in military friendly South Carolina at a location already dubbed a national Medal of Honor site.
But the effort to build it there ultimately fell apart, partly due to squabbles over the museum's design and height.
In 2018, after years of discussions with both local officials and state lawmakers, the National Medal of Honor Foundation announced it was opening up bidding nationwide.
'We absolutely could not raise the money,' Simpson said. 'There were not enough people in the Mount Pleasant and Charleston area willing to support the Medal of Honor museum.'
In 2019, legislators redirected the $5 million they approved for the national museum in prior state budgets to fund maintenance at state parks and help cover the costs of turning the USS Clamagore at Patriots Point into an artificial reef. (In 2022, the submarine was instead taken apart for scrap.)
In the aftermath of losing out on what was estimated to be a $100 million museum, the Congressional Medal of Honor Society made the decision to renovate its own museum at Patriots Point, which reopened last May. That $3.5 million update was funded by a different nonprofit, the National Medal of Honor Center for Leadership. Since 2021, the Legislature has given $11 million total to that nonprofit, which has also been raising money for a $75 million center at Patriots Point with exhibit and classroom space.
Those plans were drawn up after the National Medal of Honor Foundation moved on, and cities from around the country expressed interest. The group screened all applicants and settled on San Francisco, Arlington and New York City as the three finalists.
Arlington was ultimately the winner, thanks partly to the backing of Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones, who attended the University of Arkansas the same time as Simpson and donated land for the museum. His daughter, Charlotte Jones, led fundraising efforts that brought in roughly $280 million to design and build the museum and support its programs.
'From a practical standpoint, Arlington was head and shoulders the best location and best choice,' Blakeney said.
The opening came six years after Arlington was selected.
The museum has five interactive exhibits and five pillars representing the five branches of the military with Medal of Honor recipients. And at night, a line shines upward to represent the U.S. Space Force.
The museum is also located less than half a mile from the home stadiums for the Cowboys and the Texas Rangers' baseball team, as well as many bars, restaurants and hotels.
'It's in a big entertainment complex of land. It's well situated,' Simpson said.
Simpson, the former head of the Spartanburg Downtown Airport, has yet to visit the museum. However, he's an active pilot — even in his 80s — and plans to travel to Texas in his plane soon, he told the SC Daily Gazette.
Blakeney, who attended the March opening, said being at the museum was overwhelming.
It was just as great as he imagined.
'It really was a dream come true,' he said.
