The Iowa Gold Star Military Museum is hosting its first ever “World War Two Living History” event this weekend at Camp Dodge in Johnston.
Museum curator Mike Vogt says they would normally have a soldier from the era come in and talk as the feature event, but that isn’t feasible. “World War II veterans are anymore few and far between. They’re almost 100, if not over 100 years old. And they’re not capable of participating in that way anymore. It occurred to me one day, well, why don’t we have a USO dance? There probably hasn’t been one out here in 80 years. And so that was sort of the genesis of the idea,” Vogt says.
He says the dance will show some of what life was like for soldiers at the time. “The dance is occurring in what was the service club when Camp Dodge was an induction center from mid 1942 to mid 1944. So USO dances like this occurred at that building. In fact, one of our volunteers parents met here at Camp Dodge at a USO dance and were married several months later,” he says. The dance is Saturday from 7 to 9 p.m…