Collectors of history honor our warriors

A steel rack fitted with military uniforms from wars past rests between Ken Myers’ cluttered kitchen and an equally cluttered living room.

A line of hats rests on the back of a pillow sofa where more uniforms and memorabilia lie near boxes stacked and labeled “display.”

Myers, 59, of Marietta handles each with a curator’s care.

The way he sees it, this array of dress blues and dog tags and photographs are precious pieces of history, remnants of the men and women who help make up the layers of America’s military past.

Here is the identification card and cap that Stephen “Carl” Wright wore during World War II.

Here is a yellowed photograph of Chief Petty Officer Kenneth P. Bramscombe, retired Navy.

And here is the flight suit worn by Bobby Scott, a donation from his widow.

All dead now, they served us well, and so for that reason alone, Myers says their memory deserves to be kept.

Some people write books or build memorials. Myers and his twin brother, Keith, a resident of Tulsa, Okla., collect and display military uniforms, all in the name of remembering America’s war veterans.

Myers was a boy when he and his brother started collecting war memorabilia. Back then, he said, you could go to Army surplus stores and get any number of authentic war items.

Neither of the brothers served in the military, but their father was a Navy aviator in World War II.

After the war, Keith Myers Sr. stayed in the Navy, working as a flight instructor at Whitting Field just outside Pensacola, Fla. In the winter of 1949, he and a student he was instructing were killed when their plane crashed.

Ken Myers and his brother were 9 months old.

They grew up hearing stories about their father. All his life, Keith Myers Sr. had wanted to be a pilot, the boys’ grandmother told them during summers visits to her home in Kentland, Ind.

After his death, she kept all his uniforms in a bedroom chifforobe, four of them —- one blue, one white, one khaki, one green.

Once during a Thanksgiving Day visit in the late 1990s, Keith Myers Jr. decided to show the uniforms to his son.

“They were gone,” Ken Myers remembered the other day.

Until that day, neither brother had realized how much the uniforms meant to them. In some ways, it felt like they’d lost their father all over again.

Ken Myers said his grandmother gave the uniforms to Goodwill believing she was doing them a favor. There would be less for them to discard after she was gone.

One day, while scavenging at a flea market in Florida, Myers happened upon an Army lieutenant’s uniform.

That was the day he started collecting in earnest. He thinks he paid $20 or so for it, but how do you assess the worth of a military uniform?

You don’t. Most of the collection was donated by widows and children and parents who didn’t know what else to do. Selling them just didn’t seem right.

In May 1999, two years after moving to Marietta, Myers was talking to his pastor about his collection, an impressive mix of uniforms and other memorabilia that spans from World War I to Operation Iraqi Freedom.

Can you do a display at the church for Memorial Day, the Mount Calvary Baptist Church pastor asked?

Myers, a retired casualty and property manager, agreed and has been holding exhibits ever since, nearly 130 to date at area schools, churches and civic organizations.

In addition to the one he held on Saturday, he has four exhibits scheduled throughout the month.

Those will be private showings, he said, but he’s available for public showings as well —- at no charge.

Anyone interested in the display may reach Myers at 770-421-9582 or e-mail him at KJMyers799@juno.com.

“This,” he said, “is a labor of love.”

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