By John Arundel
Managing Editor
 
These days it's little more than a dusty field about 28 miles from downtown Washington.
 
But on some weekends, the armored toys come out, creating muddy indentures in the ground from World War II-era tanks and amphibious personnel carriers. By 2012, this outdoor reenactment area will provide millions of tourists a true picture of daily life on the battlefront, as the National Museum of Americans in Wartime rises from a cow patch in western Prince William County.
 
The site belongs to Allan D. Cors, a public affairs consultant and former lobbyist, who has raised nearly $7 million so far from mostly patriotic alumni of the U.S. military to fulfill his dream. For decades, Cors collected barnloads of antique military equipment, often combing the backroads of Normandy in search of his quarry, much like a lepidopterist in search of rare, wondrous moths.
 
It started with a World War II-era Jeep in 1982 and morphed into a full-blown search for rickety tanks, armored personnel carriers, Indian motorcycles and other heavy wartime pieces, said Cors, whose poor hearing prevented him from ever serving in the military.
 
During the Berlin crisis of 1961, Cors volunteered for the draft to serve as an Army JAG lawyer (Judge Advocate General), but a punctured ear drum precluded him from serving. "My passion is to tell the story of those who did serve," he said.  
 
Cors has never stopped collecting, culling over 100 pieces of wartime machinery mostly from the forgotten battle towns and military-focused auction houses of Europe, often using "pickers" to hunt down rare pieces. The collection stretches from World War I to the Vietnam conflict, with a special emphasis on machinery used to conquer Hitler's Europe during the Second World War, at places like Pont de Hoc and Omaha Beach.
 
"We left so much machinery over there," he said wistfully. "It would be a shame to see it all go to rust and ruin."
 
Cors' collection started with a barn stacked floor to ceiling with vehicles and war materiel in Warrenton, VA., and progressed to storage at a huge warehouse in Crystal City.

Tank Farm getting started

Over the years, his interest in war machinery has shifted, he said. "My real interest now is in the people who fought these wars, and in their brave heroics," Cors said. "I'm fascinated by the values they demonstrated; their dedication, loyalty, sacrifice, leadership and devotion to the cause."
 
On a warm Sunday afternoon in November, Cors unmarked farm on a back country road in Prince William County was abuzz with historic tanks, military vehicles and soldier re-enactors conducting life as it might have been on a World War II battlefield, minus the gunfire and live ammunition.
 
A 1941 Indian motorcycle was gunning its engines, much as it might have been during wartime for the British dispatch riders who brought messages and plans to the battlefront. Produced under the Lend Lease Act by the Indian Motorcycle Co. of Springfield, Mass., the motorcyle, with its broad handlebars and leather saddlebag, was in meticulously working order. At auction, the classic war motorbikes fetch as much as $40,000.
 
"I'd love to have one of these," marveled Jim Houk, a pharmacist from Woodbridge, VA., who said he owns five modern-day motorcycles. "It's a work of art. It's history."
 
Nearby, a three-ton amphibious truck stood sentry, seemingly ready to transport a few Allied soldiers onto Omaha Beach. Developed in 1942, about 121,000 of these vehicles were developed by the Yellow Truck Division of General Motors by the end of World War II. It could carry about 25 soldiers and two tons of cargo in its massive, watertight hull.
 
"These were critical in supplying food and ammo to the war theater," Cors explained, as an A-20 armored utility car sped by and a noisy T-72 tank spit mud and grass from its treads.
 
Taking a break from the action were uniformed, Korean War-era military re-enactors who stood behind sandbags in a freshly-dug trench, munching jumbo shrimp the size of silver dollars. "Lucky day for us," chuckled Marc Lauterbach of Falls Church, who teaches criminal justice at George Washington University.
 
"We're kind of weekend reservists," chimed in John Abshire of Fort Bragg, N.C., a civilian military contractor who drove up from Fort Bragg, N.C. This weekend Abshire is "serving" in the Army's 3rd Infantry, 23rd Regiment, deployed to Korea with his M1 Garand infantry rifle ("It packs more of a punch than a pistol," he brags). His regular "day job" in Fort Bragg, he said, is to serve as a Taliban combatant preparing Army soldiers for war in Afghanistan.
 
Nearby, Donald Taylor of Fairfax, a retired Park Ranger who served on a Coast Guard cutter as a Russian interpreter, wears a WWI uniform from the Siege of Leningrad period. "The Russians had many neighbors and they seem to have had issues with all of them," he said, as he poured tea from a brass Russian sumovar.
 
"We want to build a museum which honors those who served on the battlefront from World War I forward," said Craig Stewart of Alexandria, the President and CEO of the National Museum of Americans in Wartime. "We'll focus on telling the story of the individual and their personal sacrifice."
 
Stewart envisions a large site near Manassas which will feature the landscapes of war, dedicated to a particular conflict. "There might be recreations of bombed-out German villages or period-authentic demonstrations or re-enactments in a controlled environment," said Stewart, formerly director of development at Episcopal High School.
 
The new museum is privately-funded and well-backed. Its leadership board includes about a dozen luminaries, including former Sen. Charles S. Robb (D-VA.), Virginia Secretary of Transportation Pierce R. Homer, and a smattering of military historians, Medal of Honor recipients and other U.S. military alumni.
 
Stewart said the $100 million museum will open in stages, as funding is procured and development milestones are reached. Some $50 million is needed to fund construction of the first phase. About $7 million has been raised, and Stewart's goal is to open the museum in Nov. 2012.
 
"We have a broad mission as a welcoming museum to the millions of tourists who come to the area and to the surviving families of the 20th century wars ," Stewart said. "We think it's vital to keep their stories alive."