Twelve hundred 5th graders from Catoosa and Walker County schools will attend this year's School Day program at the 6th Cavalry Museum and Chickamauga Battlefield. This is the seventh year for school day.
The School Day program will be held Thursday and Friday, from 9 a.m.-1:30 p.m. It will include a 90-minute Civil War program at C&CNMP, 45-minute lunch and travel and a 90-minute World War One program at 6th Cavalry Museum.
The School Days focus for 2017 is World War One as we commemorate the 100th anniversary of the United States entering the war.
“In the Footsteps of Sgt. York” exhibit by The Museum of the American Military Experience is part of this year’s program and has 18 exhibit panels, a 9-minute documentary film and eight exhibit cases of artifacts. This is a world-class exhibit that has never been displayed in Georgia.
The 2017 living historians are: Interpretive Ranger Justin Rexrode who portrays Sgt. York; East Tennessee History Museum’s Hannah Rexrode tells of suffrage, the women’s vote and women’s role in World War One; and Ross Greenwood who portrays a World War One soldier, bringing his cavalry horse and pack mule and be part of the weapons demonstration on the polo field.
Chickamauga National Military Park session includes portrayal of a Civil War soldier, Visitor Center movie and tour of displays and exhibits.
Between 2006 and 2009, an international team of historians, archaeologists, and geographers made a series of expeditions to the Western Front battlefields of World War One to rediscover the site where Alvin York made his epic stand against overwhelming odds and was awarded the Medal of Honor, the Distinguished Service Cross, the Croix de Guerre (Cross of War), and the Ordre national de la Legion d’honneur (Legion of Honor) for his courage under fire.