great adventure, because the army was not ready to go to war at this period of time, when the u.s.s. maine exploded in havana harbor and cubans rebelled against the span ir, everything came to a head and we declared war on spain. spain declared war on us and the war started in earnest in a lot of soldiers enlisted all at once. we didn't have any sort of underlying setup, any sort of logistics ready to go to supply all these soldiers. so between not being able to ply the soldiers to begin with but going to war any way and seeing the consequences of the spanish american war afterwards, kind of foreshadowed the america's ability to fight war throughout the 20th century. so we start with spanish american war in 1898 and we move on through and show different soldiers' stories throughout the exhibit. the great part of these glassed-in sections of our exhibit, which is only 7,000 square feet, is that we can show different soldiers stories over time and switch them out easily to get our massive collection of artifacts and soldiers' stories through the exhibit. one of our very first stories we disp

great adventure, because the army was not ready to go to war at this period of time, when the u.s.s. maine exploded in havana harbor and cubans rebelled against the span ir, everything came to a head and we declared war on spain. spain declared war on us and the war started in earnest in a lot of soldiers enlisted all at once. we didn't have any sort of underlying setup, any sort of logistics ready to go to supply all these soldiers. so between not being able to ply the soldiers to begin with but going to war any way and seeing the consequences of the spanish american war afterwards, kind of

u.s.s. sea dog in the pacific theater, going on a number of combat tours in the dangerous waters near the main islands of japan. while in naval training in new london, connecticut, a friend of his set up a blind date with a connecticut college student. her name was joan brower, and she and phil would be married after the war, a marriage that would last for six rich decades. i know senator leahy and my wife, jane, know the hoves very- hoffs very well, have known joan in her years in education. she in her right has been a very important figure in our state. after phil hoff's graduation, he became involved in democratic party politics and did that despite the fact that he grew up in a republican family. senator leahy will remember that way back then there were a group of what they call the young turks, younger democrats who came into a very conservative republican legislature and most of them were under 40, many of them were veterans of world war ii. and they moved forward to try to bring about some long-needed change in the state. their experience in the legislature motivated phil hoff to run fo

great adventure, because the army was not ready to go to war at this period of time, when the u.s.s. maine exploded in havana harbor and cubans rebelled against the span ir, everything came to a head and we declared war on spain. spain declared war on us and the war started in earnest in a lot of soldiers enlisted all at once. we didn't have any sort of underlying setup, any sort of logistics ready to go to supply all these soldiers. so between not being able to ply the soldiers to begin with but going to war any way and seeing the consequences of the spanish american war afterwards, kind of tookis is something that place along time ago and it has followed me. i can't get away from it. looks like the wall that you scaled. >> it is a very good representation of it. course, as you see that fellow standing on top there, that would have been impossible. the thing is those stones were rounded on top, narrow. nobody could stand up there unless he was an acrobat. >> what did you think at the time that you are scaling it? did you have doubts? >> i was not very much afraid of that. i was a good cli