National World War I Museum in Kansas City-- Part 1

From the April 6, 2014, Chicago Tribune "Museum puts WWI into focus" by Jay Jones.

President Woodrow Wilson proclaimed it as "The War to End All Wars."  Unfortunately, he was wrong, but some 9 million soldiers died between 1914 and the time the Armistice went into effect November 11, 1918.
The National World War I Museum in Kansas City, Missouri, puts a human face on the war.  The museum sits at the foot of the 217-foot Liberty Memorial tower.  Within ten days of the end of the war, the citizens of Kansas City had raised $2.5 million to build the tower as a tribute to those who had died.  It was dedicated on Nov. 11, 1926.

You reach the museum by crossing a glass bridge over a "field" covered with 9,000 red poppies, a traditional symbol of the war.  You learn that each poppy represents 1,000 killed in the war.  You then see a 12-minute film setting the stage for the war, three years before the United States entered it.

--Cooter