Photo Gallery Medal of Honor museum finds a home downtown View 11 Photos

The Charles H. Coolidge Medal of Honor Heritage Center launches its veterans charter membership campaign today to establish itself as an inspiring downtown landmark.

Center members and an ad hoc committee of community members have stepped away from the idea of building a 6,800-square-foot heritage facility in Coolidge Park, which met with some public resistance a year ago, to instead embrace the Visitors Center, located next to the Tennessee Aquarium.

The two-story building, owned by downtown development agency River City Co., offers 19,000 square feet and was long intended to serve as the home for the failed Chattanooga History Center.

Heritage center leaders, including retired Maj. Gen. Bill Raines, a real estate investor and chairman of the heritage center board, shared the center's vision and concepts with the Times Free Press on Wednesday.

"This effort is not about building a monument for the Medal of Honor," Raines said. "We envision the heritage center as a place that connects people with history through a first-class, immersive experience about these real heroes and their unreal stories. Most important, we envision the heritage center as a place that inspires our youth and educates them about the six character traits that all Medal of Honor recipients share — courage, commitment, sacrifice, patriotism, integrity and citizenship."

The goal is to open the center in February 2020, contingent upon meeting a number of fundraising benchmarks required before River City Co. will enter into a long-term lease with the center, he said. The first financial milestone calls for the heritage center to raise $1 million by the end of 2017.

Retired Marine Col. Frank Hughes, chairman of the center's capital campaign and vice president of SmartBank, said that's where they want local veterans and their families to take the lead.

"Hamilton County has more than 25,000 veterans, and their financial support is a critical piece to making this capital campaign successful," Hughes said. "This is why we launched a new initiative where veterans, and those who wish to honor a veteran, can make a $500 donation and become a charter member of the heritage center."

While the center has already raised $500,000 from its board, it relies on the whole veteran community to "take the next step," Hughes said.

"This makes the lead donors the veterans," Hughes said. "I can't think of a more powerful message sent out to our community and to our politicians and to the county that our veterans in Chattanooga and the Chattanooga area want to honor these special [Medal of Honor recipients]."

Hughes said they plan to ask some veterans to help others offset charter membership costs, if possible. While we have a "good number of veterans" who can't afford the $500 fee, it should not be a "financial hurdle to belong to the heritage center."

The next benchmark calls for the center to raise a cumulative $3 million by the end of 2018, Hughes said. The ultimate fundraising target amounts to $6 million, which includes a $1 million endowment, to turn the facility into a "world-class" heritage center that will engage visitors' senses and bring them into the action.

Hughes cited the National WWII Museum in New Orleans as an example of the kinds of interactive exhibits they have planned for the heritage center.

Buying into the planned site for the Chattanooga History Center, which raised $10 million over 10 years but never opened its doors, doesn't take away from the facility's appeal, he said. Not only is the building already plumbed and wired, it is situated to take advantage of the more than 900,000 people who go through the Aquarium plaza every year.

Retired Air Force Lt. Gen. Charles H. Coolidge Jr., son of the local World War II veteran whose name is commemorated by the park and heritage center, said his father and the family support the center. Coolidge and retired Army Gen. Burwell "B.B." Bell are co-chairmen of the facility's national campaign.

Coolidge shared a little bit about his father's experiences and outlook on life, going beyond four days of fighting in late October 1944, when his actions placed him within the ranks of those who have received the Medal of Honor. From Oct. 24-27 in Buttant, France, Tech. Sgt. Coolidge, who normally led a heavy machine gun section, assumed command of a platoon that repeatedly faced superior German forces while it held a hill in advance of American troops. The Americans, many of them replacements who had not been under fire before, repulsed German attacks under Coolidge's calm leadership until they made an orderly withdrawal.

Coolidge described his father, who turns 96 on Aug. 4, as a "citizen soldier" who served on the front lines since he landed in Salerno, Italy, on Sept. 9, 1943.

"He'll be the first to tell you France and Germany were a cakewalk compared to Italy," Coolidge said of his father, who was one of a dozen men remaining of the original 212 soldiers who formed his company in Italy. "That's the kind of casualty rate they had."

His father could only attribute his survival to "divine intervention," Coolidge said, speaking of the time when only seconds and a little bit of ground separated life and death.

On one occasion, a German artillery shell would have taken his life if he hadn't let a buddy pass him on the way out of an aid station, Coolidge said. The pair had just walked back to get some coffee. His friend lost his life when the shell landed at his feet.

Coolidge credits his father with a positive, inward-looking attitude, which has defined his life, before, during and after the war.

"There were times he thought about the war, but he tried not to think about it," Coolidge said. "He's always been a forward- looking person. He used to tell me you can't go through life looking in your rear-view mirror."

Contact staff writer Paul Leach at 423-757-6481 or pleach@timesfreepress.com. Follow him on Twitter @pleach_tfp.