the backstory
We are Veterans and Grateful Descendants of Veterans
how we started
The Veterans Museum founders are descendants of WW-II veteran, Maj William J. Hicklin, Jr. USAAF (1919-1993) and his wife Mignonette “Mig” (1920-2021). In September 2017 after Hurricane Irma, while cleaning the Hicklin’s partially flooded home storage area, Bill Hicklin’s long-forgotten, newly moisture-damaged, World War II journal was found and salvaged, along with a D-Day related Bronze Star that his children never knew he had earned.
That journal included four never-seen before photographs taken on D-Day, of scores of the 101st Airborne gliders ready for departure in the second wave from Aldermaston Air Field in England. That journal discovery led to a 30-minute professionally made military/family history video, “One Man’s War.” This video received much local acclaim as it was asked to be presented at various civic, military, and religious meetings, many of which enjoyed the attendance of 99-year-young Mig Hicklin. Following the death of the then almost 101-year-old Mig Hicklin in March 2021, and in compliance with her wishes and estate funding, the concept of the Veterans Museum was begun; it was her/their “gift to all of us.”
What happened next
With the March 2022 pending arrival in Jacksonville of the USS Orleck (DD-886), a soon-to-be local warship museum, an informal and then more formal relationship of mutual support evolved under the warship museum and Veterans Museum leadership. The ORLECK leadership, with the significant financial assistance of a State of Florida Grant, had labored for over a decade to bring a warship museum to Jacksonville. During the past few years, the local relatives of the Hicklin family joined in the mutually beneficial efforts of trying to help the warship museum become what is now – a very well-visited reality. Subsequently, the Veterans Museum found the support of many local veterans, civic, state, and local political leaders. Collectively, they made the decision to officially launch the Veteran Museum on June 6, 2024, the 80th Anniversary of D-Day.
going forward
As stewards of veterans stories, we will endeavor to honor the Hicklin legacy and dream of collecting, preserving, and using segments of veterans’ stories to (1) help honor the service of veterans and (2) better educate our fellow Americans on the sacrifices and services of our veterans and active-duty military service men and women.
We hope you will join us and support us!
