Remember that ending scene out of Indiana Jones where the
Ark of the Covenant is boxed up and wheeled through an
endless government warehouse?

Did you know that that place actually exists?
It is called the Center of Military History.

It is located 30 minutes outside Washington, D.C., at
Fort Belvoir in Virginia. The building itself is very nondescript.

 
but behind a series of highly alarmed doors.

 
and long, cement, camera-laden hallways

is the highly sophisticated, climate-controlled treasure room where the Army
keeps its most precious artifacts. The facility was built for $24 million in 2010.

                                           
The cavernous warehouse is typically shrouded in total darkness. Motion lights
illuminate only the areas in which someone is walking. Behind these giant doors
lie the Army's historic collection of weaponry.

The room consists of dozens of collapsible hallways filled with the richest
American firearm collection on the planet stacked with priceless items.

One-of-a-kind boat gun that pre-dates the Revolutionary War.

  
The entire collection can be moved at the press of a button
to create new endless hallways of historic firearms.

Every meaningful artifact that has been worn on a military battlefield
is stored here. Including Gen. Ulysses Grant's Civil War cap.

Famous general's uniforms and Revolutionary War powder satchels...
Flags, canteens and canons.

But the crown jewel of the collection is the
16,000 pieces of fine art the Army owns.

 

    

 



The art is kept on giant rolling metal frames. The massive
collection consists of donated and commissioned pieces. Much of the
art was painted by soldiers who experienced their subjects in real life.

During World War I, the Army began commissioning artists to
deploy into the war zone and paint the scenes they observed.
This practice has continued to this day. Much of the museum's
collection consists of these commissioned wartime pieces.
 The collection also keeps hold of valuable donated military art
and historical pieces dating back to the Mexican American War.

Some works are just beautiful beyond words.

Softball Game in Hyde Park� by Floyd Davis.

That 2,000-Yard Stare� by Tom Lea.

The collection also includes original Army propaganda art.

Including beautiful Norman Rockwell originals
that the Army commissioned in the 1940s.

Original Rockwell's like these regularly fetch
tens of millions of dollars at auction.

Vietnam.

Desert Storm.

Peace and war.

The war on terror.

The collection also has a controversial side
that has never been displayed.

Unique art and artifacts that were seized from the Nazis
after World War II are stored here. The painting above
was filmed at the center for the 2006 documentary 
The Rape of Europa.

Not a single piece in this massive collection is
open to the public and is kept under lock
and key in a blackened warehouse?