The U.S. Army Reserve is building new teams of experts trained to protect priceless pieces of art and cultural heritage in combat zones, though their work won’t resemble the high-stakes capers depicted in the 2014 blockbuster "The Monuments Men."
A recent agreement between the Army Civil Affairs and Psychological Operations Command (Airborne) and the Smithsonian Cultural Rescue Initiative will kick off a search for talented individuals in the Army Reserve with backgrounds in cultural heritage preservation. This group will be the next generation of men and women tasked with ensuring that the Army is ready to deal with the complex cultural challenges commanders are sure to face in a large-scale war with a major power.
They movie -- based on the book "The Monuments Men: Allied Heroes, Nazi Thieves and the Greatest Treasure Hunt in History" by Robert M. Edsel and Bret Witter -- introduced the audience to a brave group of allied soldiers who risked their lives to find and protect valuable works of art from the Nazis during World War II.
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These new teams of Army specialists will also be responsible for helping combat leaders avoid becoming mired in civil conflict that is often created by complexities of cultural heritage, Col. Scott DeJesse, a cultural heritage preservation officer with USACAPOC(A), told Military.com.
"What is going to be different than the monuments men and women of the past is that we've got to meet the [protection] requirements of the 1954 Hague Convention ... but then we also have to serve staff officers who provide guidance to commanders on basically analyzing the battlespace," DeJesse told Military.com. "Cultural heritage is not just something that is passive that needs to be protected -- it's like an active agent that's in these complex environments, and a lot of times it's the driver of conflict."
It's a problem that the U.S. military has struggled to understand during many conflicts in the past, DeJesse said.
The Army sent teams into Baghdad to ensure that the museum and other valuables were protected, but traditional stabilization efforts often focus on tangible solutions such as rebuilding schools and restoring electricity.
"But the thing is they are still shooting at each other," DeJesse said. "Actually, a lot of times the disruption relates to culture ... a lot of times people state 'culture is something that unites us' -- well, actually it is used to divide us.
"It's been totally overlooked ... on how it can be used to measure our performance in areas where we are trying to help stabilize and bring peace to certain areas we are in. It's the intangible measures that has been so hard for the [Pentagon] to figure out."
DeJesse referred to the violence that erupted in Charlottesville, Virginia in August 2017 when white supremacist groups, protesting the removal of a Confederate monument from a Charlottesville park, clashed with counter-protestors.
Commanders have to be aware of such flashpoint issues and how they can be used as political tools, he said.
"There are groups that want to keep them and there are some that want to get rid of them because my family or heritage was repressed or my family were slaves," DeJesse said. "There are all different reasons on the individual level, because heritage is an individual, family, community, regional and national identity."
Cultural heritage teams would "provide analysis saying, 'Sir or ma'am, this is the situation that is going on in the domain of cultural heritage; it's not just about the thing,'" DeJesse said.
"What is happening right now is you have these opposing groups and they are trying to use this element of heritage to separate each other, so do not get into that fray; be aware that that one group, when they approach you about doing this project or this narrative, you are getting yourself caught in an area where you don't want to be," he said.
For now, the effort is focused on finding talented individuals in the Reserve that will come together as a team to train on certain aspects of cultural heritage, DeJesse said, referring to the preservation training that will occur in March at the Smithsonian.
"They are going to show the processes that the Smithsonian uses for object handling, evacuation of museums and assessments," DeJesse said.
"When conflict starts happening, cultural property is on the move; the [enemy] systematically targets the tangible, and they use the intangible side of it divide each other."
-- Matthew Cox can be reached at matthew.cox@military.com.
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