RWS Military Exhibit for BFAC, East Gallery

Richard W. Stober (RWS) is presenting his extensive military memorabilia collection of World War I, World War II and the Vietnam Era at the Breckenridge Fine Arts Center which started Feb. 9 until June 15, with a rotation of items half-way through the exhibit.

Stober is a 2018 graduate of Breckenridge High School and has been accumulating this collection of military memorabilia since he was 10 years old.

He began by reading and studying WWII in his free time and doing school projects that centered to that period of history.

Many of his family members had served in the military such as his great-grandfather, Alfonsa Jakobot. He was a U.S. Marine serving in the Pacific during WWII. Another veteran, Don Graves, donated his dress U.S. Marine uniform for the exhibit to introduce the collection at the front door of the East Gallery at the BFAC. Graves was a flame-thrower on the island of Iwo Jima. He witnessed the historic raising of the American flag on the island that became such an historic photo event of U.S. presence in that period of history in the Pacific Theatre.

Stober’s first military souvenir was passed down to him at the age of 10, by his great-uncle, Frank Jakobot. It was a WWII German Wound Badge that he brought back from his tour of duty while he was stationed at Lansberg Prison, located in Austria. He was working as a prison guard at the War Crime Trials of Nazi war criminals from 1946-47. This is not the historic War Crime Trials at Nuremberg that all the history books tell about, but the trials of Nazi doctors and guards at the different extermination camps during WWII in Europe.

Ever since, Stober had been bitten by the collector bug and preserved items that were given to him by family members and their friends and others that he found on facebook. Stober has continued to share his military memorabilia that spanned a 50-year period since WWII through the Vietnam Era.

In addition, he also concentrated on the stories told by the veterans about the item and how that person had acquired the item such as the Japanese ARI SAKA rifle, brought back by his grandfather, Anthony Cash.

Some of the items in the exhibit include original photos of James Norman Hall and Charles Bernard Nordhoff, who went on to write, “The Mutiny on the Bounty,” in 1932. That book was based on a mutiny against Lt. William Bligh, who was the commander of the HMS Bounty, in 1789, and later, the pair of authors wrote “The Bounty Trilogy,” which was one book with three novels contained in the pages. This is not to be confused by the novel written by William Bligh, “The Voyage of H.M.S. Bounty: The True Story.”

Stober also has an historically prominent group of items: like the tailored uniform and Field hat of Major General John Freund, who was commander of the 199th Light Infantry Brigade from February to September 1967, during the Vietnam era. He was wounded in combat and later was hand-picked by General Westmoreland to be his assistant, a key figure in the de-escalation of the Montagnard Uprising.

Stober said, “I gained knowledge about the veteran’s perspective of what he went through in their first-person stories. Their stories add understanding and my personal admiration for their service.”