Joseph Long

Joseph Long, the museum's deputy director, for a 3.5-week-long, worldwide tour of historic battlefields and modern-day Marine Corps activities to learn from experience what the 230-year-old branch of the U.S. armed services is all about.

"I decided it would be important to try to turn [the key members of the design team] into Marines as much as I could," said Long, a retired Marine reservist who fought in Vietnam and is heading up the $80 million joint effort between the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation and the Marine Corps.