MIS Historic Learning Center

Fittingly for Veterans Day, I saw the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center in the Presidio. The refurbished building finally gives the National Japanese American Historical Society it's own building. It's on the site of the US Army's secret language school, set up in 1941 & staffed with bilingual Japanese American soldiers. The school relocated to Minnesota the next year, when the government evacuated all Americans of Japanese ancestry from the West Coast.

Boys Scouts led us in the Pledge of Allegiance...

and provided a bit of band music.

There was a good turn-out of venerable war veterans, whose average age must be 90.

Somehow the organizers managed not to have a working PA system, so I could not hear the speakers & had no idea who they were.

After 90 minutes of ceremony, we were let into the building. At the moment it's pretty basic, but it houses a classroom, space for temporary installations & a gift shop.

§ Military Intelligence Service Historic Learning Center (Bldg. 640)
San Francisco Presidio
Ribbon Cutting Ceremony
Monday, November 11, 2013 – 9 AM.