The Price of Freedom: Americans at War opened in November 2004 and draws a record breaking 2 million visitors per year. The exhibition explores how wars have defined episodes in American history. Full scale environments, compelling graphic murals, first person accounts, along with video presentations, interactive experiences and over 800 poignant artifacts tell stories of the wars Americans have fought to establish the country’s independence.

In their evaluation of the exhibit the Smithsonian wrote, “The audience response to the exhibition has been unprecedented in terms of both the sheer numbers who are visiting and the intensity with which they are engaging with exhibit content. Visitors are connecting with the exhibit on deeply personal and emotional levels, relating to this history of the nation’s shared experiences... And they are finding here a part of history they often do not find in museum exhibits—something of themselves.”

Highlights include a WWII barracks, oral history stations, a Huey helicopter, puppet show, the “Living Room War”—a stack of 16 televisions capturing the home front during the Vietnam era—Washington’s sword, and the chairs Grant and Lee sat in at Appomattox.

Complex photo-composed murals cover the walls of the exhibits. The entry features a 40 foot multi-media experience made up of theatrical scrims, projections, and cast figures.