Pendleton County Man Creates Museum to Preserve Military History

By JOHN WICKLINE, Staff Writer
    Two FBI agents passing through Petersburg one day decided they wanted to take a look at what was being kept under the roof of a 10,000-square-foot building known as Top Kick’s Military Museum.


    So the pair knocked on owner and curator Gereald Bland’s door and asked if they could take a gander at the vast collection of military memorabilia inside.


    “I said, ‘Are you here on vacation or official business?’” Bland recalled. “They had guns and badges and everything.”


    As they wandered through the array of Jeeps, uniforms, gas masks and other assorted soldier stuff, their curiosity was apparently satisfied that what once was considered a weapon of mass destruction is now a tool of historical preservation.


    “I’m sure they were just passing through and saw the sign,” Bland said, now with a laugh.


    Bland’s hobby of preserving military vehicles, mostly Jeeps, began innocently enough about a quarter of a century ago. He and his wife purchased an old Jeep, and because Bland spent 20-plus years in the Army, they decided to restore the thing in military fashion.


    “Car shows were going on then, and it was something to do on Sundays,” he said. “People started bringing me stuff. People would come around and tell me they had Jeeps or had seen them along the road, and I would go look at them. We started collecting them, and I have 23 ... 24 of them now. By 1995, we had to build a building for them.”


    With that, the Top Kick’s Military Museum was born. But as the collection grew to include more and more Jeeps and half-tracks, trucks and ambulances, the need for more space became apparent. Additions to the building were completed in 1996 and again in 2003.


    “It just kind of fell together because it wasn’t planned,” he said. “It keeps me off the couch.”


    Putting together that first Jeep was a chore, mostly because Bland had spent his years in the military building bridges as a combat engineer, not vehicles in the motor pool.


    “I had to use the book a lot,” he said. “Now it’s easier because you know where the pieces go.”


    Each piece down to the smallest of details is replicated as to the vehicle’s original look during its time of service. You won’t find a Vietnam era canteen on a World War II Jeep at the museum. Bland painstakingly does all of the necessary restoration, from completely rebuilding the engine, right on down to the lettering.


    “Some of them have vintage or original parts, and some are reproductions,” Bland said. “There are some that I can go down to the NAPA store and order.”


    Many of the vehicles on display at Top Kick’s have been seen in local parades throughout Grant, Hardy and Pendleton counties. A popular one in the parades has been a 1945 Ford that hauls a .50-caliber heavy barrel machine gun. But those on the streets waving and yelling for candy have no worries as all of the weaponry on Bland’s vehicles have been made unsuitable for firing.


    “It’s all legal,” he said.


    Another popular item in the museum is a 1967 M151A1 Jeep that appeared in the 1995 Damon Wayans comedy “Major Payne.” Bland even had a small role in the film as the Jeep’s driver during its filming in Richmond, Va.


    “The producers wanted that particular Jeep, and I had one,” he said. “They had contacted the Blue Gray Military Vehicle Trust, and they were referred to me. I was there about three days, and I did the same thing over and over and over. I was just like being back in the Army.”


    While Jeeps are the featured attraction of the museum, it does hold several uniforms from all branches of the U.S. military, along with those of other countries. There are also rows and rows of standard issue G.I. equipment, like gas masks, radios and canteens. Many of those items date back to the Civil War era.


    Along one wall, however, is something sure to attract attention. Several varieties of shells and bombs line the shelves, the headliner of the group being a vintage World War II 100-pound bomb that Bland found in a military store in Indiana while on vacation.


    “We tied it to the top of our van and drove all the way home,” he said, “and we didn’t get stopped once.”


    The name of the museum stems from one of the more socially acceptable nicknames of an Army 1st sergeant, the rank Bland achieved during his 21 years in the service. He joined the Army at the tender age of 17, leaving the family farm in Seneca Rocks. That career was followed by another 21 years with the Division of Natural Resources.


    Located less than two miles west of Petersburg on state Route 55, Top Kick’s Military Museum hosted more than 2,000 visitors in 2007. Many are school tours, but some are just curious tourists passing through the West Virginia hills. There is no admission fee, but donations are accepted.


    The collection is ever-changing as Bland continues his passion of restoring Jeeps while preserving the history of the nation’s veterans.


    “A tank and a helicopter would really set this place off, but those are high-dollar items,” Bland said.


    Large group tours can be arranged by calling 257-1392 or by using the Web site, www.topkicksmilitarymuseum.com. Museum hours are 9 a.m. to dark, Mondays through Saturdays, and noon until dark on Sundays.