Military Museum and Rethymno

Today we visited the Greek military museum in Rethymno. Two young soldiers from the Greek army gave us a tour, and both they and the artifacts in the museum were very interesting. They were telling us about the requirement that every Greek man must serve at least 9 months in the military, which is much different than how the United States' military works. While U.S. soldiers more than likely chose to join the military, you could tell that the true interests of these Greek soldiers were somewhere else. One was studying archaeology and history and the other ancient Greek studies, which they were both very eager to tell us about. They also missed their beards!

The museum itself had weapons and uniforms from the Balkan War and others, but a large focus was on WWII. It is amazing how the people of Crete were able to defend the island against 20,000 German paratroopers for as long as they did, considering they did not have as advanced weaponry. Visiting this museum really reinforced the strategic and geopolitical importance of Crete.