Al Muller was ten years old when he picked up his first book on World War II. His interest was piqued by his dad and his dad’s friends who, as WWII veterans themselves, were like the heroes in his books stepping right out from the pages. The stories didn’t glorify war, he said, “but they didn’t make it sound too bad either.”
Those first Landmark children’s books were the beginning of a lifelong fascination for Muller. As he matured, so did the books he was reading. He outgrew the children’s books and moved onto more realistic accounts of the war. Eventually he took an interest in soldiers’ memoirs, which were much more graphic.
“It got to the point where I decided that what they did was superhuman. They left their homes and their families and their girlfriends and their jobs and went to far flung places overseas in the most horrible conditions possible and many of them were killed of course; 485,000 died in WWII.”
Knowing there were many more stories out there that needed telling, Muller set out to find them. That desire has turned into one of the best WWII collections in the world, so he’s been told. It includes 10,000 books and 6,000 autographs including 350 from Medal of Honor recipients and 900 from aviation aces. He has 250 prints and 87 cassette tapes filled with war stories straight from the mouths of the soldiers who served.
Many of those soldiers are long gone, making Muller’s collection a virtual treasure trove of history. For years, it’s all been hidden away in his Maple Lake home, but soon it will be available for the public to view as one of the collections to grace the new Military and Veterans Museum in Little Falls.