The estimated 300 folks who braved the weather yesterday to take in Living History Day at Schofield Barracks were treated to tanks, tents and tunnels — all part of a unique celebration of the 25th Infantry Division held at one of O'ahu's finest and least known free historical centers, The Tropic Lightning Museum.

The yearly event happens on the first Saturday of October to coincide with the division's organization on Oct. 1, 1941 — 10 weeks before the Japanese attack that plunged America into World War II.

"We do something different at this event every year to educate the public," said museum curator Linda Hee.

"We're always trying to find ways to reach out and present Army history."

The Living History event included re-enactors in period uniforms from World War II and the Korean and Vietnam wars; hands-on displays of military equipment; a collection of vintage firearms; restored military vehicles; and talking story — from firsthand accounts by heroes of past wars to soldiers from present-day conflicts in Iraq and Afghanistan.

Activities for the kids included camouflage face painting and numerous project presentations. But the most popular item with the youngsters was an actual-size model of a Vietnam "rat tunnel."

The tunnel model augmented the museum's permanent "Tunnel Rats" exhibit that depicts the secret and deadly Viet Cong tunnels.

Although the museum exhibit can't be crawled through, yesterday's model could.

Sofia Flores, 8, and her sister Isabel, 5, couldn't get enough of crawling through the rat tunnel. A military flashlight was provided to assist the otherwise pitch-black journey. Each girl collected a Tropic Lighting patch for making it all the way.

Sierra Borges, 8, a classmate of Sofia's at St. Elizabeth School, thought the tunnel crawl was way fun and icky at the same time. The flashlight beam made fake creepy crawlers, spiders and snakes stationed throughout the passage all the more menacing, as far as she was concerned.

The sisters' mom, Abbey Flores, said one of the reasons she came was that she figured the girls would enjoy playing on the jeeps, tanks and other military equipment.

"I also came because I'm part of the 25th Infantry Division," she said. "I belong to the 125th Military Intelligence Battalion. I'm active duty. I just got back from Afghanistan in March. I retire in a month after 21 years in the military."

For her, the highlight of the exhibit was seeing equipment used in various military periods and comparing the differences.

"And the similarities," she said. "We're still getting some of the stuff they used back in the Vietnam era — like pup tents. They're still issuing those."

While much of the event focused on the past, there were dramatic comments from those more recently involved in the Middle East.

Felix Sanchez, 21, who has returned from Afghanistan, tried to convey what it's like to be a soldier wearing 60 pounds of gear in one of the most extreme terrains on the planet — a surreal, rocky, treeless land where temperatures range from a low of minus 25 to a high of 125 degrees.

"It's just a different world," he said. "You can't believe it until you witness it for yourself.

"It has breathtaking mountain sunsets at night, and the sunrises are the most beautiful in all the world."

Otherwise, he said, the place is perpetually inhospitable.

At the other end of the timeline was one re-enactor dressed in a Civil War uniform — Damian Paul, 54, president of the Hawai'i Civil War Round Table.

Although Paul's uniform predated the 25th Division by eight decades, he pointed out to those interested that there really is a Civil War connection to Hawai'i.

"In April of 1865 Jefferson Davis sent the Confederate battleship CSS Shenandoah to Hawai'i with orders to destroy the Union whaling fleet," said Paul.

The Confederate president believed that crippling the whaling fleet would hurt the North's war effort because it relied on whale oil to lubricate its arms-making machinery.

Paul said the battleship caught up with and chased a Union whaling ship up the Wailua River on Kaua'i. But while the smaller vessel could make it farther up the river, the battleship was too large. The whaler escaped, but not before shots were fired, said Paul.

The Shenandoah eventually tracked down the Union's whalers and destroyed 35 ships in the Bering Strait without realizing that Gen. Robert E. Lee had surrendered and that the war was over.

Reach Will Hoover at whoover@honoluluadvertiser.com.