The Military Vehicle Owners of Orange County

The MVOOC is a non-profit organization whose members research, recover, restore, and operate former military vehicles. We display our vehicles to the public in the hope that they will learn about the events in which our vehicles participated and the stories of the men and women who used them at the time.

Our other goals are:

To support the County of Orange in events calling for the participation of military vehicles.

To remind the public of the events that our MVs participated in, with the hope that they will be prompted to seek out and learn the stories of the men and women who operated them in the service of the their country.

To raise public awareness of Veterans, in hopes that the debt that is owed to those who took up arms in defense of their country will be acknowleged by the public.

To provide a clearing house of technical information regarding military vehicles.

To assist those not familiar with the idiosyncrasies of military vehicles in the safe operation of their MVs.

The story of mankind is intertwined with the history of mankind's armies. For good or ill, the presence of an armed force has swayed the events of history. The past two centuries have seen military actions on a grand scale, and even the past five decades have seen the forces of freedom and democracy pit their might against the forces of oppression.
The warriors who fought in these great conquests have grown old, and as time marches forth, these men and women leave this existance to join their comrades in the afterlife, taking their stories and the lessons they would impart to future generations.
They leave behind their artifacts, however, and among these artifacts are vehicles.
These vehicles, icons of the struggle between right and wrong, lend themselves to the education of the public:

-To read about the First World War is not as striking as touching a vehicle that ferried men and supplies to the front lines of Verdun.

-To see a movie depicting the D-Day Landing at Omaha Beach doesn't pack the punch of sitting in the seat of a jeep that scrabbled and clawed its way up the sand on June 6, 1944.

-To hear about the 1st Marine Division's march to the sea from the Chosin Resevoir doesn't compare with hearing the tale of the march from a Marine who was there, as he sits in an M38 jeep that was there with him...

-To see film footage of the Battle for Hue City, where 18 year old Marines piled their wounded buddies on the backs of their Mechanical Mules does not give the same justice as driving one of these amazing machines 30 years later.

-To see CNN video of the Persian Gulf War isn't as impressive as touching the armored flanks of a Humm-Vee that might have fought it out in the desert town of Khafji packing a .50 caliber heavy machinegun.

It is for this reason that the members of the MVOOC present their vehicles to the public, so that the public may share, through seeing, hearing, and touching some small portion of their forefathers' equipment, the experiences of past generations of Americans and the their allies, who, when the horrible spectre of war rose up, and common citizens heeded their country's call to arms, performed their duties, and in doing so, joined the ranks of heroes.

Copyright 2004 MVOOC. All rights reserved. All images are the property of the Military Vehicle Owners of Orange County except where noted otherwise and may not be reproduced without express permission of the webmaster of the MVOOC site.