BATON ROUGE - The William A. Brookshire LSU Military Museum earned a prestigious award from the Marine Corps Heritage Foundation for its exhibit "Tigers in the Pacific". 

The museum's director, James Gregory, received the Colonel John H. Magruder III Award. According to Gregory, LSU is the first university museum in the world to achieve that honor.

The exhibit features LSU alumni who fought in World War II, including two brothers, Claude and Stanwood Duval.

"This exhibit was really special to us because it's not often you get two brothers that served together in the war;  most brothers served in different units," He said.

He told WBRZ that what makes it remarkable is that the brothers wrote memoirs and openly talked about their experience.

The Duval family donated personal items to the museum, including cases full of clothes and a Bible. Letters at the bottom of a trunk reveal the final words the brothers wanted their mother to hear if they didn't make it back.

"Remember always that I have you as the greatest, dearest mother in all the world, and I love you very, very much," one letter said.

The brothers fought side by side in the same unit until they reached Iwo Jima. Fate and circumstances split them apart.

"He could hear his brother calling in artillery, and he was trying to keep in mind where his brother was, and then within 20 minutes, all radio contacts stopped, because on the beach, Stanwood's radios were destroyed," Gregory said.

The brothers spent three days not knowing if the other was alive or dead. A picture in the exhibit captures the moment they found each other and reunited.

Gregory told WBRZ the museum holds all exhibits to a high standard to do justice to the stories that come out of LSU.

"It's a great award. It's a great honor, but I think it also shows the level that we are trying to accomplish with this museum," he said.

Gregory expects to officially receive the award Saturday.