Chickamauga and Chattanooga National Military Park, the nation?EUR??,,????'???s first military park, was created in 1890 to preserve and commemorate the Civil War battlefields in 1863 for control of Chattanooga. The Confederates won at Chickamauga in September, but Union troops prevailed in November at Chattanooga.

Mr. Benge, a native of Seymour, Texas received his B.A. in landscape architecture from Texas Tech University and went to work for the NPS at Big Bend National Park in Texas as a landscape architect. In 1991 he became a project supervisor at NPS?EUR??,,????'???s Denver Service Center, its main park planning, design and development facility, then served in professional services, planning and facility management at Great Smoky Mountains National Park for 13 years.

In 2002 he was promoted deputy chief of facility management there.