A Farewell to Arms

I used to be in the war junk business. In 1998, I became the director and CEO of the Canadian War Museum, in Ottawa, for a two-year term. The museum had two buildings: its exhibit space was in the old Public Archives next to the Royal Canadian Mint, on Sussex Drive, and its storage warehouse was an old streetcar barn in the city’s west end.

The museum itself was a pretty dismal affair, with error-filled exhibits, dim lighting, balky elevators, and suspect plumbing. But the warehouse was full of treasures, packed to the rafters with war junk. There were military vehicles of all kinds, wonderful works of art (in a vault that was prone to flooding), and hundreds of large cardboard containers filled with donations from veterans and their families. When I asked the staff to finally open these boxes, they found uniforms, helmets, boots, medals, children’s toys, various memorabilia, and even some belongings of General Sir Arthur Currie, commander of the Canadian Corps...