Indecent Exposure

Thirty-five years ago, the United States led a coalition of forty-two countries, including Canada, in Operation Desert Storm, the relatively short campaign to liberate Kuwait from Iraqi occupation. Although I was in elementary school at the time, I vividly remember the months-long buildup of military equipment and personnel before it, along with those illuminated skies over Baghdad when the aerial bombing finally began on January 17.

It would have been shortly after the first bombs fell that my brother and I got our hands on a complete set of Topps Desert Storm trading cards — all eighty-eight of them, featuring the likes of George H. W. Bush, Colin Powell, and “Stormin’ Norman” Schwarzkopf. There were also EA‑6B Prowlers, CH‑53 Super Stallions, F‑14 Tomcats, and Bradley tanks. The cards came in packs of nine and sold for fifty cents. Of course, we got the clear plastic box to hold them. Weeks later, Topps issued a second set, the Victory Series, which it described...