Atrocities OK for war museum, but sex is out
Statistics that 414 out of 1,000 Canadian soldiers got VD during Korean War edited out of exhibit
Alex Hutchinson
Ottawa Citizen
July 16, 2005
OTTAWA - Wartime atrocities are an inescapable part of the history told at the Canadian War Museum, but apparently sex can be edited out.
After meeting with members of the Korea Veterans Association of Canada last month, curators at the museum quietly changed an exhibit containing the statistic that 414 out of every 1,000 Canadians who served in Korea contracted venereal disease while overseas.
"We tried to balance historical fact with the concerns of veterans," museum spokesman Pierre Leduc said.
Earlier protests from veterans about paintings relating to the torture and death of Somali teen Shidane Arone by members of the Canadian military didn't result in any changes to the museum's display.
The altered panel is situated at the entry to the museum's exhibit on the Korean War, and contains a series of statistics about the soldiers who served in Korea, including average age, level of education and work experience. The statistic on venereal disease was changed to state that the ratio of disease and accident cases versus battle injuries was 5-to-1 for Canadians in Korea, with no reference to venereal disease.
"Korea was an unhealthy place to serve," said Les Peate, head of the Korea veterans' group. The exhibit is still able to make that point without needing to mention venereal disease, he said.
"It's not a very nice thing for a guy to take his family and his grandkids along and have them confronted with that statistic."
Since the message of the exhibit about the hazards of service in Korea wasn't altered, the museum was willing to make the change, Leduc said. The paintings of the Somali incident, on the other hand, were central to that exhibit. "You have this very successful mission, which the UN thanked us for," he said. "And as a consequence of the actions of a very small group of soldiers, an entire regiment was disbanded and it brought the military to the forefront of public discussion. That is the story we're trying to tell."
Peate said he doesn't believe the paintings of the Somali incident belong in the museum either, and he supports the efforts of Clifford Chadderton of the National Council of Veteran Associations in Canada to have them removed. But in his own dealings with the museum, he found them very reasonable.
"When we heard it was there, I gave a call to Dean Oliver, who is the director of exhibits there, and we discussed it on a rational basis," Peate said. "We didn't start screaming and hollering like they did over the Somalia thing."
Chadderton has been sharply critical of the exhibits in the new museum, which opened in May.