Rosemary McLeod: Give museum idea marching orders

Professional thieves broke into Waiouru's National Army Museum in 2007 to grab 96 medals.

Te Papa was a problem from the word go. As a building it's unlovable, the art gallery, an afterthought created after public protest, is ill-sited and easily ignored, and as for what it stands for, that's the stuff of mission statements, those killer outpourings of bureaucrat-ese.

Tempting, then, to raise one's sights to a grand building on an enviable, elevated site, our former National Museum and Art Gallery.

A brainwave, then, to suggest the Government should buy it back from the Maori Tenths Trust, and turn it into a war museum.

But hang on. Is that what we want?

The carillon, the delightful little museum at its foot, the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier, and the park being constructed in front of it are all envisaged now as the place where New Zealanders will gather on Anzac Days to come to remember our fallen soldiers. Isn't that enough?

Do we really want to wallow in the memories of military stuff-ups and embarrassments alongside the joys of victory? Are we proud of the land-grabbing 19th-century New Zealand Wars?

Do we want to celebrate our forays into Malaya, Vietnam, Korea, Afghanistan, and, to be brutally honest, Anzac Cove?

We tagged along on these escapades because we were a colony of one of the world's great powers, but in hindsight, why?

The Turks, inconveniently for the legend, were defending their own country when our soldiers landed at Anzac Cove.

Who earned most heroism there, then, our men or the Turks, who benefited from the lunacy of British military strategy while we were mowed down, as were the Australians?

What on earth were we up to in Korea and Vietnam and Malaya?

Apart, that is, from a belief, fashionable at the time, in the domino theory, it's inexplicable.

Countries were believed to tumble over each other's borders in a logical series of communistic contagion, according to this invention, ending in New Zealand. Hello?

As for our foray into Afghanistan, what can we say? Fighting terrorism, is it? Well, there's terrorism everywhere, and it's ongoing.

My grandfathers and father all went to the big world wars and made it back alive, but as far as I know none bothered to order the medals they were entitled to.

They went because they had to, not because current events in Europe meant a lot to them.

We already have two war museums, one in Waiouru, and one in Auckland.

The Auckland War Memorial Museum does a great job, so just leave it alone.

Waiouru's National Army Museum is another matter.

There's a big question mark over that where I'm concerned because of the thefts of valuable war medals there.

Professional thieves broke in easily in 2007 to grab 96 medals, among them nine VCs, including both Charles Upham's. These were ransomed and returned, but considering they were valued at the time at $5.7 million, it beggars belief that they were not kept under tight security.

Worse was to come. Former employee Keith Davies stole 843 items from it between 1995 and 2002, proving security was slack then too. He was charged with the thefts in 2011, leaving the impression that up till then nobody had noticed.

The Army would need to make an eloquent case for keeping these national treasures, not having them gathered up and presented at a new Museum of War - or would the name be more euphemistic? The Sir Robert Muldoon Museum of Conflict would have a certain resonance.

Who would go there? I don't see crowds flocking there throughout the year, and tourists have their own war museums back home. We fought against a good many of their forebears, more incentive for them to stay away. By all means take back the old museum building for the people of New Zealand, but something positive should be done with it.

Let's not rush to fill it with Bibles with bullets in them, and dusty uniforms.