All my life, I’ve battled. I respect our warriors’ sacrifices; young men dying for their elders’ follies.

The winners are right, the losers are young men doing what they were told to do, doing it well and dying.

My country’s young men fought well, but we’re not a warrior nation.

Why would we celebrate war?

I did not want a museum to celebrate the warrior, crisply starched uniforms, the elegance of functional weapons or the glory of the victor.

I wanted to make a place that would put the fear of war in the hearts of our children, a fear so real that when asked to fight for what is right, they’d question the right of our leaders to send them to hell.

I designed a place where our people, our young people, could experience war, its chilling fear, its abomination to mankind, its so-called collateral damage, its raw power and its fruitless destruction.

I lost.