when it comes to memorials and items left at it there is always the problem
of who is going to clean it up? and what do you do with the stuff?. One
cannot just leave flowers etc indefinately as they can pose a health and
safety hazard (tripping etc)as well as looking unsightly after a few days
when they have begun to rot.

The Vietnam Memorial and the Smithsonian have some sort of agreement,
everyday (every 24 hours) the items are collected from the Vietnam and sent
off to the Smithsonian and I believe everything  (flowers excepted) is kept
- if anyone out there is from the Smithsonian maybe they could confirm it.
But there is also a policy in place to keep these memorial offerings and
that is the important thing.

Here in Ottawa Canada, we recently had a "Tomb of the unknown soldier"
erected, an unknown canadian soldier of the first world war who died in
France was brought back and interned in front of our National War Memorial.
We too had spontaneous offering left on the tomb. This is also in front of
the National War Memorial where dozens of services of remembrance and honour
take place through out the year. There is a policy in place that allows all
floral tributes and wreaths to stay in place for 24hrs before they are
gathered up and tossed, as for the objects - the money that is left goes to
one of the local charities, and some (not all) of the objects are sent to us
at the Canadian War Museum. But we do not have to keep everything, it is on
an item by item basis.

Keeping of memorial tributes can leave you with headaches and nightmares you
never knew where coming your way. So I can sympathise with the Chicago
Museum for not allowing any to be left.

Carol Reid
Collections Manager, Archives
Canadian War Museum
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