Lieutenant-General Tommy Burns
4th Armoured Brigade
2nd & 5th Canadian Divisions
II Canadian Corps

Having thus confronted death, and learned that its presence does not paralyze, and having known that while fear may clutch, it does not necessarily strangle, I feel that I am a happier man. I reason (perhaps fatuously), What am I likely to experience that will be harder to bear than that which I have borne?

(Arlington B. Conway, “In Praise of War,” 1927, 391)

Born in Montreal on 17 June 1897, Eedson Louis Millard Burns graduated from the Royal Military College in 1914 and took a commission in the Canadian Engineers. He served as a staff officer in the 3rd Division in France where he was twice wounded and earned the Military Cross. In the 1920s, he worked as an instructor at RMC while continuing his own professional staff officer education. During the interwar, he wrote several articles on military science and defence issues as well as contributions to American Mercury under a pen name, “Arlington B. Conway.”

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