KAPAI: Never a good war - or a bad peace

Sitting up on the side of Mt Drury watching the Anzac Parade last Friday morning made me ask myself the question. War _ what is it good for?
If I could ask my father, Ammunitions Driver _ Herbert Lindsay Wilson, of the 2nd Ammunitions Company Number 4 platoon this question I am sure his answer would be - ``absolutely nothing'.
Our father, like a lot of our fathers, brothers, koros and cousins, came back from war with a silent sadness that stayed with them for the rest of their lives.
Our father, like a lot of returned servicemen, wouldn't or couldn't talk about the war because it was just too painful. Dad and his mates were still boys when they went to war.
Some were only 16, 17 and 18, sent off to a foreign land to fight for a cause they knew bugger-all about.
Sent off to fight in a war _ that like all wars are founded by greed, land or religion.
It may have been exciting when they left aboard the Aquatania _ but the laughing soon stopped when the ugly face of war tattooed a permanent nightmare that no amount of gin could ever erase.
As one war vet said, Gallipoli was a bastard of a place. I never understood what we were fighting for. All I could think of was that I never wanted to go back to the bloody place ever.
And just like the two statue soldiers on the Anzac Bridge in Sydney the Aussie Digger and his Kiwi mate were brothers in arms forever.
Australia fed 330,000 men into the mincer of World War 1. Sixty thousand never came home and the 213,000 who did, returned home wounded either in body or mind. And our Kiwis boys fared no better. Out of 10,000 troops that left Aotearoa to fight in Gallipoli, 3000 died there and 5000 were wounded.
The national average was 1 in 17 New Zealand citizens who were either killed or injured in World War 1.
And that was just the first one.
Imagine 1 in 17 people you know today in Tauranga being a casualty of a war waged on the other side of the world.
It would be like walking down our small Te Puna Street and wondering where 10 of our whanau had gone.
Fine young Maori men and their Caucasian mates carted off to an almost certain death with no idea what they were in for.
War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
We make war that we may live in peace yet there never was a good war or a bad peace.
In peace the sons bury their fathers but in war the fathers bury their sons. The direct use of force is such a poor solution to solve any problem, be it by a small child or a large nation.
Can anything be more senseless than a man trained to kill another in cold blood that he has no quarrel with? No wonder my dear Dad came home disillusioned with life. The bullet wound in his shoulder was easy to recover from but the wound to his wairua (spirit) scarred him with a sadness that his eyes could never hide.
War, what is it good for? Absolutely nothing.
But what would I know about war?
Absolutely nothing.
All I know about is Pai marire (peace). When will our consciences grow so tender that we will act to prevent human misery rather than avenge it?
War does not determine who is right but only who is left and the rest are left lying in the battlefields of a foreign whenua (land) as they are in urupa (cemeteries) and wahi tapu (sacred sites) dotted across our own Gate Pa Gallipoli.
All from wars started for the same reasons (greed, land and religion.)
If we do not put an end to violence and war then violence and war will put an end to us _ it's as simple as that.
Where have all the flowers gone, long time passing Where have all the flowers gone, long time ago Where have all the flowers gone, gone to graveyards everyone When will they ever learn _ when will we ever learn?
Pai marire