The Napier siege of May 2009 is one of those dramatic news events many of us commit to memory.
Like the Christchurch earthquake of February 22, 2011, the siege was the kind of event so extreme that we recall what we were doing when we first heard about it.
Strangely, or so
it seemed to me at the time, I was in Italy when the streets of suburban Napier erupted in the kind of violence and police and military response which seemed such a discordant note in a seaside idyll.
While I was not editor of Hawke's Bay Today at that time, I worked on the newspaper's pages most days. But not that day. That day I watched the tragic, almost surreal events of the siege unfold from the other side of the world via the internet.
As the siege went on, it was clear that there had not only been loss of life but also extreme bravery on the part of Hawke's Bay individuals.
That courage was recognised yesterday at a special ceremony at Government House in which nine police officers, a St John paramedic and three civilians were honoured for their actions.
They all put themselves in danger to assist wounded police officers, Senior Constables Grant Diver and Bruce Miller, shot by gunman Jan Molenaar.
The police officers' boss, Eastern District Commander Superintendent Sam Hoyle, says they felt "very humbled and honoured" to receive their awards from the Governor General.
In fact, it is we, the public of Hawke's Bay, who are humbled and honoured to have such selfless and courageous people in our community.
Today, bravery honours also go to Hawke's Bay policeman Mike O'Leary and his son, Conor, who helped pull survivors from a fiery crash near Taupo in 2009, while Dannevirke's Grant Exeter was awarded for helping a man escape from a car which rolled into a flooded river.
