Two grieving families watched from a dimly-lit runway as the bodies of Lance Corporals Pralli Durrer and Rory Malone arrived home to New Zealand.
The pair, their caskets each covered in a New Zealand flag, flowers, their hat and a single framed photo, were carried off a United States Air Force C-17 in Christchurch late last night.
It was the first time their families could be reunited with the men, who were killed in a gun battle in Afghanistan at the weekend.
The memorial for Afghanistan veteran Lance Corporal Rory Malone will proceed after initial misunderstandings.
Simon Strombom of the Remembrance Army clarified Malone’s gravesite was not a memorial, allowing plans to continue.
The plaque will be installed at Riverhead War Memorial Park, with support from Veterans Affairs.
Just as it appeared red tape would tie the organising NZ Remembrance Army up in knots, it emerged the potential roadblock was all just a big misunderstanding.
Or two.
Fellow Afghanistan veteran Simon Strombom, who founded the Remembrance Army, welcomed the outcome, saying: “Any person who died for their country should be afforded recognition on a public monument.”
Lance Corporal Rory Malone died in action in Afghanistan in August 2012.
And that plan will now go ahead for Malone, killed aged 26 in 2012 during what became known as the Battle of Baghak.
Malone was posthumously awarded the NZ Gallantry Medal for his actions during the ambush attack, which saw him drag his wounded commanding officer to safety. Lance Corporal Pralli Durrer was also killed in the fighting.
The plan to recognise Malone became complicated after an Auckland Council worker was told by Veterans’ Affairs that Malone already had a memorial at the Manukau Memorial Gardens.
The council officer told Strombom: “Given this new information, a second plaque at Riverhead may not be appropriate.”
Strombom knew this was wrong - the “memorial” at the Manukau Memorial Gardens was actually Malone’s gravesite. He knew this because the Remembrance Army counted that gravesite among the nearly 230,000 it has helped restore in the decade it has been operating.
But for council, which manages the gardens, it created the prospect of two memorials and engaged a bureaucratic process that appeared to require investigation by council staff and sign-off from the Rodney Local Board.
Not only that, but the planned “memorial” meant different things to council and the Remembrance Army. To council, it appeared to describe a war memorial, whereas the Remembrance Army’s plan was simply to place a plaque about the size of a school ruler on an existing memorial.
The Herald revealed the brewing row last weekend, which featured the Rodney board chairman Brent Bailey casting doubt on the chances the memorial and ceremony — planned for April 12 — would go ahead.
There was little chance it would be voted on by the board, Bailey said, with only one meeting left before the planned ceremony and a long-term plan to deal with.
A memorial would need to be researched and a report produced for board members. He said: “It’s a public space and there are protocols and rules.”
As it turned out, once the misunderstandings were untangled, the protocols and rules said Malone did not have a memorial — his grave did not tick that box — and the process for including a plaque on an existing memorial didn’t need anyone to vote for it.
Veterans Affairs acting chief Alex Brunt was quick to clarify once the misunderstanding emerged and confirmed there was not a memorial as such for Malone.
He also threw Veterans Affairs support behind the project.
Strombom, with input from the Auckland RSA, ironed out the misunderstanding, clearing the way for the April 12 event. Malone’s family will attend, along with Minister for Veterans Chris Penk.
A still from video taken during the Battle of Baghak.
The plaque recognising Malone’s service and his family’s loss would sit alongside those commemorating other veterans on a memorial at the grounds where he played rugby as a boy.
Auckland Council head of specialist operations parks and community facilities Martin van Jaarsveld said it was working with “the RSA to find an appropriate location to install a plaque for Rory Malone” at the Riverhead War Memorial Park.
For Strombom, it felt like another case of having to push too hard to get recognition for veterans.
“It shouldn’t take years (since Malone died) and a fight with the council to get a memorial to someone who died for their country.
“They said they did their due diligence but that due diligence was not talking to veterans.”
Strombom said the changing role of the RSA and the large number of smaller veterans groups that had emerged — largely involving contemporary veterans — meant that the “veteran’s voice” of old was not quite so strident.
But it remained an important voice that needed to be heard, he said.
The Remembrance Army launched seven years ago with a mission to locate, restore and research every service grave in the country. It has since organised 60 regional teams that have restored more than 200,000 war graves.
David Fisher is based in Northland and has worked as a journalist for more than 30 years, winning multiple journalism awards and being selected as one of a small number of Wolfson Press Fellows to Wolfson College, Cambridge. He joined the Herald in 2004.
Sign up to The Daily H, a free newsletter curated by our editors and delivered straight to your inbox every weekday.
