KEY POINTS:
Compulsory military training should be re-introduced for wayward youths, says the president of the 28 Maori Battalion Association.
Nolan Raihania, who was elected as president at a hui for the battalion's former servicemen in Whakatane this month, said youngsters could benefit from an army lifestyle.
"I do go along with the idea of young people going into military service, mainly for their own good," said Mr Raihania from his home in Tokomaru Bay.
Mr Raihania, 80, said the "carry-on by some of our youth these days certainly leaves a lot to be desired".
He suggested the return of compulsory military training, abolished in 1972.
"It's such a pity our young people don't have this training. It gives them a respect for military authority and teaches them respect for themselves and others."
"It taught us to keep ourselves well-groomed and present ourselves with pride."
Mr Raihania was at primary school in Muriwai, about 15km south of Gisborne, when World War II broke out in 1939.
He and his friends soaked up the tales of the 28 Maori Battalion and wanted to be a part of the action.
"We had heard all about their fighting prowess and thought it was all cowboys and Indians stuff and hoped it would last long enough for us to join," he said.
The war did last, and 16-year-old Mr Raihania, fresh from Te Aute College and well under the army's overseas service age of 21, enlisted with his friends. "My mother didn't want me to go and threatened to tell them how old I was, but I told her I would run away and never come back if she did.
"There was a group of five of us, and only one of us was the right age, but it wasn't like today where you have to fork out your driver's licence or identification," he said.
A year later Mr Raihania was with the battalion in Faenza, Italy in late 1944 where as a part of C Company he found the reality of combat quite different.
"The first thing I remember was the loud guns banging away. You couldn't tell which guns were ours and which were the Germans' - though you learned pretty quickly. You got to know the different whistling noises the bombs would make, you could tell which ones were close and those that were far away."
Mr Raihania has more than 40 grandchildren and does not want any of them to have to go to war. "But I would not have liked to have missed out on this experience overseas. There were some good times, and of course there were some really bad ones."
