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New Zealanders are attending Anzac Day services in ever-increasing numbers because they are adopting a more positive attitude to what it means, says the chief executive of the Returned Services Association.
Tens of thousands of New Zealanders, young and old, attended Anzac Day dawn services throughout the country today to remember fallen ancestors and to honour veterans who had returned.
People attending the ceremonies were asked to remember both those who landed at Gallipoli, Turkey on April 25, 1915, and those who had fought for New Zealand in wars right from the Boer War in South Africa in 1899 through to the Afghanistan conflict today.
An estimated 10,000 were at services in Christchurch and Wellington, and similar if not greater numbers of people attended the main Auckland ceremony.
The numbers attending Anzac Day services have been on the rise since the 1980s and they have increasingly been younger audiences.
RSA chief executive Stephen Clarke said those attending were not just commemorating the loss of New Zealanders in overseas wars but celebrating the living war veterans and what it meant to be a New Zealander
"It's great for our World War 2 RSA members that in the autumn years of their lives they get this recognition from the New Zealand public," Dr Clarke told NZPA.
"I always think the litmus test is that they're applauded on and off the Anzac Day parades. In decades gone by it was like a funeral procession, so we stuck our hands in our pockets and it was very solemn.
"This moves it slightly closer to the Australian observance, which has always been a little bit more celebratory."
Dr Clarke said much of the resurgence had been due to younger people who had returned after having their overseas experience, an experience much different from those who went to war in earlier years.
"Of course, when they're overseas they've got the opportunity to visit places like Gallipoli or the Western Front," he said.
"Over the last 30 years the whole OE generation have had the opportunity to see those spots that have been such a central part of our history, and when they come back, often what they're doing is remembering the time that they're actually at that site.
"It's like they're new Anzacs and creating their own remembrance."
- NZPA
