Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: All servicepeople have done NZ proud

Brigadier Ian Thorpe, CBE, delivers an address. Rotorua's Anzac Day parade and civic memorial service. Photo / Ben Fraser

Three years ago I attended an Anzac Day memorial service in Seattle in the USA.

It was arranged and attended by Australians and New Zealanders living in that city. It was a short service with only one speaker, a retired Australian Navy commander. He spoke of the valiant fighting displayed by Australian and New Zealand soldiers at Gallipoli.

Just as the service was about to finish a man sitting at the back asked if he could speak.

He and his brother were from Turkey but had moved to the USA. He said they had family members who died fighting at Gallipoli. They gave their lives in an attempt to stop the foreign invaders.

There was some uncomfortable squirming in seats but no one interrupted him. He finished by saying governments have a lot to answer for.

They stayed for refreshments but were left sitting on their own. I went over and introduced myself. They had cousins in Wellington and hoped to visit New Zealand one day.

They asked if members of the Turkish community were invited to Anzac Day services in New Zealand. I said our Anzac services were open to the public so anyone could attend.

Would Turkish people be welcome? I said they would be. I said we knew there were casualties on both sides in war. I saw no reason why both sides couldn't remember and grieve together.

He went on about governments that decide to send soldiers off to war. The soldiers don't decide for themselves. They just go and do what's expected of them. He's right of course.

I enjoyed the address at this year's Anzac Day service by Brigadier General (Rtd) Ian Thorpe. He gave an emotional speech. From the heart. And when you tell stories those listening can understand better what a soldier experiences.

But it wasn't just the two stories he recounted that I found thought provoking, it was where he had served. Southeast Asia, Malaya, Vietnam, East Timor.

I had cousins and brothers-in-law in the New Zealand Army and Royal New Zealand Air Force who served in those countries too.

As Thorpe alluded, these wars were sometimes downplayed, "just small ones". I would say when you've got bullets whizzing past your head, fired by an unseen enemy in a jungle hiding place, that makes a war pretty damn real. Big or small.

I still find it hard to believe how some of our soldiers were treated when they returned home from fighting in Southeast Asia. In some instances they were shunned by World War I and II veterans. The RSA didn't help matters much either by not ensuring their clubs were open and welcoming to these war veterans.

My cousins told me it was in the RSAs where they encountered the most service discrimination. As if jungle warfare wasn't real warfare. I know Vietnam veterans were especially badly treated. And I do blame our government at the time for that.

It was an unpopular war that New Zealand committed troops to, alongside the USA. The unpopularity of the war was keenly felt by our Vietnam veterans when they returned home. No parade home-coming for them. Many felt their contribution had not been recognised.

The apology from Helen Clarke's Labour Government for their shabby treatment, when it finally came in 2008, was too late for many.

Thorpe is a New Zealand soldier who experienced and fought in a number of wars that our government committed us to.

He commanded hundreds of troops and would have brought out the best in them. In wars, big and small, it is leaders like Thorpe we look to, rely on, to bring our serving family members home safely.

Governments might decide who we are going to war against but ultimately it is the servicepeople who do us proud, not the other way around.

Merepeka Raukawa-Tait is a Rotorua district councillor, Lakes District Health Board member and chairs the North Island Whanau Ora Commissioning Agency. She writes, speaks and broadcasts to thwart political correctness.