Palmerston-Waihemo ANZAC Service

Hon Heather Roy, Associate Minister Of Defence
Friday, April 25 2009

Speech to Palmerston-Waihemo ANZAC Service; Palmerston-Waihemo RSA; Friday, April 25 2009.

President of the Palmerston - Waihemo RSA, veterans and visitors young and old.

Good Morning.

Thank you for inviting me to speak to you today. Around the world, Kiwis and Aussies are gathering at memorials, large and small, to pay their respects to those who fought for the freedoms we now enjoy.

It is a day when we pause to reflect; to remember and to look forward with hope.

Before I continue, can I just take a 'soldier's five' on whether you are actually standing easy – feet steady and no chatting but eyes and arms free to move – or just pretending to be relaxed because the Parade Marshall said to.

I thought so!

Both my Grandfathers were involved in the First World War. I'm too young to remember the rare occasions when 'Granddad Jack' would reveal some small, fireside snippet of his First World War experiences. It was said that there was a tear in his eye as he reminisced.

Granddad Jack was a Sergeant in the Otago Mounted Rifles and I recall a photo of him, in uniform and riding breeches, standing next to his horse as he prepared for deployment in 1914.

He was trained for Gallipoli but at the last minute diverted to fierce trench warfare in France. Though he suffered, like so many others, the ravages of muddy trenches, shrapnel and gas - he believed that he was one of the lucky ones.

Some of his men said, years later, that he was a brave and good Sergeant. They recalled the time when he and the other remaining eleven men of his unit were cut off from all support in particularly fierce fighting. The twelve were reported in despatches as having held back a German advance for several days by making the battle look like a trap.

Jack Fraser, however, thought it was the end. They were fighting in a hopeless situation. Ammunition had to be stolen from enemy casualties at night to put on a show of strength next day. They had no food and had had little sleep when eventually help came. I understand that he was offered some official recognition but refused it because he said it wasn't just him who 'pulled it off'. On reflection, many years later, I heard that he felt he should have accepted the award 'for his men'.

Once, when in cold damp trenches, they got extra food rations that were not intended for their unit. Everyone was hungry and most wanted the double rations, but Jack said that was not fair. He personally delivered the extra tins of bully beef to the rightful owners. When he returned, his companions had received a direct artillery hit, with several dead and many others injured. But the battlefield has no favourites and his errand could just have easily cost him his life instead of sparing it.

Today is a special day for me. I have been attending ANZAC services for as long as I can remember. Honouring the sacrifice of others began, for me, many years ago shivering in my Brownie uniform in the chill of a Palmerston morning and a few years later my Girl Guide uniform wasn't that much warmer! Luckily, my Mother was a stickler for an Otago wool singlet.

Thinking back, several ANZAC services are particularly memorable for me. Laying a wreath as a 7th Former at East Otago High School, standing with my platoon on basic training in Waiouru in 2006, firing volleys with my 5th Battalion mates in '07 and '08 and selling poppies on the corner of Cuba Street and Manners Mall, Wellington over the last 3 years all spring instantly to mind.

However, it is a rare pleasure to be able to address my family and friends, in the town of my birth, on the day that all Kiwis call 'home'. On my first ANZAC Day as Associate Minister of Defence - coming home was not just the right choice – it was the only right choice for me.

ANZAC Day combines everything that we value - remembrance, service and family. Summing up my strongest feelings of ANZAC is the memory of being actively involved, and I encourage every New Zealander to find some way to do likewise – not just today but on the other 364 days of the year as well.

Is military action what shaped us as a nation? I think it is too early to tell. Also too early to assess is the meaning of the increased turnouts to ANZAC Day throughout the country. Are our young people coming to find out more about their families? I think there is a multitude of reasons why numbers are increasing. However, I don't see evidence of this shaping our nation. What I do see is charitable groups and service organisations struggling to find and retain willing volunteers. People are often more prepared to pay than to serve. The concept of 'what your time is worth' is king. We know, when you are walking, carrying a wounded mate…time is not king…you just put one foot in front of the other for as long as it takes to get where you are going.

But our beautiful, intelligent, talented children and grand-children are being swept along in a multimedia wave of individualism, often passing up the option of the greater good and therefore ignoring the most important lesson that we thought our forebears brought back from their wartime experience…service before self. Heroes today are sports stars and rock musicians - short performance individuals not low profile grafters and toilers; the people who keep the world going.

So there is no doubt in my mind that our greatest challenge is still ahead of us. We know that it is simply not realistic for the younger generations to learn the formative lessons of life in the same way that we did. But the oft-touted concept of military service shaping the nation is irrelevant if we don't find some means of imbuing our young people with the ethos of service. By that, I do not mean compulsion. You need only think back to your own youth to know that 'Kiwi' - 'compulsory' and 'prohibition' did not and never will sit well together.

We have to look to ourselves. We must lead by example. We must remain relevant to the young. We will not do that by living in the past; by seeking a return to the good old days. We will not draw them to us by rubbishing their music or their clothes. Neither will we do it by racism, sexism or inflexibility in our own thinking. We must ask the hard questions of ourselves. For many – this may mean a war within ourselves.

We've faced big challenges before. We can face this one. If we don't, the sacrifice of our forebears, though not forgotten, will surely be diminished.

Many of you will know that a review of New Zealand's defence has commenced. Today is not a day for politics. I just want to close, as I started – with a soldier's five – Defence Review 09 will take about a year to complete and then some decisions will be made. There are no pre-determined outcomes. Every Kiwi will have the opportunity to have their say along the way. This time next year, I hope to be able to tell you the direction of our country's defence, however, one thing won't change.

Young Kiwis have unhesitatingly put their lives on the line decade after decade. So too have our Australian neighbours and the best young people of every country in the free world. Those who have served the cause of freedom, in any way whatsoever, can look into their own hearts and draw deductions, with confidence, about what the fallen would want us to remember. Amid the chaos and discomfort, the exhaustion and the boredom – one desire rises above all others: PEACE.

And the price of peace is eternal vigilance.

Lest we forget.

ENDS

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