An 85-year-old veteran beaten and seriously injured in a Manukau
city carpark will be front and centre at Dawn Service on Saturday morning, weather permitting.
Papatoetoe pensioner Eric Brady usually attends early services at Manukau, "but the way the weather forecast is going, it doesn't look like I will be there."
He will still head into Auckland City for the larger, late-morning parade and ceremony _ not that he is a big fan of the full-scale Anzac Day productions.
"The actual parade and honouring things, I don't go on. I go with my own private thoughts.
Mr Brady was one of five Kiwis who served with 57 Squadron, flying Lancaster bombers - later Lincolns - on missions from their Lincolnshire base.
April 25 is a date on which he remembers the young men with whom he trained in Canada, then later fought with in Europe.
"I've got my own thoughts on Anzac Day. Several people that I knew and trained with bought it in one way or another, and I have my own thoughts and I think of them."
It has been a tough past few months for Mr Brady since he was dragged from the driver's seat of his car and set upon as he left the Papatoetoe RSA in February.
He received severe bruising and had his jaw broken in two places, in an attack caught on security camera.
More than two months on, Mr Brady is back at home, but still feeling only "moderately alright".
"I have down days and up days. I still have no feeling in the lower chin."
His chin has four plates in it - "two on each side".
He will have to wait for x-rays in May to find out whether injuries to his jaw and eye socket have healed naturally.
An 18-year-old Pt England man _ who has name suppression _ is in custody charged with attacking Mr Brady.
Not that Mr Brady is worrying about what will happen to his alleged attacker, or losing sleep at the prospect of having to give evidence some time in the future.
"To me, it doesn't matter how long it takes, because he is rotting in jail in any case."
