Sad homecoming for loyal son

By PETER CALDER

In the end, the piece of paper wasn't needed. It trembled in Charlie Manning's hand as he read, his voice faint and wavering as he laboured through the first of a few sentences he had prepared for the occasion because he didn't think he'd be up to answering questions. But he only got as far as "the only people we blame for Leonard's death are the people who shot him." His hand dropped to his side and the paper remained unread as his wife, Linda, took over.

The small lounge outside the brightly lit duty free store at Hamilton Airport made an incongruous backdrop as Private Leonard Manning's family gathered to welcome home his mortal remains. The parents of the first New Zealand soldier killed by enemy fire since the war in Vietnam faced the cameras alongside Leonard's 22-year-old sister, Laura Rees, and her husband, Michael.

Mrs Manning thanked the Army, her friends and relatives and "people all over the country" for the care they had shown since the news of Leonard's death reached his sleeping homeland early on Tuesday morning.

"Your care is getting us through this," she said, "and we want you to know that."

In a voice weary but clear, she spoke slowly and tenderly of the son who had dressed in camouflage gear since he was three but had, as a soldier, always accepted the possibility that he could be injured or killed.

"Every soldier knows that. Our son willingly gave his life not only for his mates, but also for people there that he didn't even know. There is no greater love than what he has shown.

"We've always been proud of our boy, but today the whole country can be proud of Leonard Manning.

"They may have taken him physically from us but he is now in the safest hands of all. We have him in our hearts - and they can't touch him."

She welcomed the Army's announcement that he would be given a funeral with full military honours.

"It's the opportunity for the Army to farewell their son," she said. "He is their son too."

Even as she spoke, the fat-bellied C130 Hercules bearing her son's coffin cut through the muddy clouds to the north, touched down 10 minutes ahead of schedule and taxied to the terminal. Chaplain Class 3 Ra Koia, the black robe over his khakis swirling in the sharp wind and a red Bible clutched to his chest, accompanied the small family group across the tarmac towards the two soldiers standing at ramrod attention at the foot of the steps. Dwarfed by the aircraft's hulk, they climbed into the cavernous interior to be alone for a while with the man they had loved.

It was a long time before they emerged, but it cannot have seemed long enough. After 20 minutes the back ramp was lowered and the bearer party emerged, eight of Leonard Manning's military mates, in black armbands and white gloves, holding his burnished, flag-draped coffin aloft as they brought him onto home soil at last.

They made the long walk in foot-sliding military slow-march across the tarmac to the maroon hearse. Their commander marched behind, his sword clasped to his trouser seam, his pace stick rigidly horizontal under his arm.

His duty done, he was the last of the soldiers to leave the hearse, his about-turn ceremonially high-kneed, before he marched off and left the cluster of civilians in the huddle of their grief.

The sun broke bravely through the clouds on the western horizon as Leonard Manning's civilian family exchanged words and tears. The clutter of their gathering, in stark contrast to the military precision of what had gone before, was a reminder that the dead man leaves two bereaved families.