Merepeka Raukawa-Tait: Kiwi soldiers prepared to help

Recently I read there were 27 wars taking place at this very moment throughout the world. They are not on the scale of the last two world wars, of course, but people are killing other people just the same. I sometimes wonder if they can still remember what they're fighting for.

Are the reasons so far back in time that now it's "just what we've always done, and these are the people we've always hated". It appears the more things change the more they stay the same.

My father, a Pakeha, and his brother Douglas fought overseas in World War II. Douglas never made it back home. My mother's brother Herbert, a member of the 28th Maori Battalion, died fighting overseas as well.

My father was a young man when he left New Zealand and was still, in terms of years, a young man when he returned. But war can age and injure the mind as well as the body.

I saw this first hand not only in my father but his war-time mates as well. That's why I have always hated wars. In the extreme it can take otherwise good men in peacetime and turn them into monsters on the killing fields.

My father never spoke of his time fighting overseas.

He never went to an Anzac parade or watched a war film. I think he just tried to forget what he saw and had to do to survive.

There was no counselling for solders when they returned home after the war. They were just told to "get on with it lads".

Post-traumatic war syndrome (if that's its name) was still not well understood, so I suspect many men must have suffered badly from having no one to talk to about their time spent in the trenches and what they endured. Talking about those experiences, particularly if you were still suffering the effects, would not have been viewed in a good light. "Grown men don't cry" and all that nonsense.

Today debriefings for our soldiers serving overseas start even as they prepare to leave the combat zone.

And families are given support, too, in preparing for the return of their serving family member.

At least we have learned from past experiences and been prepared to do things differently to ease the transition back to "normal" life.

I did catch some of the TV coverage this week of last Saturday's gathering in Wellington of the remaining members of the 28th Maori Battalion. Their numbers are now so small that they made the decision to end their official association.

The association requires an annual general meeting and there are other roles and responsibilities that require attention.

These have just become too onerous for the small number of men able to attend the annual meeting.

Apparently it was both an emotional and happy event. Men who fight together have some special bond. They are prepared to fight to the end knowing that the man beside them is committed to doing the same.

Do what you have to do but look out for your mates at the same time.

Many heroes are born on the battlefields and then they come home and go back to being the "quiet, unassuming man from next door".

I have always felt a little uncomfortable, though, with what I call the "hero worshipping" of the 28th Maori Battalion. Unquestionably these men were brave, strong and true to the cause they were fighting for. They gave as much as they could, and then some.

They were feared on the battlefield and their courage under fire was legendary. But my father put it in context when I was reading an article one day on the exploits of the Maori Battalion.

As a young girl I was impressed, of course, and commented that "they must have been awesome, Dad". My father looked up from his own newspaper and said quietly "we all did our bit Mary", and went back to his reading. Nothing further was said. I think he was right.

Every soldier who left New Zealand to fight in World War II went prepared to do their bit. They fought hard and many hundreds died far from home. They were brave pakeha and Maori soldiers.

My respect is shared equally between them. Neither is more deserving than the other in my eyes.