Outragious – NZ's National Monument, the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, Vandalised!

Hmm, there’s a case in NZ right now where an off duty policeman gave somone a clip on the ear for parking in a disabled car park, and killed the guy. He didn’t realise the young bloke had been seroisly ill and had just got out of hospital. The knock to his head banged him back in the seat and caused injuries that killed him, so his family and lawyer say. Shame, the officer was in the wrong and will probably go down for it.

What are the Skateboarder’s parents doing, I wonder. Its taken some years but locally they have set up a skateboarding park and a club and although it hasnt solved the problem it has certainly reduced it. If they catch them community service in an Old Servicemans Home would be a good idea but here they would just be told to be good boys.
If they find drunk 14 year olds the police can do nothing except take them home where there drunken parents find it all a laugh!! Gone are the days when a boy would get a clip on the ear from a policeman.

A bloody disgrace>>>

Dave – that’s a damn shame. Skateboarders should be shot on sight, in my opinion! 😉

Joking aside, I can honestly say that, in the ****hole town that I live in, the ONE thing that hasn’t been vandalised (to the best of my knowledge, anyway) is the war memorial in the local public park. That strikes me as something of a minor miracle, considering that the kids’ play area slightly away from it has been drawn upon almost as soon as building work has finished on it – all three times!!

I was just wondering, though, what about the BofB memorial at Capel La Ferne? Does that have any kind of security? I have often wondered that, especially since the FSM Spitfire and Hurricane were put in place (tempting targets for arsonists, probably).

Thanks for that Robert – that was a great press release. I shall never forget the ceremony when he was buried, definately an amazingly emotional national event, and the biggest state funeral in New Zealand for decades. It’s a shame this vandalism has happened before ANZAC Day, they don’t think it’ll be fixed on time. The national ceremony is always televised from that War Memorial.

I think – now that my rage has calmed a little – this vandalism is probably a case of a couple of stupid kids who were not maliciously going out of there way to desicrate the tomb for any political reason or whatever, but simply mindlessly took no time to stop and think about what they were doing and inadvertantly caused the damage. It seems it took place at night so they may not have even realised their skateboard wheels were doing such damage. I hope they might come forward and admit their guilt.

Then again, perhaps they do lack education, common-sense, respect – a lot of kids do these days and it is the system that is failing them.

We learned about WWII at high school (1984-88), plus a little about WWI, Vietnam and other areas of history too (I never took a specific history class either then). But I hear schools don’t teach much of this nowadays because they don’t think it gets people jobs – and I guess because we have a PC government who only wan to talk about the wrongs white man did to the Maoris – well I can assure that the history classes at uni are brimming with people, so they do want to learn about it. It is our heritage and all kids should be taight that, not just a glazed over, revised history that we see so much of today.

I came up with the idea to do a sister-site to my website which would give the basics of what Cambridge was like in World War Two. It would refer to my exisiting Air Force site, but also cover Cambridge people who were in the NZ Army, Royal NZ Navy and RN (we had six men on Achilles at the River plate, one was killed!), and the girls who joined the Army Nursing Corps. It would also cover our Home Guard Battallion, and other Home Front organisations like the EPS, WWSA, VAD’s, WVS, NPC, etc. The site would also cover life in the town from transport to shops and industry to rationing to the various military camps that were in the town – and much more. I was thinking also of having three sections that gave a hypertetical day in the life of people, a man, a lady and a child, in the town – diary style.

My idea was, if I put it together and presented it to the schools to use as a text so the kids in the many schools of the district can use it, then they could not only get an idea of the war in general and sacrifices made, but also relate it back to their very own town.

Anyway, I spoke to Eris Parker who is curator of the local museum to see what she thought. Eris said she had previously come up with a similar idea, but in book/school project form rather than online, and she’d taken this idea to the local high schools on several different occasions. The history teachers apparently brimmed with enthusiasm and always said they’d get back to her so they could do it and work it into the curriculum, and she’s never heard back from any of them.

This disheartened me a little. I’m not sure I will bother now. What do you guys think – should I do it? Like the RNZAF site, it’d be a labour of love but very time consuming. But there are so many important local stories to tell and we need the next generation to learn as much as our own, otherwise we might as well not bother recording it. So I’d need support from the schools, an assurance they’d use it.

Another problem is I’d have a little difficulty in writing it specifically for school class use and would need input from a teacher to help with the language of teaching, but if they can’t be arsed then why should I bother. (which is what Eris decided, hence the reason she hasn’t done it).

Is it worth pursuing?

This is what happens when schools dont teach people about WW! and WW2 and concentrate on “social history”. Ok people died when working in Mills and Mining but the “general public” dont really understands how many young men died particularly from New Zealand, Canada and Australia. In Scotland villages lost 1/4 of their youngsters. I also have seen many Orcadians who had emigrated to Canada to find work died in Canadian Regiments. My local church still has the memorials proudly in place (although they were encouraged to move them)
I can do no better than to quote from the New Zealand press Release from last year

Address at Memorial Service for Unknown Warrior
We are here today to honour a warrior who has lain for close to 90 years in foreign soil, and who has now been called back to serve his country once more.

New Zealand has waited a long time for this day. It is over eighty years since Prime Minister William Massey first explored the idea of a New Zealand Tomb of the Unknown Warrior, in the aftermath of our catastrophic losses in World War One. It is, perhaps, a mark of the journey we have taken as a nation since then that we are finally welcoming home our own Unknown Warrior.

In so doing we are forging an enduring link with all New Zealand’s war dead who lie overseas.

Some 250,000 New Zealanders have served overseas in the armed forces. More than 30,000 lost their lives in the wars of the last century; 9000 of them have no known grave. By gathering to commemorate this one soldier, we pay tribute to all who have gone to war, and either come back irrevocably changed, or did not come home.

It is sobering indeed to think of the impact war has had on New Zealand families. The man who lies here was one of over 18,000 New Zealanders who died in World War One. Given that our population was less than a million at the time, very few families would have been unaffected.

Subsequent wars including World War Two have taken nearly 12,000 more New Zealand lives.

These are daunting figures. But history is not only in the figures, or even in the major events, the political decisions, the strategies or the battles. To glimpse the full story, we need to look into history’s microcosm. We can imagine the sheer terror of being in combat, the raw yearning for home and loved ones, and the profound courage of going on and on with each moment reducing the likelihood of ever seeing loved ones again.

Of the many individual tragedies of war, a few are captured on record. One is the story of a mother in Takaka. In 1917, recently widowed, she received three separate telegrams. From these she learned that her three sons who had gone to war had all been killed within the space of eight days at Passchendaele. Their bodies were never recovered, so she could take no comfort even in the thought that after death her sons were cared for in any way.

Few of us nowadays can begin to imagine how that must have felt. But such stories serve to remind us that war is about living the unthinkable, enduring the unendurable. They remind us that these events had an impact not only on those who served, but also on their families and on the communities of which they were once a part.

Nothing can ever fully do justice to even one life lost in war time. But as of today what we can do is continue to commemorate and honour the ultimate sacrifice of New Zealand’s servicemen and women. We can also hope that visiting the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior will be a positive, and even a healing, experience for many.

This is particularly important in a country as physically isolated as ours. Our war dead are not forgotten, but they are far away. Distance can prevent even those whose loved ones have known graves from ever visiting the burial site. So the concept behind the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior is to provide a place where people can mourn their loved ones and where others can come to pay their respects.

While we are bringing back one man who died in war, we know that those who remain on foreign soil are being cared for by the Commonwealth War Graves Commission and its agents. One cannot go to a Commonwealth war cemetery where our people are buried without being deeply moved – both by the visible evidence of New Zealand’s losses, and also by the care which is taken to tend to the graves and to bring beauty and serenity to the surroundings. The Commonwealth War Graves Commission and its worldwide task embody the spirit of co-operation, peace, and healing.

In many ways we seem far removed now from times of war. For young people, New Zealand’s participation in large-scale war is something which happened to previous generations. Yet, interest in commemorating those who never returned is increasing. Down through the generations people want to know what happened to their lost relatives. They seek out their graves in far away places if they can, and they come to ANZAC Day as part of ensuring that the fallen are never forgotten.

As well, there is a broader interest in understanding the part which history, including war history, has played in shaping the country we are today and the role we play in the international community. Part of our maturing sense of national identity is the realisation that being New Zealanders is not just about living the best lives we can in the present. It is about incorporating in our nation’s memory all that which has led us to where we are today, along with a sense of responsibility to nurture those values for the generations which will follow us.

In being chosen to represent more than 30,000 others who died in the service of our country, the Unknown Warrior has enormous symbolism for New Zealand. All we know of him is that he died on the Western Front, and that he was one of us. We are the future generations for whom he lost his life. In a very real sense he is one of the foundations of today’s society.

In participating in commemorative events and seeking to visit the graves of their forebears, New Zealanders are exploring such personal sacrifices – those of ordinary New Zealanders who did not have the right to decide the course of events, but who did their duty according to the imperatives of their time. In honouring their sacrifice, we are sustaining a deep and lasting respect for our war dead.

This is not just an occasion of sorrow, but also an opportunity to pay tribute to our New Zealand servicemen and women who lost their lives serving our nation. We acknowledge that they gave their lives in our country’s service, and that all of us today, in some sense, owe them the lives we now lead.

We all hope that there will never be another world situation on the scale of the wars of the last century. But New Zealand servicemen and women continue to go abroad to places of conflict, putting their lives in jeopardy. They serve our country with courage and dedication as they work to bring peace to troubled places. They are highly regarded worldwide.

Armistice Day is about reconciliation and the beginning of healing. It is a day on which to remember that, while the world of the new millennium continues to present enormously taxing problems, it is the spirit of peace and resolution which drives our interactions in the international arena.

The Tomb of the Unknown Warrior symbolises of the very personal tragedies New Zealanders have endured in our engagement with wars overseas. Let it also be a testimony of pride in New Zealand’s contribution; a reminder of the heroism of our people; and a symbol of our ongoing commitment to a more harmonious and peaceful world.

Shooting’s too good for them.

I would say hang the *******s up by thier ******** but they obviously dont have any.

T**ts. Bring back National Service I say … give these idiots some idea of what our Armed Forces did to give them their freedom.

It’s thought it was ruddy teenaged skateboarders aparently, using the tomb as a ramp to do stunts! What a disgrace.

On the TV3 news they said in the past four months people have walked over the tomb and spilled drinks on it! The scratches and gouges are long and deep, and definately look like skateboard damage.

Here’s an online report.
http://tvnz.co.nz/view/news_national_story_skin/483208%3fformat=html

I just heard on the radio news that they are now considering security cameras for the site – so sadly they didn’t have them before, more is the pity (though I wish such a sacred site did not need security cameras). Also they are now considering creating concrete barriers that can be put in place after hours so no-one cn get near it. Again, one idiot spoils it for the rest of us.

Dave
I’m very sorry to hear this.
So you get it in New Zealand too. I hope they catch them soon.
Andy.

ok how about having the individuals do community service at a veterans hospital!? Yes thats right caring for them!

Oh man, you are kidding !!!!!

Where’s my .303 …….. 😡

TNZ

There is no punishment big enough for idiots like this!!!