Last weekend was a fitting one to hold the Taranaki-Wanganui Soldiers Day commemoration and Freedom of the City celebrations, as New Zealand received home the first fatality in conflict of one of it’s serviceman for a decade. There is not a loyal kiwi who doesn’t feel for the O’Donnell family in their loss.
There is a famous saying that “all it takes for evil to flourish is for good [people] to do nothing.” This is the reasoning behind our forces being in Afghanistan and in more than 20 countries around the world. Thank God for men such as Tim O’Donnell who are willing to volunteer for such service. Now will come those who would call our troops home out of harms way to duties which would see them safe on home soil. Yet the engagement in Afghanistan is what our services train for. There seems little point in so training them to remain home. There is a similar analogy with armed police, which was discussed in a recent column. Here also it is salient to recall that nine police have been shot in two years here in New Zealand.
It is proper to see the media pay attention to this loss, as no sacrifice of human life should go unnoticed. Because those who serve do so on our behalf, these debates should receive profile. The fact that New Zealand forces have been so well represented and regarded in battle for over ten years without loss is a tribute to their training and proficiency. Given that our forces are involved in a war with guerrilla troops who don’t heed conventions and terms of engagement, it is fortunate there has not been a greater loss of life. American troops number 150,000 in Afghanistan and last month they lost 90. However, as was well noted by Robin Fletcher, National President RSA, the loss of a young serviceman is no less because it is one and not many, to the families and friends of that young serviceman.
The fact is that New Zealand is not immune and the terrorist acts of the Taleban and the like have on occasion cost the lives of our countrymen. We have responsibilities as a civilised and able country to give a response. To do nothing is akin to watching a beating outside a pub on our main street or a bully standing over a mate in a school yard and doing nothing. It is right to intervene – to do nothing is not an option.
War is a waste of manhood, energy, potential and resources and no civilised people should rush off to war unthinkingly or without due consideration for the costs. But there is no integrity in turning a blind eye, or using only words against those forces too drunk with power or hate to listen. The bullets and bombs they are deploying are real - killing fellow human beings usually in no position to fight back. Bullies never pick on the strong.
No officer should hand a weapon to a serviceman, civilian or otherwise, and not take responsibility for that action. No politician should order troops into battle without taking cognisance of that instruction. In the end we are all responsible because those who serve do so in our stead, and we are gratefully out of harms way, which we may not be in the future, should they refuse to go, or we choose not to send them.
