August 18, 2020
Subdued commemoration of Vietnam Veterans Day
This year’s Vietnam Veterans Day has been scaled back because of the COVID-19 restrictions.
Instead of a commemorative services, an Act of Remembrance was held this morning at the Tomb of the Unknown Warrior at Pukeahu National War Memorial Park in Wellington.
Broadcaster Hemana Waaka, who was one of the more than 3,000 New Zealand military personnel who served in Vietnam between 1964 and 1972, says veterans are disappointed they are unable to hold a planned service on Sunday at the memorial wall in the Manukau Cemetery.
A reunion of veterans of the Malaya Emergency planned for Auckland next month has also been cancelled.
He says the pull out, which was announced this day in 1971 by then-prime minister Keith Holyoake, was inevitable.
"There was no point in staying there given the Americans were overrun, they were forced to go and we were only there under the ANZUS treaty. Ours was not to reason why, ours was to do and not question that decision made at that political level. We signed on the dotted line for god, king and country so that was it," Mr Waaka says.
Thirty-nine New Zealanders including two civilians lost their lives in Vietnam, and more were wounded or suffered the effects of toxins such as Agent Orange
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