Kevin Arlidge: Wellington RSA president on the significance of Anzac Day

Tomorrow marks 110 years since Australian and New Zealand troops landed on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey. A total of 2709 New Zealand soldiers lost their lives - and countless more were injured. 

Memorial services will be held across the Wellington region to remember those who served in the New Zealand armed forces. 

To discuss the plans, Wellington RSA president and retired army Colonel Kevin Arlidge joined Nick Mills. 

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:07):
You're listening to the Wellington Mornings podcast with Nick Mills
from News Talks at b.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Joining us now ahead of the Anzac Day commemorations tomorrow
is Kevin ridge Ledge, President of the Wellington RSA.

Speaker 3 (00:24):
Good morning, Kevin, good morning.

Speaker 2 (00:27):
Can you tell us a little bit about yourself so
our listeners know who they're listening to and your career
and the defense force.

Speaker 3 (00:35):
Yes, certainly, yes. I'm a retired colonel from the New
Zealand Army. So I did thirty five years in the
New Zealand Army and started off in the infantry and
then moved to an intelligence so I served in Burnham,
served in Singapore for two years with the New Zealand

(00:56):
Battalion there and then I'm home into a variety of appointments.
Operational service in Angola with UNIVERM three's peacekeeping force there,
and I was involved in the latest stages of our
deployment to Bosnia when I was the military advisor on

(01:20):
the staff at the London High Commission, New Zealand London
High Commission.

Speaker 2 (01:24):
And you're currently the president of the willing An Aria.
I want to know whether you think and thank you,
by the way, thank you for all your service. I mean,
I don't know whether people thank you enough for every
time I get an opportunity to see someone in a
military uniform, I always just go out to them and
say thank you, because it's a thankless job, really, isn't it.

Speaker 3 (01:45):
Well, we're paid to do a job. The people in
the Defense force are highly motivated. As you know, it's
more a calling than a job. So yeah, I find
now that people's attitudes towards our military have changed quite
a bit. And it isn't rare for a to come

(02:06):
up to you, especially if you're wearing your medals and
thank you for your service. And certainly when we were
out on Poppy Day on the eleventh of April, people
would come up make a donation, and some of them
very very generous and again very very positive, and people
were going thanking you for your service.

Speaker 2 (02:29):
I tell the story often, but I've got to tell
you to your face that I was in a couple
of years ago, three or four years ago in Wellington,
the Cambridge by the Way, and with a group of
mates catching up from out of town, and three military
people walked in the uniform to have a bear in
the whole crowd. The whole people, every single person to
a tea and the bar stood up and I thought

(02:52):
to myself, as one of those moments, you know, one
of those life changing moments, you know, and I thought
it was fabulous. But tell us about the events fabulous
that they were showing respect, which I thought was great.
Tell us about the events in Wellington tomorrow marketing as
that day, what are we going to, what should we do,
what can we do? And what will we do?

Speaker 3 (03:13):
Okay, so I guess that the day kicks off with
the dawn service at Potio Who National War Memorial Park,
so that if you're going to march in the parade
need to form up on Tory Street at about around
five point thirty and the service will start around around

(03:33):
six o'clock and run for forty to forty five minutes.
So if you're a veteran or an ex service person,
good will. We got a few march with the rest
of the veterans, the rest of Pokier who is really
for the civilian community, And what we find is that
is always very very well attended Poka who is really

(03:56):
it gets gets bulked out. So that's at six o'clock
going through till seven o'clock and then afterwards people are
invited over to the Mount Cox School for a coffee
and an ANZAC biscuit. At nine o'clock we've got the
civic service at the senat half which is mainly a
reflaying service and there's about forty two organizations are going

(04:19):
to lay reads there so if people can't get out
of bed for the six o'clock the nine o'clock at
the SENOTLF in Central Wellington up by Parliament as an option,
and then at eleven o'clock is the more formal ANZAC
National Commemorative Service at Pokiahu and the Government will be

(04:42):
represented by the Honorable Nicholas Willis at that and the
Defense Force by Rear Admiral Matt Williams, who's the Vice
Chief of Defense Force. But we'll also have the Australian
High Commissioner there and the Turkish Ambassador. And then there
are a number of local events in Karori, Brooklyn in Macra,

(05:04):
and then in the afternoon at two thirty there's a
ceremony up at the Antiturk Memorial at Strathmore. So a
fairly full day of activities.

Speaker 2 (05:15):
And they're all people are the General public are welcome
to attend any of those.

Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yes, the general public are more than welcome to attend
any of those ceremonies to sort of celebrate and Zac Day.

Speaker 2 (05:30):
Do you think as a society we do commemorate Anzac
Day as much as we used to should do?

Speaker 3 (05:39):
I think that it's growing. The younger people seem to
be interested in what great granddad, granddad, what their fathers, uncles,
you know, their other relations have done in relation to
the conflicts. So all our First World War and just
about all of our Second World War veterans have gone,

(06:01):
the Korean War veterans almost almost gone, so now into
the Vietnam veterans in Malaya, Borneo. But then past there,
we've got all the peacekeeping missions that were involved in
posts of nineteen ninety and for example East Team Or
we had five thousand service personnel involved in these Team

(06:26):
or and I think those sorts of operations haven't got
a very high profile. But I think that's probably a
challenge for the RSA is how we just reorientate a bit. Well,
we remember what happened at Pallipoli, and we remember the
First and Second World War, there are all these other

(06:46):
conflicts that New Zealanders served in which now need to
be acknowledged.

Speaker 2 (06:51):
Is that what Anzac Day is? Because you see, I
have conflicting sort of opinions. So people say it's all
about Gallipoli, and it's all about that, and then for
me personally, I think it's all about anyone who's gone
to war.

Speaker 3 (07:05):
Yes, I think you're exactly right. It's anybody who's served overseas.
You know, you don't tend to send the military to
places that are nice and where everything's wonderful, and so
they come with their challenges and even the peacekeeping operations
we're finding now we've got a lot of psychological casualties

(07:28):
from the experiences that people have had. And I think
the other thing we need to acknowledge is the people
who stayed behind, you know, who kept the country going,
who kept the families going, the children, you know, they
made a sacrifice as well.

Speaker 2 (07:47):
Kevin, thank you for coming on and I'm just trying
to use the right word to say that. For tomorrow,
I hope that it goes really really well for you.
In the commemorations are very successful and we get huge
crowds and you're shown you and your your comrades are

(08:09):
shown the respect that's due to them for the ultimate
sacrifice that they've paid, and you know, ultimate sacrifices, taking
the risk to go to war, taking the risk involved
and actually protecting us. So, Kevin, I appreciate you coming
on the show and all the best for tomorrow.

Speaker 3 (08:25):
It's all the best for you too, and all the
best for your listeners.

Speaker 2 (08:28):
Thank you very much. That's Kevin Rage.

Speaker 1 (08:31):
For more from Wellington Mornings with Nick Mills, listen live
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