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Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1949

SERVICES ASSOCIATIONS

On Wednesday, according to today’s news, a group of home servicemen met at Whakatane and resolved to try to revive interest in their Association here. They are to be commended on the effort.

There is every reason for this country as a whole and ex-ser-vice people in particular, to be grateful for the work done by the services associations. Though they have had their differences of opinion, it is undeniable that much constructive thought and action has been started and carried op by the R.S.A. and the 2 N.Z.E.F, Association. In other centres, much the same can be raid of the Home Servicemen’s Association, which has sought, smce its inception, to co-operate, fully with the other services organisations on any matters of common interest.

Here, it seems, the thing started off with a fanfare of trumpets and faded miserably into a mouselike squeak. The few members who have adhered to it and held a nucleus of its organisation together right through claim that was not, through lack of effort on the part of the officers but that they, as so often is the case, got little real backing from the rank and file.

This time, they have resolved it will be different. There is going to be a sincere effort to find the cause of the apathy and to remove it.

Such a resolve is laudable indeed.

And it is to be hoped that the Association, when revived, will find itself able to work in the closest possible co-operation with the local branches of the R.S.A. and the 2 N.Z.E.F. Association for the interests of all ex-service people and of New Zealand.

Few organisations have greater opportunities for constructive community service than these and, welded together by their common interests, they should be able to make worthwhile contributions of valuable opinion towards the solving of almost any problem, local or national.

Right after the war it was a fashion, almost a necessitv, for a man of military age to be wearing the badge of one or other of the Associations. Naturally, chief pride was taken in the wearing of an R.S.A. or 2 N.Z.E.F. badge. In many cases the Home Serviceman regarded his own badge as only a “second best” and wished heartily it could have been one of the others. He was just another man who had done what he was told when his country needed him, and he would have shared the greater burden just as willingly had it fallen to his lot.

.Still, in many cases, the fact he could not wear the badge he longed to have had the chance

to earn gave him an inferiority complex about his own organisation, which he regarded perhaps as a shadow of the “real thing”, like he regarded his army service as a shadow of the real thing. Nothing could be more wrong. The Home Services Association, like any of the other ex-service organisations, can be rightly regarded as a further opportunity to serve—to serve one’s ex-com-rades and one’s country. And there is ample need for a strong organisation to call attention to and seek redress for misfortunes that have befallen ex-home service personnel through their war service. There are cases of homes sold up on a low market when breadwinners thought they were going overseas, only to be held back and thrown back on depleted resources with no hope of making good their sacrifice. There are cases of illnesses and accidents which started during service periods and have left their victims with earning powers permanently impaired. There are cases of men demobilised only to find their jobs no longer open to them through various causes.

Matters such as those have been tackled and satisfactorily dealt with elsewhere by branches of the Home Services Association, often helped by the 2 N-Z.E.F- and the R.S.A.

Such aid might be needed here. But only a strong organisation can give it.

Permanent link to this item
Hononga pūmau ki tēnei tūemi

https://paperspast.natlib.govt.nz/newspapers/BPB19490325.2.9

Bibliographic details
Ngā taipitopito pukapuka

Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 69, 25 March 1949, Page 4

Word count
Tapeke kupu
664

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1949 SERVICES ASSOCIATIONS Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 69, 25 March 1949, Page 4

Bay Of Plenty Beacon Published Mondays, Wednesdays and Fridays, FRIDAY, MARCH 25, 1949 SERVICES ASSOCIATIONS Bay of Plenty Beacon, Volume 13, Issue 69, 25 March 1949, Page 4

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