Soldiers Off Duty

New Zealand Listener, Volume 6, Issue 153, 29 May 1942, Page 4

Soldiers Off Duty

HE purpose of our feature article on Pages 6 and 7 is to prepare the public for a situation that might otherwise catch them off-guard. It is unnecessary to say that we have, and can have, no opinion ourselves about the more controversial issues raised. We merely state the issues and print some representative opinions about them. Although it is not always true that to be forewarned is to be fore-armed, it is usually true that to be taken by surprise is to be taken at a disadvantage. Our purpose is to make surprise impossible. The situation is of course unprecedented. It is giving no information to the enemy to say that till the end of the war, and for a little longer, New Zealand will provide accommodation for thousands of overseas troops. That became inevitable the day New Zealand was announced as the headquarters of a Pacific Command. It is not something that may happen but something that must, and the sooner we all begin thinking about it the sooner we shall adjust ourselves to the new set of conditions it inevitably brings with it. Soldiers have been soldiers since nations first began to fight; they have lived unnatural lives, passed violently from excitement to boredom, and seldom escaped some friction with civilians. We cannot expect that it will not happen here. Biologically there is no difference between MacArthur’s armies and Wellington’s, as there is none between our division in Syria and the legions that made the roads our sons and brothers are now using. What has changed is the social and political background, and that, as soon as we begin to think about it, is the key to all the problems the war may create for us on the home front. The first point is that eighty per cent. of the soldiers, sailors, and airmen quartered among us were, until the other day, civilians themselves. They are ourselves socially, whether they come from Canterbury, N.Z., or from Colorado, U.S.A. The second point is that they are still interested in most of the things that we ourselves are interested in, and do not wish to be regarded either as toughs or as innocents abroad. They are not mercenaries or brigands, but patriot companies of ordinary citizens called to the defence of their normal way of life.