The paint job looked a little surreal, like one of those colorized movies, but still life-like. The eyes peered out with no steely heroism, the lips seemed as though they might quiver. A callow citizen soldier. Both Australians and New Zealanders make a big thing of soldier memorials and celebrate their own version of Veteran's Day called Anzac Day. A New Zealand historian named Jock Phillips has done a book about the war memorials of New Zealand because they are so important to the national character.
Every town has one, generally large and costly.
Fortunate, I thought, that the folks in Patearoa, whether from poverty or from design, fashioned their humble statue instead. And I'll drink it when I come back home from the war. The young fellow, of course, never came home, but got killed in Crete. If this does not seem to you like a proper memorial, then you're not familiar with the New Zealand pub scene. Though the cap is all rusted it outshines the chrome, As it honors the soldier who never came home.