The Southland Times TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1944. The Home Guard

Southland Times, Issue 25538, 5 December 1944, Page 4

The Southland Times TUESDAY, DECEMBER 5, 1944. The Home Guard

TN A BROADCAST to the British J- Home Guard the King spoke of “the comradeship which this great citizen army had developed,” and expressed the belief that it would help “to solve the problems of peace.” There are many persons in New Zealand who, on reading those words, will remember their own hopes for an extension of the Home Guard spirit into civil life. For nearly three years they attended parades, learned the rudiments of military training, and came to know and respect the men who marched with them. At no time did their organization reach the standards, or face the possibilities of action, which helped to make the British Home Guard a second army of genuine fighting capacity. But they passed through a period when danger seemed very close, and they did iyhat they could to fit themselves for the defence of their country. The comradeship developed in those years was as real as that of British guardsmen. Can it be said that it will have its effect in the years to come? The major difficulty, perhaps, is that in this country the Home Guard was constantly changing. Younger men were gradually drawn off into the armed forces; they have long since discovered a new and stronger comradeship in the Middle East and the Pacific. Nevertheless, every company and every platoon had its solid core of survivors. These were men who came regullarly to parades, who shared the good days and the bad days, who found a deep personal satisfaction in a service which had to survive ridicule, apathy and a certain amount of neglect. They keep alive their friendships in annual functions; it is not easy for them to let their “outfit” slip into a final oblivion. All of them discovered that the Home Guard had a very real democratic influence. They trained, somewhat casually, with men who in normal circumstances would not have crossed their paths. And they found that in a civilian part-time army the false distinctions of daily life are quickly forgotten. It would be very difficult to convince a former guardsman that the “class war” is anything except a political illusion. He knows that New Zealanders can differ in politics and in everything else, but that they can still live and work together as equals and friends. This discovery had become necessary. Modern life, even in small communities, tends to create a sectional isolation. The Home Guard included large numbers of men who have no contacts in public life, who belong to no clubs oi’ associations. It mixed them indiscriminately, and it gave them a comradeship which had been missed or forgotten in years of narrow living. That was a democratic experience which will not easily lose its value. There may be no Home Guard Association, and the annual functions may gradually be discontinued. But something will remain—a feeling about the other fellow, a memory of the past which will somehow seem important for the future. It is easier for men to believe in democracy, and to work for' it, when they have found for themselves that most men are worth knowing, and that service and friendship go naturally together.