Nga Tama Toa

Gees what felt like weeks I'm finally getting to the end of "Nga Tama Toa-The price of Citizenship".
Absolutely fantastic,felt like with each page I was being drawn into the very lives these young men (boys) and families were living from the initial call up,the overseas deployment the fighting and to the very emotional return home.
The boys from "The Coast" really paid the ultimate sacrifice.....

The hardship and the daily struggle the boys faced was amazing to say the least

I spose Ive also got a better understanding of what went on from a military/documentary point of view.

Cotton hardly ever spoke of what happened over there to me and even when he did it was VERY vague.

I wanted to press it but was always to scared (and respectful) to ask,when I did ask a Uncle or Aunt ld always get the "Waiho mate wa" (give it time)

The back section is entitled Tairawhiti Men of the 28 (Maori) Battalion and has photos (again of the young men) who fought during 1939-1945 that time and as I and then the turned to page 393 I saw my Grandfather.

Werohia ki waho ra te urauranga o te ra Te-Poho-o Hawaiki,ka tuhakehakea te kowiwini ka tuhakehakea te kowawana....."
(Speed your canoe to the East directly into the flames of the rising sun to the homeland of Hawaiki there you will stand face to face with the ancestors,they of the multitudes of dread and the hordes of the fierce)