Online Reporter
During the Liberation War tens of thousands of young men and women made the commitment that they would have to fight, with a significant chance of dying, while they did so, if Zimbabwe was ever to be free.
And so they went to war.
They crossed the borders to receive training and then came back to fight.
The air supremacy of the settler regime hanging onto power meant that even in training in foreign countries they risked death, and when in their operational areas inside Zimbabwe they were often attacked from the sky and the land by the highly mobile settler forces.
Betrayal was an ever-present danger despite the support they received from the vast majority of the population who fed them and helped them and often suffered with them.
A liberation war is far more unpleasant, and far more dangerous, than most wars, ghastly as these can be.
Yet they fought on and were joined by thousands more until the settler forces were finally overwhelmed and their regime surrendered.
On independence many joined the new Defence Forces, but many more returned to civilian life, resumed their education and worked to help build Zimbabwe through working in their families and communities. This is common after most wars, when the majority of those who went and fought simply want to return to a normal civilian life having “done their bit”.
Now the youngest veterans are well into their sixties, and many have moved into their seventies and some even into their eighties.
The attrition that we tend to see in older generations is starting to thin their ranks as increasing numbers join the ranks of those youngsters who never made it to the final victory.
This year, and none too soon, the Government has made a special effort to track down those veterans whose role was never publicly recognised and present them with their campaign medal, the public acknowledgement and public recognition that they were there, that they carried their rifle, that they fought.
This is their due. They showed their courage as well as their commitment.
It is worth remembering that the liberation forces were all volunteers. The liberation and nationalist movements did not have the power of a nation state to conscript.
The example they set must be remembered and commemorated.
Younger generations, who now enjoy the fruits of liberation and independence, and now provide so many of the active leaders in all areas of economic and professional life, especially need to ponder whether they could have done the same.
They can also pray that they will never be brought to such an extreme test.
But the sacrifices made by those who fought and the commitment they showed must live on.
Zimbabwe became independent by its own efforts, against a foe that did not want to grant freedom and rights to overwhelming majority of the population.
Most colonial countries received independence after sometimes bitter argument and pressure, but few had to fight.
The early years of independence were marked very strongly by what can be described as a high-morale population.
They had won a very hard-fought war and so other lesser problems could be solved, the needs for a prosperous peace could be met.
One lesson is that a battle lost is not a war lost: you pick yourself up, rededicate yourself and carry on knowing that final victory is possible if you do and probably impossible if you just give up. Business people create and build businesses, or apply their skills within businesses, but that creates the growing wealth of the country.
But by doing this we also make life better for many others.
And when we come down to it, that is the best way of honouring heroes, to show that we are worthy are our citizenship in the nation they freed.
