Alisoun Masters accepts her husband's Anzac of the Year award from Prime Minister John Key. Ill health prevented John Masters from travelling to the award ceremony; he was represented by his wife and son, Allan Masters.

'ANZAC of the Year' humble but proud

The choice of Lt Colonel John Masters as New Zealand’s first ANZAC of the Year has earned widespread acclaim.

New Zealand’s chief of defence, Jerry Mateparae, says it is nearly impossible to paint a picture of 75-year-old John Masters that can do justice to the services he has given his country and veteran community.

Royal New Zealand Returned Services’ Association national president Robin Klitscher says Masters was an excellent choice, as his career, both in the army and after, has been guided significantly by the traits the award seeks to recognise – the ANZAC qualities of comradeship, compassion, courage and commitment.

Ill health prevented Masters – originally from Invercargill and now living in Christchurch – from attending the award ceremony in Auckland. However, he told the New Zealand Herald at the time that he didn’t think it wrong to be proud.

“You work to try to satisfy yourself rather than satisfy anybody else. You can be very humble, but you can also be very proud at the same time. You don’t expect to be recognised in the way that I have been.”

He has previously said he joined the army for “escape, adventure – the reasons most young men join the army”. His main memories of 27 years in the army are of “comradeship and of serving New Zealand, which was very satisfying and fulfilling”.

While attached to a Gurkha battalion in Borneo during the Indonesian Confrontation in 1965, he was awarded the Military Cross for rescuing a wounded Gurkha warrant officer, Hariprasad Gurung, under extremely difficult circumstances.

He was also made a life member of the Gurkha Regimental Association’s Sirmoor Club – an honour normally restricted to Gurkhas. The two were reunited in Christchurch in March – the first time they had met in the 45 years since.

In Vietnam Masters was the seventh commander of New Zealand’s 161 Artillery Battery, a position he still held when the battery returned to New Zealand in May 1971.

He became a longtime campaigner over the treatment of Kiwi soldiers returning from Vietnam, and particularly against government denials New Zealand soldiers had been affected by chemicals sprayed on the jungle during the war.

His personal testimony (using his own wartime maps) to a health select committee was crucial to breaking open the facts of exposure to chemicals during service in Vietnam and enabling follow-up investigations to take place on a firm footing. He was subsequently a trustee of the Vietnam Veterans and Their Families Trust.

After retiring from the Army in April 1983 he held several senior management roles in business. However, he retained his interest in the army, its soldiers – and in veterans. He has been heavily involved in the Rannerdale War Veterans’ Home, in Christchurch, and was instrumental in raising substantial funds to allow it to stay open and to be upgraded.

He has also been a panellist assisting with war pension applications, and was appointed an Officer of the New Zealand Order of Merit (ONZM) in 2002.

The ANZAC of the Year bronze statuette, based on the Gallipoli image, Man with the donkey, has been designed by official NZ Army artist Matt Gauldie.