The son of a soldier killed in the Vietnam War used Thursday's commemorative event in Wellington to deliver a personal plea to the Prime Minister: "Please bring my father home".
A change of policy meant 30 of the 37 Kiwis killed in Vietnam have been returned home but Sergeant Alistair Don is one of those still buried in Malaysia.
His son, Trevor Don, has finally had the chance to ask for him to be returned.
But Mr Don was nervous telling a Prime Minister what to do.
"I was scared. There were so many people there," he says.
Mr Don wants us to follow Australia's decision to repatriate 25 of its war dead.
"These guys have done their duty to our country for us. And we need them home now."
Sgt Don lies in a cemetery inside an operational Malaysian base, which families say is hard to access.
And while well cared for, they're not Commonwealth war graves, so don't receive legal protection from encroachments like urban developments.
Bob Davies, a Vietnam veteran, also pleaded for the return.
"Prime Minister, we veterans and next of kin are bewildered by successive Government's willingness to surrender the debt of honour owed to our fallen to a foreign government, who will never guarantee that they will remain in a corner of a foreign field that is New Zealand."
Prime Minister John Key says there is nothing to suggest the cemeteries will be harmed, but Mr Don just wants his dad home.
"From the bottom of my heart, Mr Key, please bring our families home," he said at the event.
"Please bring our husbands home, please bring our brothers home."
For now though, the answer is no.
"There is a view from some at least that they should rest where they fell and... the advice is that the Government has had and successive Governments, is that we shouldn't change the policy," Mr Key says.
It leaves Mr Don to just continue politely asking the same question they have for years in the hope that one day, the answer is yes.
He says he'll never give up.
"It's my father, I want him home. I want him home."
Newshub.
