Hitler couldn't do it, and now red tape is taking its best shot.
But it takes a lot to put a good Anzac down and luckily they don't come much tougher than Kyle Dalton.
The Whanganui RSA manager has fought a war of his own to organise the city's Anzac Day commemorations and has jumped through more hoops this year than ever before.
"It's mostly to do with legislation that has come in with health and safety," Mr Dalton explains.
He won the battle of high-vis.
Authorities wanted everyone marching at Tuesday's dawn ceremony to wear high visibility vests.
"I argued I didn't have thousands of spare vests sitting around for people to wear", and the condition was dropped.
He did need to apply for a liquor license to pop half a nip of rum into the morning coffees at the War Memorial Centre.
"For the first time in about 45 years ... with the new sale of liquor act ... we're required to have a special license for the rum and coffee in the War Memorial Centre," he said.
"Even though it's only about half a nip in each cup, because we are supplying alcohol the council has asked us to put in a special application this year, which is not a major biggie, it's just another layer of bureaucracy."
Whanganui has the longest number of consecutive dawn services in New Zealand - since 1935 - an event that takes a surprising amount of time and effort to organise.
Mr Dalton leads a small army of more than 200 volunteers whose behind-the-scenes toils pull off what he calls an annual miracle.
Selling poppies is only the tip of a very large ice-berg, he said.
"The Cadet Corps - TS Calliope, 9 Squadron and the Army Cadets - there's well over 100 of them and their officers involved."
There's also a choir, a band, Maori Wardens, Memorial Centre staff, volunteers from the RSA and other organisations ... and more.
Planning for Anzac Day is an enormous undertaking and for this year it began two weeks after the last, with a debrief and review of what went well and what didn't.
Hundreds of items sat on the to-do list ... submit a traffic management plan for the march, a health and safety plan for the crowd at War Memorial Centre, cook 500 breakfasts, and certify the kettles.
"We make the coffee in large urns that hold about 100 litres each. They all have to be certified annually now as part of the health and safety policy," Mr Dalton says with a straight face.
"All the appliances used in the council building have to be certified and current."
A St John ambulance and crew needed to be on site for the day. "They offer us that service at no charge which is an extremely generous gesture that they make."
Rotary rope off the forecourt, council staff have to be there from 3am, and the World War Two cross monument attended to - lawns mowed, gardens whipped into ship-shape.
"It not something you put together in 10 minutes."
The pay off though is worth it, Mr Dalton says.
"Whanganui Anzac Day is very well supported. We have an incredible number of people turn out for the dawn service."
In 2015 - centenary year - more than 10,000 people, about one quarter of the district's population, turned out in the dark. Each year more and more children take interest too, much to Mr Dalton's delight.
"It's about the camaraderie, getting together and remembering those that have gone before us - those who served and didn't return and also obviously those who returned," he said.
"The New Zealand Defence Force is serving in about 15 countries as we speak today. Even though it's not a world war or a major conflict they are still in the firing line. So Anzac Day is still relevant today.
"We've got more returned and service persons today than we've had since WWII."
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