Labour's Diversity & Inclusivity Costing NZ Military "Combat Effectiveness." "So Desperate to Hold Onto People, You Don't Have To Pass Your Fitness Tests To Leave Basic Training," says Former Soldier
An exclusive Interview with former NZDF Soldier.
Taylor, 23, joined the New Zealand Defence Force in 2017. He spent about five years of his life in the army, training for a life of war. In 2022 he resigned.
Taylor, a pseudonym of his choosing, told us about his journey into and through the military, his unit’s time in MIQ (“we spent 8 hours a day staring at a [expletive] carpark.”), leaving the NZDF, and the Labour Government’s role in undermining the army (“they just saw us as a free and cheap labour force.”) and misdirected attempts to rejuvenate a once-vaunted force (“they’re so desperate to hold onto people, you don't have to pass your fitness tests to leave basic training.”)
Why does Taylor’s story matter? As at the end of 2022, the army’s attrition rate had ballooned to a staggering 17.7 percent. How did the army reach this low point? It might be partly explained by the Minister of Defence Peni Henare and the army’s unwillingness to listen to the deeply held concerns of soldiers like Taylor.
Here is his story.
Reason to Live
When a 17-year-old Taylor joined up, "I wanted to make the world a better place". Growing up, he had seen images of ISIS and Saddam Hussein.
“The number one reason I wanted to fight -...where I was born I saw a lot of lads in my hometown go off [to Afganistan) and Iraq.”
“These were people I grew up with, they became my heroes growing up...”
“In places like [Afganistan] it genuinely angered me the human rights abuses [I] genuinely saw the military as a force for good.”
When Taylor signed up online, he was living outside New Zealand. “This is just what I have to do.” He completed testing. About two days after arriving in the country, he “hit the ground running.” in the infantry.
After finishing basic training, Taylor went onto Burnham Camp south of Christchurch, for 3 months of training. “Then I was posted to one of the rifle companies, and after that we just [went] into regular peace time battalion activities. He completed courses in the likes of “small arm shooting” (for coaching), “navigation”, “tracking”, “band 3 signals course (multiple radio systems - encryption and coding)”
The army was keeping him busy. “For a short career, you get exposed to a lot.”
But what he saw when he first joined, “did not live up to your expectations.”
He was "underwhelmed from day one ...thought military would be up to the” same size as Australia and the British military. A “single regiment each has about 800 guys”.
The NZDF had “one infantry regiment with two battalions with about 300 people give or take.” That included support staff. Even in 2019, the force was at its peak. Dennis Mardle, President of the Christchurch RSA, was also present. He commented “the full muster was a company (900 down to 100) so not really a company and not really a battalion.”
March 2020 - A Nationwide Lockdown
"I was on a marksmanship module down in Tekapo”. He was “dedicated to learning that weapons system". They received word that “the country's going into level 3 at the time. We were then recalled to Burnham...When we came back and driving through these ghost towns...we went straight into high readiness training...that's when they began riot training. The idea with that...what the NCOs told us people are going to be stuck in their homes for the foreseeable future...if they stick their heads out, you are to “kick them back in”.”
“That wasn't coming from a place of, yeah, let's brutalise the population of NZ. We just had second hand data... at the time. At the start of the pandemic, we took covid seriously, we treated [it] as a threat. To the company’s credit we actually behaved pretty professionally. So, we had alcohol bans imposed for weeks at a time and confinement to our local area...we were expected to be deployed to the South Pacific in case populations...became unstable.”
“That falls under our normal operating expectation requirements. Riot training was the most fun...we had one guy get smashed up from [a] shotgun.” The round knocked him off his feet. “I broke my leg (from a baton)”.
"We were for several months going through this cycle of training and readiness...for anything to do with covid...”
As the government restrictions came off, "we started going back to our normal operational focus (on weapons training).”
The aim was to achieve an attainment level known as DLOCK. “it means you (the unit) can be effectively deployed overseas at any time."
"That was probably the most elite point - we had a couple of guys from the SAS came down...kind of just talked us through some stuff. ...as platoon we completed a 40 km pack-march in 5.5 hours carrying 35 kilos. That's an incredibly high standard...”
“We were winning all the top soldier events. We won individual soldiers skills...6 or 7 were from my platoon alone.
“We knew where we stood in the army.”
“We were the tip of the speer - we were hearing commentary from them (chief of army and sergeant major of the army]
MIF managed isolation facilities
Near the “end of 2020 going into 2021”, his unit began working in MIQ, known to Taylor as MIF or managed isolation facilities. “Other units had been doing this for several months.
“They all said the pay was great, awesome but the lifestyle just sucked. And I was personally shocked (day 1): for one reason, after all that training, just the level of intensity we were running at through the year, suddenly we just hit a brick wall. And suddenly our life went from a solid training...everyone was motivated...we spent 8 hours a day staring at a [expletive] carpark. Or in some cases some guys were sitting in a stairwell for an entire shift…8 hours.”
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