A taste of Kiwi on the frontline
Around 250 New Zealand service personnel — from the Middle East to Antarctica — have received a welcome “taste of home” from the annual Christmas Gift Parcels sent out by the Royal New Zealand Returned & Services Association.
“It’s about showing those service men and women safeguarding New Zealand’s interests in often hazardous conditions that they are not forgotten and that many people back home care about their welfare,” says RSA National President BJ Clark.
From a tradition started in the Second World War, the support scheme is now in its 77th year and is the result of hard work back home to prepare the 35-item packs.
In the Middle East, RSA District President Chris Turver has presented 65 packs to Navy, Army, and Air Force personnel serving under two operations, Operation Troy and Operation Takapu.
“It’s not just your families who care about you but all those who remember what it’s like to serve your country in often hostile conditions with only your mates to rely on.”
Operation Troy, a small piece of New Zealand, is the major New Zealand support base for Middle East troops serving in Afghanistan, Iraq, South Sudan, Lebanon, Israel, Bahrain, Qatar and Kuwait, and for the Navy when New Zealand sends frigates to the Gulf.
One of Operation Troy’s main roles is to support Operation Takapu, a P-3K2 Orion surveillance aircraft from the Royal New Zealand Air Force’s 5 Squadron, heavily involved in patrols in the Arabian Gulf to counter piracy and drug smuggling activities. The squadron is credited over the last two years with tracking smuggling vessels carrying cocaine with a combined street value of $750 million and guiding Coalition warships to search and arrest them.
Elsewhere, Colonel Jim Bliss, the Operations Chief at Headquarters Joint Forces New Zealand in Trentham, used a whistle-stop trip to Middle East missions to also present RSA Christmas Gift Parcels to NZDF personnel in Israel, the Sinai Peninsular, and Iraq.
“What this RSA scheme does is remind us that we are not alone and that New Zealanders back home have a great deal of respect for those who help our country in often dangerous conditions to live up to our international peace-keeping and treaty obligations”.
The RSA Christmas Gift Parcels involve a complex operation including donations by Foodstuffs NZ and Z Energy, packing by volunteer schoolchildren and RSA and military personnel, freighted and delivery by the RNZAF and allied air forces to the bases involved. The scheme started in Christmas 1940 when the RSA organised 30,000 gift parcels to Second World War troops including large quantities of puddings, scarves, balaclavas and mittens — not items in high demand today!
The most popular item in the Xmas Parcels is Marmite.
