MEDICS IN PNG - Royal New Zealand Navy

CONTENTS
YOURS AYE
ISSN 1173-8332
TODAY
Published to entertain, inform and inspire serving
members of the RNZN.
Navy Today is the official newsletter for personnel
and friends of the Royal New Zealand Navy,
produced by the Defence Public Relations Unit,
Wellington, Navy Today is now in its twelfth year
of publication.
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Leading Medic Natasha Gill from Northcote
makes friends with a male Red-Sided
Eclectus, a parrot native to PNG and
the Solomon Islands, during the Pacific
Partnership medical deployment aboard USS
PELELIU. See feature page 4.
PHOTO: USN
SEPTEMBER COVER
CONTENTS
RADM DAVID LEDSON CHIEF OF NAVY
YOURS AYE
I WAS BRIEFED on the results of our We were the only ones to see the silly
recent personnel surveys the other day. element – our seniors only saw the immutable
nature of processes. To mock things
As I listened to the various comments
that had been made about work loads, our seniors considered serious was often
leadership, recognition, promotions and the game in town.
the like, I heard the various perceptions As I got promoted I started to take some
that people had; and I reflected on my of the process stuff more seriously – in
own perceptions of the Navy.
part because I saw where it fit into the
It struck me that over the years, and bigger picture. Things that had seemed
even now, I didn’t have a single endur-
easy to do, and that I couldn’t see why
quite unimportant the next day
I came to realise that ultimately my
perceptions about the Navy were mostly
shaped by the state of my relationships
and interactions with other people – inside
and outside the Navy – and what they
did and said. I reached a point where I
understood that if I were to accurately
express my perception of the Navy as an
organisation in the biggest of big picture
Copy deadlines for NT 5pm as follows:
NT 126 October issue: 17 September
NT 127 November issue: 17 October
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A publication of
DEFENCE
PUBLIC RELATIONS UNIT
FEATURES:
08 ROTOITI named
13 Diver in the Lebanon
14 Deployment to Darwin
15 Helping with the Homecoming
18 HMNZS KIWI – a CO’s perspective
20 The Navy’s author – Grant Howard
21 Remembering CAPTAIN Wybrants
Olphert RNR
22 Our People
24 HMNZS TE KAHA
04
PACIFIC
PARTNERSHIP
Seven of our sailors joined
USS PELELIU in support of
Pacific Partnership to assist in
humanitarian medical efforts
in Oceania. The team helped to
provide free medical assistance
for the people of Papua New
Guinea.
INSIDE:
LIVING IN SOUTH
KOREA
LT Jeremy Packham RNZN is
living in Korea, working for
the United Nations Command
Military Armistice Commission.
He lives with four US Army and
Air Force personnel in the small
town of Ganseong, about 30
minutes south of the DMZ.
26 HMNZS CANTERBURY
29 No 6 Squadron
30 HMNZS RESOLUTION
32 HMNZS ENDEAVOUR
33 HMNZS WAKAKURA
34 HMNZS MANAWANUI
35 Around the Fleet
36 Galley Slide
38 Sport
10 16
43 Main Notice Board
FIRE CONTROLLERS
IN TE KAHA
TE KAHA is currently in East
Asian waters. The success of
the frigate’s activities depends
in large part on the people of the
Weapon Engineering department,
two of TE KAHA’s Electronic
Technicians describe a day in
their life.
ing perception about every aspect of
the Navy. Over time, and depending
on a range of factors, as my perspective
moved about a bit, my perceptions
changed too.
As a Junior Officer at sea I felt that I
was doing the hard yards and the people
ashore had a soft number. By the same
token, I considered I was having more fun
than them! It seems to me that life at sea
is pretty straightforward – the thing you
have to do is keep focused on what your
ship is doing, then you need to do your
bit – as does everyone else onboard – to
make it happen. Service at sea was always
characterised by an ‘us’ and ‘them’
view of the world. There was a view, too,
that ‘them’ did very little to help ‘us’ – in
fact ‘them’ seemed to be determined to
annoy ‘us’.
As a Junior Officer, too, I thought boundaries
were there to be tested. However,
if there was ‘push back’ then it was just
one of those things. I and my contemporaries
tended to be pretty relaxed about
what we considered to be bureaucratic
processes, to laugh at some of the silly
consequences, and move on. Amongst
us the feeling was that we were the only
ones who saw the funny side of things
– our seniors only saw the serious side.
they weren’t done, now seemed to have
an added shade of complexity.
I also got to spend less time at sea.
Instead of a relatively simple world it
started getting more complicated. I didn’t
end every day having achieved something
I could take pride in, such as a successful
watch or a successful gunnery serial.
In fact, to achieve something equalling
those successes could often take days
or weeks.
As I became more senior, it was almost
as if my perceptions were like a slowly
spinning coin. I had started off seeing
heads and then I saw heads and tails – and
then I saw mainly tails. I came to realise
that through my career my perceptions
were being influenced and shaped by a
number of factors:
• My place in the Navy
• How I thought the Navy regarded me
– and how I thought the Navy should
regard me
• My particular job and the satisfaction –
or lack of – that I was getting out of it
• Circumstances in my personal life –
whether that life was sweet or sour
• My relationships with my workmates
• A whole lot of other stuff, some really
big and some really small, some of it
important at the time, and some of it
terms – was it for me or was it not for
me? – then I needed to move on, from
focusing on personal stuff and how committed
the Navy was to me or my family,
to thinking hard about my commitment
to the Navy.
This was the coin not flipping either
heads or tails, but spinning on its edge.
It was the realisation that this thing called
commitment works both ways. It’s not
about us only taking, nor is it about ‘the
Navy’ only taking, it’s about both doing
some giving too.
I meet many people who say to me ‘my
perception is my reality ‘- when what they
are really saying is ‘my perception is the
one and only reality’. So if they say they
are working hard then, QED, they are indeed
working hard. No question about it
– no debate about it. This all ends making
things quite complicated because it becomes
difficult to get your hands around
‘the real world’. Everyone seems to see
it differently.
I like to keep things simple whenever
I can. So, I believe the really important
‘perception question’ has nothing to do
whether this or that aspect is real or not.
The important question – in fact the important
question for all of us to answer - is
‘Is the Navy for me?’
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