Southern View: August 14, 2018
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6 Tuesday <strong>August</strong> <strong>14</strong> <strong>2018</strong><br />
Latest Christchurch news at www.star.kiwi<br />
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Local<br />
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Now<br />
From Addington barracks to Lions leader<br />
After more than 50 years<br />
serving on and off in the<br />
New Zealand Army,<br />
Addington’s Alastair<br />
Rankin has taken charge<br />
at the Lions Club of<br />
New Brighton. Georgia<br />
O’Connor-Harding reports<br />
ALASTAIR RANKIN isn’t<br />
afraid of a lot. From deactivating<br />
land mines in Cambodia to<br />
helping monitor borders in the<br />
Middle East, not much fazes the<br />
semi-retired army captain and<br />
Lions president.<br />
Mr Rankin, 68, was elected<br />
to the role last month. He was<br />
a part of the 2/4 Battalion until<br />
February.<br />
So taking on a leadership role<br />
is nothing new for Mr Rankin,<br />
who has also been president of<br />
other Lions clubs. It will be his<br />
second time at the head of the<br />
New Brighton Lions, of which<br />
he was president in the late<br />
1990s.<br />
He has had a long association<br />
with New Brighton, first joining<br />
the Lions club in 1984 before<br />
relocating to Wellington in 2000.<br />
He rejoined the New Brighton<br />
Lions about four years ago.<br />
While living in Wellington, he<br />
became Lions Club of Newlands<br />
president, before he moved to the<br />
Lions Club of Whitby in Porirua.<br />
He said it was not long before<br />
he was elected president in<br />
Whitby.<br />
He has also been zone<br />
chairman for a range of Lions<br />
clubs, including Christchurch<br />
Seaview, Ferrymead, Lyttelton<br />
and Pegasus.<br />
His goal for the New Brighton<br />
club is to raise membership.<br />
“There is no criteria . . . all<br />
you have got to do is want to<br />
do something useful for your<br />
community,” he said.<br />
During his time in the army,<br />
Mr Rankin worked for a year<br />
at the Cambodian Mine Action<br />
Center in 2004, training and retraining<br />
de-miners. He was also<br />
heavily involved in operations in<br />
the minefields.<br />
Land mines are a big problem<br />
in Cambodia and are a legacy<br />
of three decades of warfare,<br />
starting with the Cambodian<br />
Civil War in the late 1960s.<br />
The remaining land mines are<br />
discovered using a metal detector<br />
and burned. Mr Rankin said<br />
while he trusted the de-miners<br />
to have cleared the area, when he<br />
first began working in the job,<br />
there was “a bit of trepidation”.<br />
He said hundreds of land<br />
mines were uncovered every day.<br />
“I was standing a few feet away<br />
from a guy who stood on one<br />
and it blew his foot off,” he said.<br />
But he said driving in<br />
Cambodia was more dangerous<br />
than working on the minefields.<br />
Many of the main roads had<br />
only just been tarsealed when<br />
he was in the county and there<br />
wasn’t a lot in the way of road<br />
rules, he said.<br />
“We never drove at night out<br />
in the country side. It just wasn’t<br />
worth it, cows would just walk<br />
out onto the road,” he said.<br />
Mr Rankin spent about five of<br />
his military years overseas.<br />
He was posted to Singapore<br />
from 1976-1978, working in the<br />
communications centre for New<br />
Zealand Force South East Asia.<br />
“I liked south Asia. The two<br />
countries are very different.<br />
Singapore was very quick to go<br />
ahead and Cambodia was only<br />
just going ahead and that was<br />
because of the war,” he said.<br />
He worked with the New<br />
Zealand training advisory team<br />
for the Multinational Force<br />
and Observers in the Middle<br />
East, which was monitoring the<br />
border between Israel and Egypt<br />
in Sinai.<br />
His job was to help train<br />
the United States, Fijian and<br />
Colombian troops on the border.<br />
SERVICE: Alastair Rankin<br />
in the Sinai Desert, near the<br />
Suez Canal, in March 1987.<br />
“The other nations have<br />
different ways of thinking and<br />
different ways of doing things.<br />
Doesn’t mean it is wrong. It is<br />
just different and you can learn<br />
from it,” he said.<br />
Mr Rankin said he learnt the<br />
most from working with the<br />
101st Air Assault Division, a<br />
division of the US Army trained<br />
for air assault operations.<br />
“They were brilliant . . . they<br />
were particularly good at aircraft<br />
SOUTHERN VIEW<br />
Fire rages, homes at risk<br />
NEW ROLE: Lions Club of<br />
New Brighton president<br />
Alastair Rankin outside an old<br />
army base next to the former<br />
Addington Jail where he was<br />
stationed from 1973-1975 and<br />
1985-1998. PHOTO: MARTIN<br />
HUNTER<br />
recognition. When you are on<br />
the border and the jet flies over<br />
you, it flies over very quickly<br />
and you have only got a split<br />
second to say what kind it is,” he<br />
said.<br />
He comes from a military<br />
family and joined the army when<br />
he was 16- years- old, seeking<br />
adventure, “excitement” and to<br />
get away from Blenheim where<br />
he grew up. Mr Rankin said<br />
joining the army “wasn’t a shock<br />
to the system” as compulsory<br />
military training was practised<br />
for males up until 1972.<br />
He retired three times – the<br />
first was after 21 years of service<br />
and he wanted to provide<br />
“stability” for his children.<br />
Now that he has semi-retired,<br />
he is involved in part-time<br />
project work writing reports on<br />
issues in the army such as driver<br />
fatigue.<br />
Having spent time overseas,<br />
Mr Rankin said he now has<br />
a “fairly relaxed attitude” to<br />
life. “It is a lovely place in New<br />
Zealand . . . it is lovely to be able<br />
to go into the bush, sit down<br />
and know there are no snakes or<br />
scorpions,” he said.<br />
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