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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 />

News<br />

Local<br />

News<br />

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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