44 Riccarton road & 3 fd sqn engineer's

Recent Media Coverage of NZ Sappers

NZ Army Engineers Honoured

22 August 2006

The New Zealand construction industry has acknowledged the “highest standards of professional competence, logistical excellence and vital role”, of the Corps of Royal New Zealand Engineers by bestowing them with a Special Award for their humanitarian and developmental construction work around the globe.

Lt Col Allan Beaver.

No U.N. soldier will be doing any de-mining," said Lt. Col. Alan Beaver, a New Zealand army engineer who is part of an advance team whose function is to provide "mine awareness" training to Cambodians. "I don't think it's justified to ask any U.N. soldier to put his own life at risk for a problem of the Cambodians' own creation.The work of de-mining is extremely perilous. Beaver said Phnom Penh government troops recently tried to clear a half-mile stretch of road in the provinces. It took 20 days, and six soldiers were seriously injured in the process.Beaver said that he needs to get mine experts into Cambodia to conduct de-mining classes. "The next step," he said, "is to find out where I can get people to train," an implicit acknowledgment that Cambodian soldiers are unlikely to rush forward to volunteer for the dangerous work.
 

Major Mike Pettersen

Bamyan, Afghanistan 

Well its 1/3 the way through my tour here in Afghanistan and although the time has gone relatively fast, I have completed a huge amount of work in the two months gone by. Winter came for a day and went again. The nights are now cold, minus 8, and the days are comfortable 10 degrees average. No clouds, no wind. The locals are worried. It should be at least a metre of snow on the ground by now. No snow means less water for summer where it reaches 40 – 50 degrees. What is noticeable is the difference between day and night when it comes to temperatures. Behind us is a range of mountains (Part of the extended Himalayan Range). At 3-30 pm it can be 10 degrees. When the sun goes behind the mountains the temp according our nurses who monitor the temp gauges drops to minus 4 degrees in 3 minutes.

          The development of the country that I’m part of is proceeding ever so slowly. It’s hard to build a country, city, town, or village from nothing over here. An example is the city of Bamyan. The development plan is to build the city from nothing. A plan has been produced and the city will be built for tourism and economics of agriculture. Not the opium farming that has been growing here since he Russians invaded. Logic would tell you that to build a city from the ground up would start at the infrastructure of services such as sewerage, water reticulation, possibly electricity, telecommunications, maybe the roads and storm water runoff then maybe followed by the buildings themselves. Not too far removed from a new subdivision back home. But how can I organize a two year sewerage development scheme when I have 20 000 people living in caves and abandoned cars watching me spend money and time on a sewerage system that they haven’t used for 2000 years. The consequence is they have started constructing buildings. Government office buildings. All toilets are flushed into the ground, similar to “ye old fashion long drop”. Each building has a water well. Yep, same piece of ground that the sewerage is soaking into. At the moment Bamyan province has 3000 schools short, based on the kids who need an education in the area. At the moment Bamyan province has 3000 teachers short. Do I spend the money on training teachers, or schools? Two years to train a teacher. Six months to build a school. In two years the number of kids will have doubled. The balance is not so easy. I build a school, yeahhhhyyy. Now who maintains it, supports it? We have a school built 300 kilometers away in a valley. The NGO (Non Government Organisation) who funded it also supplied a new generator for lighting and heating. It has never been started because A. there is no fuel for hundreds of miles to start the generator, and B, they have no money for fuel anyway.

          Trying to continue with the development of the province is being hampered by the security. The Taliban have moved back into the area again albeit in small numbers. Road side bombs or IEDs as we militarily call them are back in the area. This is where I now put on my other hat and go back to my original trade of counter IED. The patrolling we are now doing is making a difference as the locals are only too happy to support us with information and intelligence. This is where we are hoping for winter to arrive, maybe keeping the insurgents inside for a couple of months. Thanks to Obama (Pres of USA) we are going to be supplemented with an added Task Group of GI’s in January. They’ll be supporting us from the south. This should curb the enemy for a time here’s hoping.

          As for normal living the days are long. Work at 6 am home by 8-30pm. B/fast, lunch and dinner are on the go when you can, however, we would have to have the best chefs in the world here. Army and Navy Kiwi chefs of course. I miss: Real bread, real milk, and a soak in a bath. The gym, or the shed with weights, is always a mind clearer. I catch it at 5 am with a mate who is posted here from the NZ Police. He was / is the Sth Auckland District Commander Superintendent Dave Montgomery. We work out as we complain to each other about the cold, about the dust, about the petrol price, about how many M&Ms we haven’t eaten as we are on an M&M and Ice Cream lockdown and we spy on each other to see who is the weaker. He is here with two other cops training and mentoring the Afghanistan National Police (ANP). Statistics say that 27 ANP’s get killed everyday. Canada has just lost their 100^th soldier yesterday to an IED.

          Christmas will come and go as our programme will not change. Obviously can’t afford to. Thanks to the RSA we have the famous “Soldier, Sailor, Airman, Airwomen, Christmas parcels that arrived this week. Of course there are a considerable number short, so we senior heroes, supermen and champions will martyr ourselves for the sake of the junior ranks. But not all is lost as thanks to the Johnsons, I have a packet of Griffins Gingernuts graciously sent earlier this month to keep me going. What more do I need you say?....well, - I’d like Dave to get moved to Kabul so I can break open a packet of M&Ms. By the way, Ice-Cream comes in 5 litre containers, Vanilla, Choc, and Strawberry and is in an open ended freezer 24 / 7. In the fridge next to it, 24 cubic metre fridge, is Mars Bars, Bounty Bars, Twisters, Twix Bars, Coke, Fanta, Sprite, Juices, Milk Shake Cartons, and more than many packets of M&Ms all for the taking.

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