Reserved for the Solomons

Last year, New Zealand Territorial Forces machine gunner Private Adam Friend, 33, left the Marlborough Museum where he had been putting together an exhibition on the history of grape growing in the region, to begin pre-deployment training for a four-month tour of duty in the Solomon Islands. Friend, who has a PhD in viticulture, is posted as part of the New Zealand Defence Force’s contribution to the Australian-led Regional Assistance Mission to Solomon Islands, or Ramsi. This is his second deployment. He was in East Timor last year and raves about the part-time soldier’s life. “I was never interested in the army when I was younger. I was interested in plants. “But it’s the camaraderie in difficult situations that’s great. You get put into situations you would never be put in civilian life and you have to work as a team, so there are strong bonds and friendships.” Most of the 44 New Zealand soldiers in the Solomon Islands are reservists and the army doesn’t shy away from admitting they would struggle without the 1750 reservists. “The Territorial Force is fundamental to the organisational health of the army,” Brigadier Dave Gawn says, adding that missions to the Solomon Islands, Afghanistan and East Timor would be imperilled without the reservists.