Source: Radio New Zealand
No Duff Charitable Trust’s Aaron Wood. RNZ / Kate Pereyra Garcia
A veterans’ charity says there is growing concern about the lack of mental health and transitional support within the Defence Force.
This comes as a former infantry soldier is accusing the New Zealand Defence Force of failing to get him the help he desperately needed – after nearly being shot in the head and losing hundred of Ukranian recruits he trained.
Jack Wesley said the help that was promised never came, and he was a ticking time bomb.
The NZDF declined to be interviewed about Wesley’s situation.
No Duff Charitable Trust’s Aaron Wood said Wesley’s case was “unfortunately a rinse, soak, repeat situation”.
There were too many soldiers being discharged from the NZDF without the support and help it itself indicates they require, he said.
In Wesley’s case, Wood said the NZDF’s representative told the judge in court that his sentence of home detention for his crimes would not affect his employment and that they would work around it.
Two months later, the NZDF held a retention hearing and terminated him, Wood said.
“His brigade commander specifically noted he needed, and I quote ‘appropriate support as he exits the service’ and he got nothing. Not transition plan, no handover to civilian services, no safety net. They cut him loose at his most vulnerable, right when continuity of care was critical.”
Wood told Midday Report it was something his charity was seeing “again and again” in the past 10 years.
While there were some commands that were helpful, supportive and effective in getting veterans the support they needed, other treated people “atrociously”.
Needing support was buried, Wood said, and there was a culture that had been around for generations that saw those seeking support as weak and not good at their job.
Wood said the annual Te Arataki symposium for veterans was held in Wellington last week, where transitioning from the NZDF was one of the key aspects discussed.
“No one in the group, including senior NZDF officers and senior former NZDF officers up to two-star major general rank had anything positive to say about the NZDF transition process as it stands today.
“There were people talking about how they are quote unquote ‘on the cliff’ of coming out of the NZDF and they’re worried about what awaits them.”
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– Published by EveningReport.nz and AsiaPacificReport.nz, see: MIL OSI in partnership with Radio New Zealand
