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Each of the six veterans chosen for the special edition stamps was awarded the Operational Service Medal for service that exceeded the normal requirements of peacetime service.
Hawke's Bay woman Kelley Waite features on a NZ Post stamp. Photo / NZ Post
Hawke’s Bay Today spoke to a modest Waite who appears on the $3.30 stamp.
She described the experience as a “harmless little thing” that she was expecting a lot of “stick” for at work.
She joined as a telecommunications operator and technician and became a helicopter crewman in 2010.
“I’d always seen pictures of Grandad up on the wall and his medals and, to be honest, I didn’t see myself as someone who would go to university, I wanted to do something practical.”
The 44-year-old, who lives in Maraekākaho, was first deployed to the Solomon Islands, where she worked as a communications information technician.
She spent her time doing “flight-following radios and helping out with communications back to New Zealand”.
Waite is pictured on the stamp with medals, with each medal signifying a deployment, or time frame spent in the Air Force.
Waite now works for the Hawke’s Bay Rescue Helicopter Trust as a crewman and emergency medical technician.
Waite said she wasn’t in the Air Force for the medals. For her, it was about helping people and being there for families regardless of the outcome.
“Everyone has a goal, I wanted to stay until I got the Long Service and Good Conduct medal because I wanted to have been there for a significant time.
“I don’t even like to dwell on the sad stuff. A lot of the most touching stuff are the sad things, like the people who pass away that we couldn’t help.”
She said she had learned to deal with difficult situations by “parking it” and finding ways to move forward.
“You have to switch off because once you switch on it is very serious.”
Waite recalled a touching moment she had when she was involved with the elections in Papua New Guinea in 2011 to 2012.
She helped transport a pregnant woman, a grandmother and children from a remote location to a hospital. The locals helped her to land the chopper to get to her.
“They were cutting grass with machetes and cut an airstrip up the side of a hill.”
She said they were “on edge” and used hand signals to communicate with the locals who didn’t understand the dangers of being close to a helicopter.
The stamps display each veteran and where they have been deployed. Photo / NZ Post
NZ Post head of collectables Antony Harris says the story behind the stamps is to show that veterans are not just ‘elderly men’.
“They are young, have served in recent conflicts, can be men or women, and come from all walks of life. They could be your neighbour, people you work with, or someone you see in the street,” Harris said.
Michaela Gower joined Hawke’s Bay Today in 2023 and is based out of the Hastings newsroom. She covers Dannevirke and Hawke’s Bay news and has a love for sharing stories about farming and rural communities.
