Keeping peace all in the family

Linton Army Camp's next deployment to East Timor will produce what is believed to be the biggest one-family deployment since the days of the Maori Battalion.

The name is Kareko. Among the Battalion 3 peacekeepers to leave from the camp near Palmerston North in November will be three of Charlie and Libbie Kareko's sons, the partners of two of the sons, and a grandson.

A fourth son has served in East Timor and returned but his wife is preparing to go if there is a fourth deployment.

When Mr Kareko's sons were growing up, his brother Peter would march them around the gardens while home on leave from the military police.

"It was fun, and I always told my boys, if you love what you're doing, you go for it," said Mr Kareko, a kaumatua from Kaeo in the Far North.

While nobody can be absolutely sure, it is believed to be the biggest one-family deployment since the Second World War years of the Maori Battalion.

"Being in Batt 3 together is a big thing for us, but really it's all just part of doing the job," said Mr Kareko's son, Evan.

"We've just got to be sure we do the job as good as the guys who have been there before us."

The Kareko boys have all been overseas before, some on the tough Somalia mission in the early 90s. "I suppose some of these jobs are like a bit of a holiday," said Charlie Kareko, "but in East Timor guys have been killed. That puts a different picture on it."

- NZPA