By MATHEW DEARNALEY
Flight Sergeant Brendon Armitt managed to spend Christmas with his wife and young sons, aged 5 and 3, at their Auckland home for the first time in three years.
Next week, the veteran of more than 50 overseas forays with the Defence Force may be bound for a winter in Afghanistan as part of New Zealand's contribution to a United Nations-backed stabilisation force.
He and 28 other candidates for the mission began a two-day training course at the Hobsonville airbase yesterday, before being put on 48 hours notice tomorrow to fly to Afghanistan via London.
The course includes weapons drills, medical and dental checks and cold-climate training.
The peacekeepers are also learning how to cope with nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. Stockpiles of uranium and chemicals such as cyanide have been found at an al Qaeda terrorist base near the southern Afghan city of Kandahar.
Nobody knows for certain who will go and when, as this depends on decisions to be made in Britain, which will lead the proposed 16-nation force.
But New Zealand joint forces commander Major-General Martyn Dunne took time from his own Christmas holidays to brief his troops for what he acknowledges will be a highly challenging mission.
He hopes they will know within a week who is required, but says members of a 14-strong airloading team, including Flight Sergeant Armitt, have a better chance of inclusion than 15 staff officers being offered to the proposed British command in Kabul.
Last Christmas, Flight Sergeant Armitt was in Sydney with the joint forces headquarters coordinating peacekeeping in East Timor, where New Zealand still has 660 troops.
The festive season before that he was shuttling between Darwin and East Timor, helping to load and unload supply aircraft.
He also served as a peacekeeper in Somalia in 1993 and has made many supply flights to Antarctica, notching up 51 overseas assignments in his 25 years with the Air Force.
Afghanistan will force him to draw on his wide range of experience, as it not only lacks infrastructure under its newly appointed interim Government but is extremely cold at this time.
General Dunne says that although peacekeeping missions are always risky, the New Zealanders will be away from the "sharp end" of military operations and the main physical threat will be landmines around airports.
The general was New Zealand's senior officer at the start of the East Timor peacekeeping mission in 1999, and says the greatest challenge in Afghanistan will be supplying troops in the absence of infrastructure, in cold conditions without the comforts of home.
"There will have to be something like 40 flights a day because there is no reliable road route between Pakistan and Kabul."
The proposed 90-day mission will be separate from the clandestine activities of about 30 SAS troops and two Hercules aircraft already working in Afghanistan with the United States-led military coalition to eliminate the al Qaeda terrorist network.
Another Hercules will be sent to Afghanistan in February, but painted in the white United Nations livery to deliver humanitarian supplies for the World Food Programme.
Story archives:
Links: War against terrorism
Timeline: Major events since the Sept 11 attacks
Kiwi Christmas, and Afghan New Year
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