Top brass locked in power struggle

By KEVIN TAYLOR

Army chief Major-General Maurice Dodson is one of the few people left in the military who has seen combat.

The 39-year Army veteran saw action in Vietnam in 1968 as a lieutenant. He was wounded in the head and shoulder while leading a patrol that got into a firefight with 70 to 80 Viet Cong.

But he continued directing artillery and helicopter fire, and inspired his patrol to hold its ground and defeat the Viet Cong. He got a Military Cross for his gallantry.

Now he is under a different sort of fire, after a damning report from Auditor-General David Macdonald over the $677 million purchase of new LAV3 armoured personnel carriers.

The report said mutual mistrust was plaguing personal relations at the most senior levels of the military, and there was squabbling and intense interservice rivalry.

It lends weight to a rumoured power struggle between the Army chief and his superior, Chief of Defence Force Air Marshal Carey Adamson.

The pair joined the armed forces within a year of each other in 1960-61.

It is not known when their paths crossed. Media questions are being deflected by the Defence Force to Defence Minister Mark Burton, who will not comment on personalities.

Major-General Dodson took Air Marshal Adamson's assistant chief of resources job at Defence headquarters in 1995.

The Army chief, who was promoted to the role in 1998, is said to be a strong, decisive personality who does not suffer fools lightly.

Many in the Army are glad he has finally done something to replace the Vietnam-era M113 APCs after years of dithering.

Air Marshal Adamson is said to be a charming and intelligent man who is easy to work with.

"He's well liked in the Navy and Air Force, and quite a few people in the Army see him as a protector of the Army's broader interests," one source said.

Major-General Dodson enlisted in 1962 as an officer cadet and has steadily worked his way up the ranks, being appointed in February 1998 to head the Army.

Air Marshal Adamson joined the Air Force in 1961 as a trainee pilot.

He flew transport planes, and became Air Force chief in 1995.

In January 1999 he was made a companion of the New Zealand Order of Merit (CNZM), becoming Chief of Defence Force a month later.

The men have not got on since a change of Government in 1999 shifted resources from the Air Force and Navy to the Army.