Naval ships Te Kaha and Endeavour were welcomed back to Devonport today.

Iraqi soldiers have graduated from the New Zealand and Australian Defence Force training at Taji Military Camp to join the fight against Isis.

The doctor who prescribed pain medication to ease his chronic and painful inflammation of the intestines had disappeared.

President Barack Obama has admitted that American forces still "don't have a complete strategy" for training Iraqi troops to stand their ground against Isis (Islamic State) fighters.

The news that Islamic State (Isis) fighters have advanced to within 100km of Camp Taji where New Zealand's 143 military advisers are based wasn't the only bulletin from the war zone.

The American Defence Secretary, Ashton Carter, could not have been blunter in his assessment of the Iraqi Army.

NZ First MP Ron Mark has labelled the Iraqi Army "cowards" and questioned why New Zealand forces were being put at risk trying to train an army that did not want to fight.

NZ's contingent of military training specialists have barely arrived and the folly of this military (mis)adventure is already becoming apparent, writes Armstrong.

The Defence Force chief has downplayed a car bomb attack which killed three people near the NZ base on the first day of its deployment in Iraq.

In 1915, a New Zealand flag sat in a drawer in an Auckland home for many years until, by chance, it became well known.

The Anzacs fought for seven months on the beaches and in the trenches of Gallipoli's Sari Bair range.

The Returned and Services Association says it cannot afford to wait until after the centenary of Anzac Day this month to take its fight against proposed changes to the country's flag.

Prince Harry paid his respects to the lost brothers of the Australian military he's joined for a month-long secondment Downunder.

Prince Harry has flown a Spitfire as he caught up with an injured serviceman and veterans hoping to pilot the aircraft in a Battle of Britain flypast.

Nine years ago, the decision to buy eight NH90 helicopters for the air force was accompanied by considerable fanfare.

Canada's mysterious and small operation has become a lot bigger and more costly since it began, writes Dita De Boni. Which could be our fate, too.

Russia's entire Northern Fleet is on the move today as part of a show of force involving 40,000 troops, more than 41 warships, 15 submarines and 110 aircraft.

In 1942, when young radio operator Johnny Jones was sent to Auckland Islands as a radio operator, he recalls a country on edge.

On March 26, the last of the southern coastwatchers, John Stuart Jones, was to have voyaged to the Auckland Islands with an expedition to restore his old home in Ranui Cove.

If the PM handed me a gun and asked me to ship out to the Middle East to do my duty for this great land, I know exactly what I would do, writes Matt Heath.

The enemy is no longer on a singular battlefield, the enemy is in every major town and city on the planet, writes Mike Hosking. So in sending the troops in, the purpose is what?

The quality of New Zealand's training contribution to the Iraqi armed forces would be a welcome addition to the fight against Isis (Islamic State), Iraq's ambassador to New Zealand, Mouayed Saleh, said last night.

No sooner was the announcement made that New Zealand was heading to Iraq, the war of words broke out.

An officer who served alongside a soldier who collapsed while running has described his comrade's death as "the cruellest timing imaginable" - coming just weeks before his wedding.

The film clip of Defence Minister Gerry Brownlee striding into the bowels of the $250 million Boeing C-17 Globemaster for a test drive this week was scary.