A gay and lesbian support group in one of our most conservative institutions - the military - has won the supreme award in this year's Equal Employment Opportunities Trust diversity awards.

An SAS raid which left two people dead and gave rise to claims of murder by the elite soldiers led to $10,000 compensation paid for each person killed, a new film claims.

The Defence Force may have a legitimate role in maintaining the military strength of the nation but since when was its job to suppress information?

Prime Minister John Key says neither New Zealand's domestic and foreign spy agencies, the SIS and GCSB, have been involved in surveillance of journalist Jon Stephenson.

A former Defence Force chief says he is concerned by a leaked Defence Force document that lists investigative journalists as subversive threats.

After Private Michael Ross went missing during an army training exercise, his family clung to the hope he was playing with them and would turn up and surprise them.

The death of a soldier who drowned when he fell off a boat during a training exercise on a lake was accidental but could have been prevented, a Court of Inquiry has found.

"It's a tough job... blowing up bits of old bombs," says the commander of the NZDF in Solomons after four tonnes of unexploded ordinance was cleared.

War in all its terror is becoming ever more visible. Helmet cameras and the like enable commanders to watch the fighting from the other side of the world and inevitably, the footage finds its way into the public eye.

MPs will return to the House today with three new reminders of New Zealand's losses and service in wars overseas.

MPs will give way to New Zealand soldiers - including SAS troops - and their families this evening for a ceremony in Parliament's debating chamber.

A record number of defence staff last year sought psychological help as the country suffered its greatest combat loss since Vietnam.

Two brothers seriously injured in separate army training incidents are a step closer to ending their 16-year battle for compensation.

The commanding officer of the New Zealand Army deployment on which Corporal Douglas Hughes committed suicide while in Afghanistan has defended the training of the unit before its went overseas in 2011.

The Defence Force has a $600 million shopping list for technology such as GPS tracking of troops in war zones to reduce friendly fire mishaps, as well as unmanned aircraft and drones.

The families of three airmen killed in an Anzac Day 2010 helicopter crash have been offered $70,000 for each death.

The Defence Force has issued footage from a chaotic 12-minute battle described as New Zealand's "biggest firefight since Vietnam" after a court of inquiry released its findings on two deadly incidents in Afghanistan that killed five Kiwis.

Details of a Defence Force inquiry into fatal attacks in Afghanistan have been released this afternoon, along with footage of one of the incidents.

The Defence Force will today present the findings of a Court of Inquiry into two incidents which resulted in the deaths of five New Zealand soldiers in Afghanistan last year.

A criminal inquiry has started into a firefight in which two New Zealand soldiers were killed in Afghanistan last year.

Weapons and military equipment worth more than $330,000 have been stolen over four years from the Defence Force.

Last Sunday morning Matt McCarten was on TVNZ as a Q+A panelist.

With his colleague's lifeless body lying nearby and insurgent fire around him, Lance Corporal Leon Smith's back was to the wall. But the New Zealand soldier wasn't leaving without his friend or without completing the mission assigned to him.

With bullets kicking up dust in front of him and insurgent rounds pinging off his helicopter cockpit, every fibre in Flight Lieutenant Ben Pryor's body told him to flee

It's every soldier's greatest fear - the unseen enemy. The improvised explosive device (IED) buried beneath the road, which is detonated by Afghanistan insurgents who lie and wait for Coalition soldiers to pass.

A New Zealand Army officer charged with beating a fellow soldier has appeared before a court martial this morning at Linton Army Camp.

Defence bosses were asked to allow soldiers in Afghanistan to ignore the Geneva Convention so medics could use heavy weapons.