Navy recruits 'of a higher standard now’

Press, 5 June 1982, Page 6

Navy recruits 'of a higher standard now’

Modern warfare and fewer vacancies meant that the Royal New Zealand Navy was employing recruits of a higher standard than 10 years ago, said Warrant Officer Michael Lynch, a retiring recruiting officer. Mr Lynch retired yesterday after 31 years service in the Navy, the last 11 spent in Christchurch as a recruiting officer. Recruits now were better prepared and had higher qualifications, he said.

“Ten years ago, if a recruit wanting to join the Navy met the basic requirements and looked to have the potential of a good sailor, there was a job for him.

“But now he would not be accepted unless he had some outstanding quality and met the highest standards," he said. Fewer vacancies meant there was more competition to get into the service. Until a marked decrease this year,-the number applying to join the Navy had been steadily increasing. Mr Lynch attributed the decrease to a realisation it was now more difficult to join.

. Modern warfare required Navy personnel to be better

prepared and more special ised.

“When I joined, a gun was aimed by turning a handle, the shell was loaded in, and you fired. Now the guns are controlled by'computers, and the missiles aimed'by radar. It has become very’ technical." he said.

Basic seamanship was still essential — '"All the technicians in the world couldn't sail a ship. You need sailors for that." said Mr Lynch. After 31 years in the Navy, Mr Lynch found it easier to name the places that he has not visited. By the time he was 17. he had been half-wav round the world and back, he said, although he did not recommend that people should join just .for the travel. •.' “You don’t travel as a tourist. You are there to work, and the work involved is not worth it if you are only there for the travel. The travel was “just a bonus," Mr Lynch said. “The Navy is a good life but it is not everyone's life. You have to put up with a lot of things that you would not put up with in civilian life, but the harder you work the more you like it,” he said.