Army exercise

Press, 24 February 1987, Page 20

Army exercise

Sir, —In the event of Mr Owen Wilkes’s worst dream of a nuclear war happening, New Zealand could well be faced with desperate refugees from the Northern Hemisphere ‘.‘dropping in” and setting up housekeeping on some part of our large and hard-to-defend coastline or in some protected mountain valley. With nothing left to lose, these people may be reluctant to go where asked — they will come intending to take what they need. Homeless soldiers from any country would have weapons, but even American civilians could come armed with grenades and rocket-launchers. Major Morrison and the soldiers now training in counter-insurgency near Takaka could well end up being the only thing standing between Mr Wilkes and a non-nuclear, but just as deadly, form of annihilation. Every society needs its idealists, like Mr Wilkes, but it also needs the realists, like Major Morrison, who plan for the thankfully rare instances when the very survival of that society from anarchy and violence is needed. — Yours, etc., LOUETTE McINNES. February 20, 1987.