Colonel Joseph James Walker

Tu Tangata, Issue 35, 1 April 1987, Page 6

Colonel Joseph James Walker

Colonel ‘Jo’ Walker is currently Commander of the Army’s Ist Task Force which has its headquarters at Papakura Camp near Auckland. He is responsible for all Army combat units in the North Island. Bom in Opunake in November 1941, he was educated at Opunake High School (1956-59) and at the Australian Army’s Officer Cadet School at Portsea. He saw active service firstly in Borneo during confrontation and later in South Vietnam as a member of Victor One Company of the Ist Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment. A 1974 graduate of the RNZAF’s Command and Staff College, the colonel has held a range of appointments including: Company Commander and

Operations Officer of the Ist Battalion RNZIR in Singapore; General Staff Officer (Grade Two) Training on the Army General Staff in Wellington; Military Assistant to the Chief of Defence Staff; and Second in Command of the Ist Battalion RNZIR in Singapore. Colonel Walker attended the Australian Joint Services’ Staff College in Canberra in 1985. He returned to the Army General Staff as Director of Coordination and Military Assistant to the Chief of General Staff, the appointment he held before assuming his current command and being promoted to colonel on 20 December 1986. He and his wife, Patsy, have two sons and a daughter.