The Royal New Zealand Artillery

From Mike Purcell:

A great story - are you one of the Gnrs?  Can you help Mike?  It would be great to have a "flag handover" at a NZ Gnr function (Skins comments)

I served with A battery 2/35th arty, tipped a few brews with you Kiwi's when
in base camp at Nui Dat.  I recall one name and that was Mike Thrower he was
in the 161 battery.  Any chance there would be a contact for him, he also had
a sister named Ann, they were from Auckland, place called MT. Roskill.  I
have your flag, yeah, my last night in Nui Dat I was thoroughly shit faced,
after saying my goodbyes at your club, I asked for a souvenir to take with
me, well they said, what would you like.  Remember we all had a bit too much,
anyway I said lets go get your N.Z. flag, well, out we went to the flag pole
and hauled it down.  Now, 44 years later I still have it.  If your interested
in having the flag returned I can do so, after all it really is yours from
Nui Dat with a little travel time over here in the U.S.  I'm getting up there
and sooner or later I'll be checking out, so, I figure if this flag can go
home to its proper place after serving in Viet Nam and another 44 years with
me it would be kind of nice.  If your not interested that's fine too, I'll
see if I can find a good home for it over here.  By the way, there were three
Kiwi's and myself who got the flag down, but I could not even began to tell
you who they were, unless one of them can remember this happening.
Sincerely
Mike Purcell
Port Orchard, Washington State

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