On Parade

Today I accompanied my mother-in-law and a sister-in-law to an unusual event: The Graduation Parade of my partner’s nephew, who has just completed basic training in the Royal New Zealand Navy. This is commonly called “passing out” because they’re passing out of basic training. To me the phrase has an entirely different meaning.

I’ve never been to anything like this here or in America, so I can’t compare and contrast at all. Even so, there were a couple things that surprised me: There were no New Zealand or RNZN flags (unless you count a wall mural). The New Zealand national anthem wasn’t played. As an American, growing up on a steady diet of flag-waving, oh-say-can-you-seeing conspicuous patriotism, this seemed odd to me—strangely understated.

Which is not to say there wasn’t a lot of pomp. Plenty of navy officers in dress whites, ceremonial swords dangling. There was a lot of marching around, saluting and shouted commands. Guns were fired. Bagpipes and drums were played (from a nearby shed).

A lot of the ceremony involved various navy officers inspecting the graduates. But a large—and strangely entertaining—part involved various demonstrations of their training, including routine physical training (many gyms would be envious). The sailors, male and female, took part in all this equally—except the sister-in-law noticed that it was only female graduates cleaning up bullet casings after a shooting demonstration (a later clean-up crew was both male and female).

And then it was over. The guests and new graduates milled around, posing for photos. Family and friends offered congratulations to the graduates. And then people headed over for morning tea, though it was lunchtime by then, so we left.

With new patrol ships to be delivered soon, these new graduates will probably not have long to wait before being assigned to a ship. In the meantime, they get two weeks leave.

It was an interesting experience, actually, and one I’d guess the average immigrant doesn’t get to have.

The photo at the top of this post shows some of the graduates entering the parade ground.

Below: Some of the graduates.



Below: Yes, the guns were real. Yes, they fired them. Yes they were very loud.