W/O Kendall Brown’s report on his IACE trip to Belgium
From the 15th July to the 3rd August I went on the International Air Cadet Exchange (IACE) programme with the Air Training Corps. I spent 2½ weeks in Belgium, along with another Cadet and Officer from the South Island, as well as Cadets from the UK, Turkey, Canada, USA, Germany, Belgium, Holland and Switzerland. It was great because there were only 17 Cadets, so we all got to do awesome activities such as: kayaking for a day down the amazing River Lesse, flying gliders – including doing aerobatics, flying in an Agusta 109 military helicopter, visiting the F-16 Fighting Falcon base of Kleine Broegel and having a go in a €15 million F-16 simulator.
It was great to meet and get to know such a wide range of people from different cultures, and they all made the trip thoroughly enjoyable.
We were accommodated on Military bases during the week and in the weekends we stayed with host families. Both families I stayed with were very nice and it was great to experience Belgian life with them.
If I was to pick a highlight of the trip, it would be the visit to Ypres and Passchendaele, and especially Tyne Cot cemetery which is where thousands of NZ soldiers from WW1 are buried. It was quite an extraordinary thing, to be standing on the battlefields of the Great War and to pay my respects to our brave soldiers that gave their lives in the protection of our freedom, and never returned home.
So, in all, a great three weeks in Europe, and my sincere thanks go to the Unit Commander of No. 41 (City of Porirua) Squadron Air Training Corps – FLTLT Tristan Will, for encouraging me to apply. To the Air Training Corps Association of New Zealand – thank you for selecting me, and also to all the groups and businesses that sponsored my travel funds, thank you, for without your help it would have been much harder to go on this amazing experience.
Many thanks to the following:
Tawa Rotary
Windsor Lodge (Freemasons)
Masonic Youth Trust
Porirua RSA
Dulux Paints
Origin Electrical Ltd
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