The top military brass have decided to make the armed services what they call gender inclusive in the hope that women would see it as a more attractive career option.
It seems it was news to their political boss Gerry Brownlee though who says he's already impressed with the number of women who're contributing to the military and he doesn't think changing the titles would make much difference to recruitment. He reckons people are attracted to the roles, not the titles.
His view would seem to be shared by the Americans who toyed with the idea of removing man from military. Their army spokesman, with the rather unfortunate name of Jerry Pionk, says their usually liberal air force will for example continue to use airman for all their personnel, just like policeman and even Congressman.
They're obviously too busy fighting other people's wars to concern themselves with such things.
Not here though where military titles are being changed. Like a military policeman who'll be known as military police with a crewman's being given a rather more grandiose title of, armoured combat specialist, and a rifleman being called just plain infantry.