Former Tauranga RSA president Fred Milligan honoured with KSM

• Retired Captain Fred Milligan, 88, receives the King’s Service Medal for his lifetime of service to the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association.
• Milligan was instrumental in constructing St John’s premises in Featherston and served as the RSA president in Tauranga.
• He served in the New Zealand Army from 1954 to 1981, including during the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation.

“I am doing it for my wife.”

That’s what King’s Service Medal recipient, retired New Zealand Army Captain Graham Fredrich Charles Milligan, 88 – known to almost everyone as Fred – said about receiving the King’s Birthday Honour.

Catherine Elizabeth Milligan died in 2011 and Milligan is dedicating the award for his services to the Royal New Zealand Returned and Services Association to her.

Former Tauranga RSA president, Fred Milligan, moved from Featherston in 1988.

Milligan was born in Auckland and joined the Regular Cadet Forces in 1948, similar to a military boarding school, he said.

“About 4000 of us went through that,” he said.

The regular cadet force was a two-year programme that specialised in education, apprenticeship and basic military training.

“You got b*lled out to start with and then went on education and apprenticeship,” Milligan said.

“Your time was fairly occupied.”

Milligan eventually served in the New Zealand Army from 1954 until 1981 as a mechanic.

“I’d had some very interesting jobs,” he said.

He would rise through the ranks in the army, going from non-commissioned officer to captain, leading the mechanics and combat drivers.

Milligan would serve in the Indonesia-Malaysia Confrontation from 1963 to 1965.

“I saw that country go from Malaya to Malaysia while I was there,” he said.

He’s proud of serving his country and holds all members of the military in regard, no matter where they are deployed.

“If you served, you served, and if you get hurt, you get hurt in the same way,” Milligan said.

Fred Milligan next to the wall he helped build at the Tauranga RSA.

Milligan had spent a lifetime serving both the RSA and Hato Hone St John.

Initially, he joined the Featherston RSA in 1975 and was fundamental to the construction of the rural town’s St John premises.

“It was a pretty big b***dy deal,” Milligan said.

He would drive for St John until a cataract forced him to stop.

“It got pretty bad, so I ended up being president.”

He planned to move to Tauranga after listing his Featherston home for sale following a particularly nasty windstorm that had damaged the walls.

“I said to my darling, beloved, ‘I’m out of here’. ‘She agreed’.” Milligan said.

Milligan and his wife “took off one weekend” to look at houses around Tauranga, a city he had visited a handful of times previously.

Over that weekend, their house was sold, with the couple finding out once they returned to Featherston, he said.

Fred Milligan outside the Tauranga RSA.

Once Milligan settled in Tauranga, he joined the RSA there in 1988 and eventually served as president from 2019 to 2023.

He was responsible for the construction of the memorial wall standing outside the RSA, he said.

The Tauranga RSA will close its doors in February next year, merging with the Mount RSA.

“It is going to be a sad, sad day when we do go, but it’s inevitable,” he said.