Seventy years ago, New Zealand soldiers headed off to fight World War II in Europe with training about as basic as it got.
How the modern soldier has changed.
The Army is introducing a new training regime for recruits which almost doubles the duration of the basic recruit training course from 13 weeks to 22 weeks, which it says "will reflect the growing complexity of a modern soldier's job".
The 13-week course has been in use for nearly 50 years but the extra nine weeks will include training in new skills such as close quarter combat, urban combat, radio communications, advanced first aid, and facing chemical, biological and nuclear threats.
It is the course every recruit - except officers who do their own training - must do regardless of what they will later do in the Army.
Cooks, stores clerks, administrators, writers, everyone joining up does the course, says Lieutenant Colonel Rob Gillard, commanding officer at Waiouru Military Camp.
They then go on a specific course, depending on what the Army needs.
The new training courses ran as pilots last year with about 30 recruits and repeated again this year as a final rehearsal to test the concept.
The modern recruit is also taught how to work in complex environments such as buildings and urban areas.
Signals training is followed by radio skills, medical training, and close quarter battle. "That is the use of weapons, rifles, pistols or even unconventional weapons or improvised weapons to defend themselves or their colleague," says Mr Gillard.
"We teach them how to use a rifle as a weapon when you are out of ammunition, and how to use items such as a pick handle and so forth."
The academic side of military history is also not forgotten.
The recruits visit sites from the Maori wars and study personal development and leadership.
One of the strengths of New Zealand soldiers, particularly on peacekeeping deployments, is the ability to relate to the local population, he says. In East Timor in 1999 the soldiers developed a rapport with the local people, which was the envy of other countries serving as peacekeepers.
Mr Gillard says soldiers will always be trained as combat, fighting soldiers and not as peacekeepers.
"We have to teach them in the most extreme or to the highest level and once we reach that level it is far easier to deploy on humanitarian or peacekeeping operations."
The soldier graduating from the new course is a "better performed" soldier but it could be another three or four years before the Army finds out exactly what it is producing.
Mr Gillard says New Zealand soldiers are considered among the best in the world. He says with the new course they will be even better.
- NZPA