Gerard Wood | From military nurse to veteran advocate

Veterans who have been to our forums and expos will probably have met Gerard Wood (Ret Lt Col) in the Veterans' Affairs team — a larger-than-life character brimming with good humour, lots of knowledge, and sage advice.

Gerard has now retired after six years with Veterans' Affairs. His career has been dedicated to service, first as a military nurse and, most recently, as an advocate for veterans.

He joined the NZDF in 1988 and rose through the ranks to become the Director of Nursing Services in 2002. His military career included deployments to the Gulf War and the Former Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia. He then spent ten years in staff roles in Parliament, supporting the Associate Minister of Defence and several Ministers of Veterans' Affairs.

This experience brought him into contact with the Veterans' Affairs leadership team. When Gerard transitioned to civilian life in 2018, he joined Veterans' Affairs as a senior project coordinator.

His first major project was a review of deployments, where he worked with a senior Veterans' Affairs policy analyst to review service that was not at the time considered to be qualifying operational service. This was necessary because the 2014 Veterans' Support Act had changed the qualifying criteria so that they covered a much broader range of operational and environmental threats than had been covered by the previous War Pensions Act 1954.

Gerard found this work incredibly rewarding, as it used his 30 years of experience in military nursing and project management to help current and former personnel become eligible for support from Veterans' Affairs.

He has always encouraged any veteran who has been deployed to check their eligibility on the Veterans' Affairs website. He finds it particularly gratifying to have connected with veterans at events and to have listened to their stories.

In private life, Gerard is a beekeeper, a wonderful singer, and a very funny man. His colleagues recall one occasion when he challenged them to name a couple of items and was then able to successfully weave a joke around them.

He is active in the St John movement, and another colleague recalls being with him on a shopping trip last summer when he saved the life of a person who had been hit by a car with emergency first aid before the ambulance arrived.

Workmates as well as veterans have enjoyed both his company and his stories, and his presence at veteran events will be much missed.

We wish him all the best.