Volunteers to put one on pale island (6)
I believe the answer is:
taiwan
'island' is the definition.
(Taiwan is an example)
'volunteers to put one on pale' is the wordplay.
'volunteers' becomes 'TA' (abbreviation for Territorial Army).
'to put' says to put letters next to each other.
'one' becomes 'i' (Roman numeral).
'on' is a charade indicator (letters next to each other).
'pale' becomes 'wan' (wan can mean pale or grey).
'ta'+'i'+'wan'='TAIWAN'
(Other definitions for taiwan that I've seen before include "Disputed island off china, used to be Formosa" , "Former Formosa" , "Island country, formally called Formosa" , "Non-mainland China" , "foreign island" .)