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1
Fd Hyg Coy, 102 Fd Wkshp, The Hon Peter Costello
The image above
depicts three men bonded by their service. For those who don’t get
out a lot, the man on the left of frame is The Honourable Peter
Costello M.P. Federal Member for Higgins and at the time of this
memorable event, Treasurer of Australia.
The man on the
right has only recently had the Australian Defence Medal awarded to
George Sorenson pinned to his chest and is receiving the case which
contains the miniature and ribbon bar. That he is John Mills and
not George Sorenson will be immediately apparent to those in the
know and also those who can read the name tag on his shirt. This
mismatch is as yet undetected so the gravitas of the historic
moment is not diluted. This utterly trivial detail is mentioned
here merely to point out that things are not always as they
seem.
The third man in
the centre of this group, in military dress and obscuring the best
part of the Australian flag is Brigadier David O’Neill, RAEME.
David and I, along with many others from 102 Fd Wkshps, 5 Coy, 2 GH
and 1 Fd Hyg Coy share the dubious distinction of having been
housed in the asbestos clad barracks which once stood at Ingleburn,
N.S.W. This connection came to light when David, as the Member
Representing the Armed Forces asked me how I came to be there
getting a medal. I said that as a National Serviceman my unit had
been 1 Fd Hyg Coy and that we had been stationed at England road
Ingleburn and, among other things how we had camped beside the old
WWII huts whilst the PWD workers prepared them for our occupation,
beavering away without any protective clothing in the dusty,
dilapidated old buildings. He recalled how as a young subaltern he
had been stationed there sometime after 1972 with 102 Fd Wkshps.
And with a somewhat fatalistic sigh confessed he and his comrades
performed extensive repairs and alterations to their barracks and
workshops, similarly without respirators or other protective
clothing. It was all a parallel with us spraying cookhouses, mess
halls, barracks, huts, small ships, HMAS Sydney III etc. with
Dieldrin and Malathion, all unprotected, and we have photographic
evidence to prove it. Something to do with our
immortality.
David remembered
1 Malaria Research Unit behind 2 Camp Hospital but not 5 Coy and
neither us nor 2GH. He was in good company, as at the time the
Department Of Defence and The Army History Unit and GHD and
Caroline Kelly and Olga Strachan all claimed ignorance of our
collective occupancy of the Ingleburn Camp Site.
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