Troops join Dubai duty
LEADING Aircraftsman Jack Simpson has just touched down on his first deployment in the Middle East.
The Darwin-born aircraft mechanic and about 40 other Aussie soldiers, sailors and air force workers chatted as they cleaned soot from their guns after a mandatory target shooting test on the range at Al Minhad Air Base, outside Dubai.
They had just been handed the body armour, rifle and pistol they’ll be hanging on to for the next few months.
‘‘The work here is more or less the same job we do at home — but you can appreciate it’s an area of conflict and your work has a more direct outcome,’’ LAC Simpson said.
The well- spoken 23- yearold will be based at the cavernous hangar on Al Minhad, where the desert tarmac temperature hits 50C in summer, after arriving in the United Arab Emirates with his tribute to Movember.
LAC Simpson will travel wherever 37 Squadron’s C-130 Hercules aircraft are tasked to deliver and pick up cargo — including food, water, ammunition, equipment and people — to support Coalition forces in the Middle East Area of Operations, including Afghanistan.
He was deployed among a tight team of 29 aircraft maintenance personnel, with whom he has worked closely at the Richmond-based squadron in Sydney for two years.
‘‘It makes it easier when you already know where everyone’s at,’’ he said, adding that he spent a few days in Darwin with his parents, who were excited and worried, and younger brother before flying over.
‘‘It was good to catch up, go fishing out in the harbour and catch a few crabs.’’
One of his colleagues, Sergeant Aaron Gilmour, 33, who also grew up in Darwin, is on his second tour.
He says he’s not an aeroplane nerd, despite his innate ability to recognise the sound of a Hercules flying overhead.
‘‘They’re the road trains of the ADF,’’ he said.
Sgt Gilmour, who works on ‘‘ anything with a wire attached to it’’, has been among those involved in giving disaster aid in Papua New Guinea, a humanitarian mission in the Solomon Islands in 2003 and the evacuation of victims to Royal Darwin Hospital after the 2002 Bali bombing.
He said Al Minhad’s C-130 fleet remained at full strength to support soldiers withdrawing from Tarin Kowt, in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan Province.
They are the guys who bring home Australia’s fallen soldiers.
‘‘I’ve had the honour to be on board flying home some of our guys who have been killed in action here,’’ Sgt Gilmour said.
‘‘They usually send one of his close mates to return him to his family.
‘‘ It’s sobering and very emotional.’’
Sgt Gilmour said his wife of eight years, Briohny, whom he met in the Territory, wasn’t too happy at the timing of his deployment.
‘‘Her birthday is on Christmas Day,’’ he said, adding his crew would probably celebrate the festive season with a Secret Santa.
They will be allowed to explore Dubai outside the base once every nine days.
Sgt Gilmour said: ‘‘It can be a bit like living in a lowsecurity prison with Wi-Fi, but it’s awesome to be here.
‘‘Until you actually get into Afghanistan, you don’t really understand what our army does, guys knowing that every time they step outside a compound they could be standing on an IED (bomb).
‘‘They deserve all the credit they get.’’