How remarkable it is to be trying to convey enough pithy detail about myself to a great group of guys that I once shared five years school with and mostly have not seen since. The exceptions are Conrad Emert and Doug Aitken. Connie because we served together for so many years in the army and Doug because we really are dear friends and kept in touch afterwards in the UK and Australia.
I blame my parents and the 16 mile daily commute from Asquith to North Sydney High for my wanderlust. I’m now settled (for awhile) in my twenty-seventh house post NSBHS. I always wanted to see the world and I haven’t done so badly, having lived outside Australia for 29 years of the past 50. It all began because my “success” in the Cadet Corps at school led me to by-pass a very mediocre pass in the LC for a scholarship to RMC Duntroon. Duntroon was quick off the mark. They had me signed up in September 1958 long before the LC results! So I tripped happily off to four years of mild academics and lots of outdoor life, never realising the consequences of my commitment.
Six months after graduation I found myself in Malaya/Malaysia and Sarawak during the “Konfrontasi” with Indonesia, directing artillery at steep jungle ridges. After two years there, the reward was to be the aide-de-camp to the Chief of the Army which frankly was a bit too ceremonial for my liking. There followed a year in South Vietnam as the Adjutant (i.e. Operations Officer) of the Field Artillery Regiment during the Tet Offensive. On return they tried to capture my knowledge as an instructor at the Artillery School, North Head and subsequently as the Australian Exchange Instructor at the Royal School of Artillery, Wiltshire UK where I taught for two years. There followed a year’s study at the Australian Staff College, planning postings at Army HQ Canberra, six months study at the Joint Services Staff College, two years as CO of the 1st Field Regiment, Colonel Deputy Commandant Duntroon and then, Director of Artillery. This last job was the last straw for a non-ceremonial type. I resigned in August 1986 before my term was up.
I had two alternatives lined up. I had seriously prepared to set up an outdoors training company in south Queensland once I left the Army. I had studied by correspondence for four years to have a Diploma of Small Business Management but as my resignation date approached, I made a speculative application to join the United Nations in Jerusalem and was surprised to be accepted. I took the UN job, although I never filled that particular post until six years afterwards.
I was interviewed in Canberra and told the Jerusalem post might be filled internally but there was a similar post vacant in Cyprus/ Beirut. Within a month, I was employed by the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as the Field Administrative Officer in Beirut when by the best count of the day, there were 79 different factions contesting in the civil war. On my first day in the office we were evacuated to avoid the artillery that was misdirected at our premises. Such irony to have left the army, yet to be on the receiving end!
UNRWA HQ was in evacuation in Vienna and after 18 months in Lebanon where I gained a reputation as a management trainer of executive staff, I was transferred to Austria to establish an Agency-wide staff development programme – we had almost 20,000 staff members at this point. Over the next four years, I shuttled between Vienna and the Near East (Egypt, Syria, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Cyprus) conducting week long seminars for senior management after which I was rewarded with the post in Jerusalem that I had applied for back in 1986! The first Intifada and the first Gulf War had just ended leaving a highly suspicious population and it is an understatement to say that keeping hospitals, health centres and schools operating then in the Occupied West Bank was a challenge too often ending in total frustration.
In August 1995, I was head-hunted by UNHQ New York to administer the peacekeeping mission in South Lebanon (UNIFIL). The area was part of the Israeli Security Zone constantly under fire and over-flights but gracefully by both sides, not often directly at UN installations. For security, all International staff of UNIFIL had to reside in Northern Israel and cross the border daily to get to and from work, quite often being halted at the border to await the exchange of fire to stop. Although the situation may sound frightening such that only someone with a death wish would want to stay, it was a rewarding job and mostly an enjoyable experience working with a multi-national group in a diplomatic setting. We had lots of high ranking visitors and I met many heads of state, prime ministers and government representatives.
Much changed when the Israelis withdrew and instantaneously a hush came over South Lebanon while Hezbollah sauntered in to fill the vacuum. The changes were ominous. Shortly afterwards I talked my way into a transfer to New York as the Chief of Civilian Training in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and after three years at UNHQ, they retired me on age. When my wife passed away from breast cancer three months after I stopped work, I moved to Florida and formed a consulting HRD company. I currently manage part of a distance learning programme that puts out courses on aspects of peacekeeping. The parent non-profit organisation is called “the Peace Operations Training Institute” which proudly boasts over 20,000 world-wide enrolments per annum. I am able to work part-time from home while at other times my new wife, Ann, and I are trying hard to carve a track through the Country Club golf course.
I have three kids, two in Australia (a lawyer in Sydney and a geologist in Canberra) plus a 12 year-old in the USA and two grandchildren.
Life is wonderful and NSBHS has a lot to answer for.
I blame my parents and the 16 mile daily commute from Asquith to North Sydney High for my wanderlust. I’m now settled (for awhile) in my twenty-seventh house post NSBHS. I always wanted to see the world and I haven’t done so badly, having lived outside Australia for 29 years of the past 50. It all began because my “success” in the Cadet Corps at school led me to by-pass a very mediocre pass in the LC for a scholarship to RMC Duntroon. Duntroon was quick off the mark. They had me signed up in September 1958 long before the LC results! So I tripped happily off to four years of mild academics and lots of outdoor life, never realising the consequences of my commitment.
Six months after graduation I found myself in Malaya/Malaysia and Sarawak during the “Konfrontasi” with Indonesia, directing artillery at steep jungle ridges. After two years there, the reward was to be the aide-de-camp to the Chief of the Army which frankly was a bit too ceremonial for my liking. There followed a year in South Vietnam as the Adjutant (i.e. Operations Officer) of the Field Artillery Regiment during the Tet Offensive. On return they tried to capture my knowledge as an instructor at the Artillery School, North Head and subsequently as the Australian Exchange Instructor at the Royal School of Artillery, Wiltshire UK where I taught for two years. There followed a year’s study at the Australian Staff College, planning postings at Army HQ Canberra, six months study at the Joint Services Staff College, two years as CO of the 1st Field Regiment, Colonel Deputy Commandant Duntroon and then, Director of Artillery. This last job was the last straw for a non-ceremonial type. I resigned in August 1986 before my term was up.
I had two alternatives lined up. I had seriously prepared to set up an outdoors training company in south Queensland once I left the Army. I had studied by correspondence for four years to have a Diploma of Small Business Management but as my resignation date approached, I made a speculative application to join the United Nations in Jerusalem and was surprised to be accepted. I took the UN job, although I never filled that particular post until six years afterwards.
I was interviewed in Canberra and told the Jerusalem post might be filled internally but there was a similar post vacant in Cyprus/ Beirut. Within a month, I was employed by the United Nations Refugee and Welfare Agency for Palestine Refugees in the Near East (UNRWA) as the Field Administrative Officer in Beirut when by the best count of the day, there were 79 different factions contesting in the civil war. On my first day in the office we were evacuated to avoid the artillery that was misdirected at our premises. Such irony to have left the army, yet to be on the receiving end!
UNRWA HQ was in evacuation in Vienna and after 18 months in Lebanon where I gained a reputation as a management trainer of executive staff, I was transferred to Austria to establish an Agency-wide staff development programme – we had almost 20,000 staff members at this point. Over the next four years, I shuttled between Vienna and the Near East (Egypt, Syria, Gaza, West Bank, Lebanon, and Cyprus) conducting week long seminars for senior management after which I was rewarded with the post in Jerusalem that I had applied for back in 1986! The first Intifada and the first Gulf War had just ended leaving a highly suspicious population and it is an understatement to say that keeping hospitals, health centres and schools operating then in the Occupied West Bank was a challenge too often ending in total frustration.
In August 1995, I was head-hunted by UNHQ New York to administer the peacekeeping mission in South Lebanon (UNIFIL). The area was part of the Israeli Security Zone constantly under fire and over-flights but gracefully by both sides, not often directly at UN installations. For security, all International staff of UNIFIL had to reside in Northern Israel and cross the border daily to get to and from work, quite often being halted at the border to await the exchange of fire to stop. Although the situation may sound frightening such that only someone with a death wish would want to stay, it was a rewarding job and mostly an enjoyable experience working with a multi-national group in a diplomatic setting. We had lots of high ranking visitors and I met many heads of state, prime ministers and government representatives.
Much changed when the Israelis withdrew and instantaneously a hush came over South Lebanon while Hezbollah sauntered in to fill the vacuum. The changes were ominous. Shortly afterwards I talked my way into a transfer to New York as the Chief of Civilian Training in the Department of Peacekeeping Operations and after three years at UNHQ, they retired me on age. When my wife passed away from breast cancer three months after I stopped work, I moved to Florida and formed a consulting HRD company. I currently manage part of a distance learning programme that puts out courses on aspects of peacekeeping. The parent non-profit organisation is called “the Peace Operations Training Institute” which proudly boasts over 20,000 world-wide enrolments per annum. I am able to work part-time from home while at other times my new wife, Ann, and I are trying hard to carve a track through the Country Club golf course.
I have three kids, two in Australia (a lawyer in Sydney and a geologist in Canberra) plus a 12 year-old in the USA and two grandchildren.
Life is wonderful and NSBHS has a lot to answer for.
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