THORNLIE’s Aaron Barnett is no stranger to elbow grease — in fact, the army mechanic is often smeared with the stuff. But these days he is one of the few Australian soldiers left in Iraq, and is servicing Army vehicles in Baghdad.
A Royal Australian Electrical and Mechanical Engineer for the past seven years, the 24-year-old is part of Operation Kruger, the Australian Defence Force’s contribution to the security and support for our embassy and its staff.
As a specialist, Aaron has the rank of craftsman, and he is part of the Australian security detachment based at the embassy compound.
“It has been a good experience, you pretty much have to do all the odd jobs,” he said.
“At the moment it is pretty busy because there are a lot of jobs to do – most of the work is on the Aslavs (Australian Light Armoured Vehicles)”
Once he has downed tools and scraped off the axle grease, he often puts on Kevlar body armour to command an Aslav on missions around Baghdad.
“You definitely have to be a jack of all trades,” he said.
Several Diggers in the detachment have already served in Iraq and Aaron is one of them. He was in Iraq in 2007 as an Aslav driver in the Australian Battle Group III in Dhi Qar province.
“We were doing a lot of patrols,” he said.
Now on the back end of his deployment, he looks forward to seeing family back in WA and girlfriend Jacinta.
“It’s mentally draining,” he said. “But it has been a good experience, that’s for sure.”