Navy People:Maryborough Local Serving In The Middle East

6 June 2007

Maryborough's Sheldon Hart is now half a world away on patrol in the North Arabian Gulf. The former St Mary's College student and Doonvilla Magpie soccer player joined the Royal Australian Navy 5 years ago as Communication and Information Systems sailor.

Sheldon and his 180 shipmates onboard Navy frigate HMAS Toowoomba provide an ongoing contribution to the rehabilitation and reconstruction of Iraq. This includes the important work of protecting Iraq's offshore export oil terminals and monitoring, intercepting and boarding vessels suspected of illegally trafficking cargo that diverts funds from the Iraqi economy.

Sheldon, a Leading Seaman, is part of team that is responsible for the provision and sustainment of a broad range of communications paths and networks ensuring the information flow between shore stations and coalition units. In addition to all the technology at his fingertips, Sheldon is also trained in the use of time-honoured traditional methods of naval communications including signal flags, semaphore and morse code via flashing light. Another vital part of his job is maintaining the ships Local Area Network so that the ships company are able to communicate with loved ones back home in the form of emails as well as providing satellite support enabling the ship access to the internet.

Sheldon takes a lot of pride in the way HMAS Toowoomba has handled herself. He says, "there are so many different personalities all crammed onto the one ship, so many different jobs we have to do, yet funnily enough the job gets done and it gets done well. That is one thing I have noticed up here is the amount of professionalism Australians show even during trying times."

Sheldon and his shipmates will be back home in July after a 6 month deployment.