Publication:Sea Talk Winter 2007/Indigenous Veterans and Services Assn revival

Reservist POMT Gary Oakley is busy reviving the Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islanders Veteran and Services Association of Australia.

An indigenous veteran of just under 22 years service in the Permanent Navy, Gary addressed indigenous veterans and serving members of the Australian Defence Force as the new President of the association during National Commemoration ceremony at the Australian War Memorial on May 27. The audience included the Chiefs of Navy, Army and Air Force, VADM Russ Shalders, AO, CSC, RAN, Lt-Gen Peter Leahy and AIRMSHL Geoff Shepherd, who laid wreathes during the service.

Normally a curator in gallery development at the AWM, Gary said the association had been formed some six years ago but had ‘stagnated’. Since taking up the position, Gary has been moving to extend knowledge of the association to all parts of the country. He was approved to wear rig to attend Anzac Day celebrations at Cherbourg Mission, the largest in Queensland, near Murgon about three hours drive north-west of Brisbane.

While he was participating in an ABC documentary on aboriginal Service personnel, he was amazed at the response. “The community was impressed that the Navy would turn up for their ceremony,” he said. “The RAN should be actively visiting these places as the kids there are looking for careers and were very interested in what Defence has to offer. The mission has a long line of veterans from World War I to Vietnam.”

Gary is keen to raise the profile of the association he heads up and has already had media coverage in the Department of Veterans’s Affairs quarterly, Vetaffairs, the RSL’s Reveille, The Courier-Mail in Brisbane, and ABC indigenous program, Message Stick.