Australia — Reservists Return from Solomon Islands

A Home­com­ing Parade was held today at RAAF Base Williams in Laver­ton, Vic­to­ria, for the sol­diers of the Aus­tralian Defence Force (ADF), 22nd deploy­ment to Solomon Islands.

The Parade was reviewed by the Par­lia­men­tary Sec­re­tary for Defence, Sen­a­tor David Feeney, rep­re­sent­ing the Min­is­ter for Defence, in the pres­ence of the sol­diers’ fam­i­ly, friends and oth­er VIPs. 

The major­i­ty of the mem­bers on Parade were from the 8th/7th Bat­tal­ion the Roy­al Vic­to­ria Reg­i­ment. As Victoria’s region­al infantry bat­tal­ion, it has depots through­out the state, with its Head­quar­ters in Ballarat. 

This has been the third deploy­ment to Solomon Islands with Victoria’s 4th Brigade con­tribut­ing as the mount­ing for­ma­tion. The 4th Brigade is part of the ADF 2nd Divi­sion, its Army Reserve Division. 

The con­tin­gent of approx­i­mate­ly 100, pre­dom­i­nant­ly Army Reserve sol­diers, made an effec­tive con­tri­bu­tion to the ongo­ing secu­ri­ty and sta­bil­i­ty of Solomon Islands dur­ing their four-month deploy­ment, par­tic­u­lar­ly dur­ing the recent elec­tions. The sta­ble secu­ri­ty envi­ron­ment pro­vid­ed for Solomon Islands elec­tions is in-part tes­ta­ment to the pro­fes­sion­al­ism, train­ing and com­mit­ment of the Oper­a­tion Anode contingent. 

The deploy­ment was part of the Aus­tralian Government’s ongo­ing sup­port to the Region­al Assis­tance Mis­sion to Solomon Islands (RAMSI). The RAMSI mis­sion is to assist the Gov­ern­ment of Solomon Islands in the restora­tion of law and order, eco­nom­ic gov­er­nance and improv­ing the machin­ery of gov­ern­ment in order to ensure the peo­ple of Solomon Islands have a brighter future. 

Hav­ing com­plet­ed a high­ly suc­cess­ful deploy­ment, the sol­diers will now return to their fam­i­lies and friends in time for Christ­mas cel­e­bra­tions, after six months on full time service. 

The com­mit­ment of Reservists to peri­ods of full-time ser­vice, would not be pos­si­ble with­out the sup­port of employ­ers and fam­i­ly. The capac­i­ty the Army Reserve brings to the ADF is a part­ner­ship between the sol­dier, the ADF, fam­i­ly and employers. 

The prin­ci­pal Guest of the Parade was Com­man­der of the 2nd Divi­sion, Major Gen­er­al C.D Williams. 

Oth­er VIPs who attend­ed includ­ed the May­or of the City of Bal­larat, Coun­cil­lor Judy Ver­lin; Com­man­der of the 4th Brigade, Brigadier R.J. Marsh; and Com­man­der of RAAF Base Williams and Com­man­der Air Force Train­ing Group, Air Com­modore K.N Watson,. 

Press release
Min­is­te­r­i­al Sup­port and Pub­lic Affairs,
Depart­ment of Defence,
Can­ber­ra, Australia 

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