The Leader Newspaper // Special Features ANZAC Day 2019 Supplement | Page 5

COMMEMORATING ANZAC
Wisconsin to Woomera...
Continued from previous page
“Our area of concern at that point in time was what
the American military thought was important. They
just say this is what you are training to be able to do.
“We maintained the base where we were living,
took care of the airfield, the hangars, buildings,
schools and everything that’s there.”
The Iran/Iraq war began as Rob was at the “tail
end” of his first tour of duty.
“I was all signed up to go to Iraq, we had a 120
man crew all set to go to Kuwait and then I got my
orders to Woomera, Australia!”
His sense of relief is still evident today as he talks
of the day he received his Aussie orders.
“I remember very vividly going down to the
headquarters, delivering some stuff to our First
Sergeant. He said, Rob, what do you know about
Australia? I said it’s hot, but wouldn’t mind going!
Then he goes, okay, here you go, happy birthday
because it happened to be my birthday. You’ve got
orders to Woomera but you might want to do some
reading on that before you go.”
“This was before Google, so my “reading” was to
go down to the library... Back then Woomera was still
a fairly isolated base so they didn’t really tell you a
whole lot about it.”
Rob’s tour from 1991-1994 resulted in him seeing
the war between Iraq and Iran from a different
perspective whilst he took care of all the electrical
work at Woomera.
“We got regular briefings on what was happening
in different areas, they used satellites and they could
watch what they wanted to. Woomera was one of
the listening posts for that back then.”
Rob’s next posting was to Scott Air Force Base in
Illinois. By now he had gained his stripes and was
also a trainer for the organisation.
“The Gulf War was going on and we had
opportunities to go places....The one I was directly
involved with was ‘Ifor’ which was Implementation
Force for Bosnia when all that was happening. In
’95-’96 I did a four and a half month tour over to
Hungary. We stayed in a little place called Tazar…. It
was a cross point for a lot of stuff coming through
the area, as well as the Air base that was there. So
we had to help build up and maintain it to make sure
you could shuffle troops through.”
“That was challenging. We were there through
Thanksgiving and Christmas during the dead of
winter so it was bitterly cold and it was not only our
responsibility to keep the place running and working
but work with the locals to keep things up and running
after it had been bashed up....we also had to keep
the airfield clear of snow. Sometimes there was two
inches of ice covering everything.
“We worked 24 hours on, 24 off. Sometimes it
ended up being 36 on and 12 off.”
On returning to Illinois, he was ordered to go to
California.
“I got chosen for what they call a special duty
assignment to an organisation called CEMIRT which
is a Civil Engineering Maintenance Inspection and
Repair Team. Our area of operation was effectively
half the world.”
Rob describes what he called his “round the
world” tour which resulted in him flying around
the globe collecting essential parts from other
bases to fix two generators at an Air Base in
Japan.
“We flew first to Japan then back to California,
California to Philadelphia, Philadelphia to England,
England across Russia back to Japan. Once we finished
in Japan then back to California again... all in 45 days.”
But lengthy time away from family took its toll
and Rob made the decision to follow his now ex-wife
back to her homeland Australia with their family,
effectively ending Rob’s time in the military at the
tail end of 2001.
Rob now happily calls Barossa home after first
finding employment as an electrician in Nuriootpa
nearly 20 years ago.
He now enjoys “a nice solid role” as Co-ordinator,
Facilities Management with The Barossa Council and
is married to Barossa local, Sharee who is currently
the assistant treasurer of Nuriootpa RSL. His son,
Nathan is an affiliate member.
Rob is also proud to say the family tradition of
military service is continuing with his daughter being
a Staff Sergeant serving in the US Army.
Rob Nies during his 13 years’ service in the American
Airforce. Inset: In the Honour Guard.
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With the kind assistance of the participating businesses, The Leader has been able to provide a generous donation to the local RSL sub branches
“The Leader”, Commemorating ANZAC, Wednesday, April 17, 2019 - 5