Operation Bel Isi - Home Page

Simon Woolley
"Geek"

In the year 2000, I was posted the the 103rd Signal Squadron in Townsville. I was the Troop Sergeant of the Information Systems (IS) troop and had approximately 20 IT specialist "geeks" working for me; which would later grow to around 45.

Getting my deployment to Bougainville was more about luck than skill. On the 30 June 2000, I was standing in the Operations Room at 103 Sig Sqn when a call came in for one of the Warrant Officers (WO2). The Officer Commanding (OC) - Major Andrew Shegog - of 103 was also in the room when the WO2 said that they needed to talk to him about sending an IT specialist to Bougainville. Having the right skills I started nodding my head at the OC, who then said to the person on the other end that he would find the two people they needed.

As soon as the boss got off the phone he said ".. so do you want to go?". My first question was so when do I deploy? He said I was leaving on the 6 Jul 2000 (only seven days notice) and had to find another person from my troop to go with me for the two months.

I headed down back to my troop with a bit of a skip in my step and called the team in for a meeting. "Who wants to go to Bougainville for two months" and strangely there was silence. No one was interested in a free trip overseas which is very unusual in the Army. After more probing, I found out that a trip to East Timor was on the cards and you get paid more to go to East Timor.

My preparation was fairly rushed as you can image. I needed medical, dental, inoculation and equipment checks before I could leave. I would have liked to do the pre-embarkation training which included briefings about the language, culture and the country but it was also nice to buck the military system and just flying in.

I had to get up fairly early to leave for the Townsville RAAF base to catch my flight on the C130 Hercules. All our kit was loaded up and we were briefed on the aircraft. Lunch was handed out along with hearing protection. I think the flight was about six hours but I can't remember as I fell asleep. A few people we fairly nervous but having jumped out of at least 20 perfectly good Hercs they really didn't bother me.

We arrived at Kieta airfield which was very unexciting unless you like looking at nothing - airfield and palm trees - not even a toilet. A number of people were getting on the aircraft to head back to Townsville and we jumped on the trucks.

First stop was the port of Loloho were the Logistical Support Team (LST) was based. I meet up WO2 "Mac" McCloskey who was going to give me a bit of a tour around and take me out to where I was staying. We drove out to Arawa, which was only about 8 Km from Loloho. The house we were living in was called Club Gecko II or just Gecko house for short. I was a tropical stilt house like those you would see in the tropics in Australia and had three bedrooms, bathroom, kitchen, lounge, patio and even a volleyball court.

I had already worked with a few of the people in the house so settling in wasn't too bad. The other residents were linesmen (lay and fix cabling), commanders driver and technicians. At one stage we even had a female in the house but she slept in a small room behind the kitchen so she had some privacy.

I had an absolute ball in Bougainville. I mainly looked after all the geeks on the island and was lucky enough to go out to every team site to fix up their PCs. I worked out of the HQ of the PMG in Arawa but we regularly went to Loloho for visits and our weekly volleyball competitions. The choppers were also based in Loloho so every time we went out to a team site we stopped into to Loloho for a visit and a feed.

Keeping yourself busy was the hardest part of the operation. Boredom can make time feel like it is standing still so we had regular video nights, went for runs to the beach, read magazines and played volleyball. I have a bit of a passion for photography so I took many walks around Arawa and all the team sites I visited taking photos so that one day I could remember all the cool things we did. At last count I had about 1,500 photos.

The highlights of my time in country were flying to Buka over the battlefields by chopper, cruising around the islands on the Navy minesweeper "Bandicoot", learning a bit of the local language and listening to stories about the crisis from our local guard - Daniel.

I left Bougainville on the 7 Sept 00 (there for 2 months) and was very sad to leave. Hopefully one day I can return and see how it has changed over the years.

POST OP BEL ISI

I returned to 103 Sig Sqn to find out that the people who thought they would get picked to go to East Timor - didn't and they all missed out on a fantastic trip to Bougainville. We did send a number of people from 103 Sig Sqn over the following 18 months or so but only after I told everyone how good it was.

Had a part time job writing for the Townsville Bulletin (News Corp.) as a freelance technology journalist. I wrote for a column called "Switched On" which informed users on emerging technologies and new gadgets. Over two years I produced over one hundred technology articles - see below for two of them.

Next stop was Darwin in 2002. As a Sergeant Instructor (HDA for WO2), I taught soldiers all over Australia how to use a software and hardware package the Army was introducing.

Started my photography business - www.digitalinaflash.com.au while in Darwin and currently have around 2,000 commercial grade images for sale. I have had my images published in a number of magazines,newspapers, calendars and even a coffee table book about Koalas.

In 2004, the Army tried to screw me over and I decided to discharge - not an easy decision after 15 years of service. After being told what to wear and look like 24/7 I dyed my hair red and grew a goatee.

We moved to Canberra and I am currently employed as a Team Leader/Manager of an IT Support Centre (computer helpdesk). Tried out the Army Reserves for a while but found it to be too different to the regular Army so quit.

In 2006, I spent a lot of time researching how I could run my own web server from home. Not only would it save me money but I could put as much stuff as I wanted on the internet - yes I am a GEEK and I had the number plate to prove it!!

I now own and manage 14 internet domains including this one, on two web servers. I have also managed to setup an email server which makes keeping track of email addresses so much easier. Have a look at the links page for some of my sites.

I have finally gone live with my latest business venture - www.pickapc4me.com - this business will provide consumers with honest computer buying advice. No longer will the computer salesman be able to rip you off because you don't understand computers, with my help you will get the right computer at the right price - every time. I also do computer repairs in the Canberra region at very cheap rates.

I have told my story now why don't you drop me a email and tell me what you have been up too. I am sure others would love to hear where you are, what you are doing and mostly what you look like now. If you have any photos you think would look good on the site site them to me but make sure they are at least 800 pixels on the longest side (bigger is better).