Counting fan mail miles from home

CPOSN Rod Shepheard with some of the mail he has received from the United States.

By LEUT Ian Lumsden

For Secret Harbour resident, Chief Petty Officer Rod Shepheard, hot and dusty Baghdad seems a long way from the ocean.

The Western Australian is the Senior Stores Accountant at the Australian National Headquarters in Baghdad.

With 21 years’ RAN service behind him, CPOSN Shepheard is finding his work in Iraq a very different experience from the last time he was in the Middle East.

“I was in The Gulf 18 months ago aboard HMAS Canberra and the closest we got to Iraq was the 12-mile limit off the coast,” he said.

Not long after arriving in Baghdad, CPO Shepheard became the point of contact for a US-based web site that sends letters of appreciation and care packages to deployed troops. Over the past few months CPO Shepheard has
received more than 120 letters from people throughout the US.

“I could not let them go unanswered so I have written back to all of them and thanked them for their support,” he said.

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