Chipping in for ideal cause

Flight Lieutenant Rob Seabrook applies the finishing touches to the Anzac Day memorial stone. Photos by LCPL Neil Ruskin

The remembrance stone is bathed in light at the dawn service at Baghdad International Airport.

By CPL Damian Shovell

WHEN it was realised Baghdad lacked a memorial stone for Anzac Day, Flight Lieutenant Rob Seabrook, of Australian Headquarters at Camp Victory, took the matter into his own hands – literally.

With no training in stone masonry, he set out in his spare time to chisel the memorial for what was to become the focal point of arguably this year’s most important cenotaph.

“It was a bit of home-grown craftsmanship. I knew we needed something that was going to be of a reasonable stature as a cenotaph object, I just didn’t know what I was going to be able to find,” FLTLT Seabrook said.

After weeks of searching and a bit of practice on a piece of rubble, the perfect stones were located and permission was granted to use them.

“The stones were some balcony, balustrade or column-type thing that was along the water front [at Camp Victory]. I’ve obviously seen a lot of them [memorial stones] around at home and the theme of a piece of marble or stone with a broken top is fairly common. The other option was some dodgy-looking timber that was lying around and that really didn’t seem to be up to the task. So I thought we could do something better.”

And what was used to chisel this masterpiece? “I’d like to say proper tools, but it was a screw driver,” FLTLT Seabrook said. “I’d go out and do half an hour or an hour at a time until my hand got sore, and then go back the next day ... just slowly chipping away.”

The stone took a couple of weeks to complete and was finished a week before the big event. FLTLT Seabrook looked forward to seeing it used at the dawn service at Camp Victory, only to have it snapped up and taken for the service at the Air Traffic Control (ATC) detachment at Baghdad International Airport.

“I was a bit ticked off. Obviously we didn’t know who the VIPs were at that point – in fact we thought it was just going to be Baghdad personnel,” he said.

Disappointment turned to pride when Prime Minister John Howard and CDF General Peter Cosgrove paid a surprise visit to the ATC detachment’s dawn service.

The cenotaph appeared in media coverage and there’s now growing support among ADF personnel in Iraq to have the stone brought back to Australia, with some suggesting it should be included in the War Memorial.

“I had joked about getting it into my trunk and taking it home myself. In the end it came out really good, and a lot better than I thought so, yeah, if it can go in the War Memorial then that would be fabulous,” FLTLT Seabrook said.

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