6 May 2025
Newlywed lieutenants Barton and Jacqui Heeney put the honeymoon on hold when they found out they’d be deploying to Malaysia together for a military exercise testing the defence of Malaysia and Singapore.
Exercise Bersama Shield 2025, held April 7-22, is one of two annual exercises bringing together personnel from Australia, Malaysia, New Zealand, Singapore and the United Kingdom.
Two weeks after MH-60R Romeo pilot Barton learnt he was bound for Penang, Jacqui was told she’d be heading to Malaysia with her husband, working in cyber security.
“No strings were pulled on our end, but we’re really lucky with how it turned out,” Barton said.
“We’re really enjoying it here; it’s been a great exercise.”
Jacqui wasn’t sure at first how they’d manage their personal and professional relationship.
“The circumstances are quite strange and not really heard of,” she said.
“But we both came over here to do a job.”
Despite working in the same building, their day-to-day roles in Malaysia keep them apart.
'The circumstances are quite strange and not really heard of, but we both came over here to do a job.'
In Australia, Jacqui is an operations officer at Fleet Cyber Unit in Sydney.
For Bersama Shield, she was part of the cyber cell, testing online security awareness at Royal Malaysian Air Force Base Butterworth.
The information warfare officer sent phishing attack emails to exercise participants to simulate gaining access to the secure exercise network.
“We’re testing our infrastructure and teaching our people to understand what the attacks can look like and how they should react,” Jacqui said.
“It’s the first time I’ve seen simulated phishing attacks on exercise, where we’re delivering emails to people’s inboxes and then they’re reacting to them.”
Barton is an MH-60R Romeo helicopter pilot for Fleet Aviation in Sydney, but worked in Exercise Control on Bersama Shield, responsible for personnel management out of a combined headquarters.
