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| About to call in F/A-18 close air support training missions airborne in the Pilatus PC-9, 1996. |
I was asked to write my profile for the 101st Battery Royal Australian Artillery Association September newsletter. The exercise was quite cathartic. WNGO: may contain military acronyms.
Profile: Dr Michael de Percy FRSA FCILT MRSN (Captain, GPO/FO 101 Fd Bty 1996-7)
I served in the Australian Army for just shy of 15 years from 1990 until 2005. I resigned my commission when I became an academic. I began studying in 1995 while serving as GPO 105 Fd Bty. I was studying the Bachelor of Arts majoring in Strategic Studies at Deakin University, the only undergraduate qualification at the time in what is now referred to as security studies. I left the ARA in 1997 to finish my degree and changed my major to political science.
Since 2005, I have been a political scientist at the University of Canberra, and I completed my PhD at the Australian National University in 2013. It was a long, hard slog to start all over again from the bottom rung as an academic. For the first few years, I was earning less than I was as a subbie in the ARA. The change was worth it.
But it was strange after all the rivalry between the Tigers and the Hammers that in 1996 I was pulled out of RHQ the day before the Comd Div Arty’s assessment of 1 Fd Regt began. With the Ready Reserve gunners, we were able to put 18 guns in the field that year. The previous GPO had been sacked and I had to walk into the 101 Fd Bty CP and take over a team who regarded me as a competitor rather than one of them.
We survived only to find that the rules had changed. The end-ex pallets of beer went unopened. Later that year the BG and I were charged for firing a mistake under the dodgiest of circumstances. I’d lost all faith in my commanders and to this day I wish I’d chosen a court-martial.
The following year I became an FO with 101 Fd Bty after topping the IG Phase 1 course as a lieutenant. But I wasn’t happy and tried to transfer to Intelligence Corps. My CO at the time refused to let me go. He had also refused to let me do the Langs course in Indonesian and prevented me from becoming the Bde Comd’s LO. I transferred to the Inactive Reserve disheartened after not seeing the world but instead having travelled to Shoalwater Bay and back about 100 times.
As a boy, I grew up in Penrith just up the road from 133 Sig Sqn at Kingswood and then in Cairns during my teens. I finished high school on 20 November 1987 and started as a chainman with GHD on 23 November. We conducted the site selection surveys for RAAF Scherger near Weipa during the wet season. For the first trip we lived in the slaughterhouse at Sudley Station and then at Billy’s Lagoon Station for the second trip.
Let’s just say I was pretty fit and I had a pocket full of personality when I got back to Cairns. I was keen on this girl Eliza but for whatever reason it didn’t materialise. After working as a chainman, I completed a traineeship in warehousing and began working in hydraulics and pneumatics spare parts before moving to SKF Bearings. I hated my life.
My military service began with 51FNQR. I woke up one day at age 19 and decided I would either live the life I wanted, or I would end it then and there. I went to work and quit that day. Long story short, I had always wanted to be a fighter pilot, so I started studying Maths 1 and Physics by correspondence. I tried to join the Airforce Cadets as an instructor, but a bloke there said I would be better off joining the Army Reserve. I never did become a fighter pilot, but I qualified as an ACO and got to call in F/A-18 CAIRS training missions while airborne in the back of a PC-9. I still can’t believe they paid me to do that.
From 1990 to 1992 I did every course I could at 51FNQR. I became LCPL Patrol 2IC and PMC of the OR’s Mess and then I learnt about Duntroon. Our patrol scout and I worked part-time with our Patrol Comd who had a floor sanding business. But otherwise, we were doing up to 200 days per year with 51FNQR including live patrols on Cape York Peninsula.
The intake for Duntroon was cancelled in early 1992 and I had to find work to fund my wedding. As I went off to Duntroon, my flame Eliza went off to the UK. My then wife later came to Canberra and our first child was born the day before First Class at RMC. It was a blur, but I ended up receiving the RAA prize, placing ninth out of 189 graduates.
After leaving the ARA and focusing on my degree, the former QM at 1 Fd Regt called me and said to join the Pay Corps. I was studying accounting as part of a double degree, so it made sense. I ended up working as the SO3 Finance and Resources at RMC-D while completing my honours year. Further, I became the inaugural Det Comd of Army Financial Services Unit Canberra Det.
In 2000, now LTGEN(R) Greg Bilton AO CSC organised then Deputy Chief of Army LTGEN(R) Peter Leahy AC to present my Instrument of Promotion to captain at Army HQ. I am fortunate that Peter is now a colleague in my school at the University of Canberra and we have collaborated on a research project with the Australian Civil-Military Centre.
One thing I gained from the Army was social capital. It allowed me to see and experience things that I could never imagine. From a humble upbringing and with the guidance of some very good people, I escaped Cairns and life as a labourer to land upon the dizzying heights of academia.
But because I was so late to the academic party and I have a penchant for speaking my mind, I have become the equivalent of a passed-over major. Eventually I will have to leave the academy if I want to have a greater impact than the institution will allow.
To that end, I was appointed to the Australian Research Council’s College of Experts in 2022, and in 2023 I commenced a weekly column with The Spectator Australia, and I now have a fortnightly spot on Spectator Australia TV as a political commentator.
After discovering that I was eligible for hearing aids, I have since returned to the fold and I am the Gunning Chapter Representative of the Yass Sub-branch of the RSL. Regrettably, the 105 Bty Association folded so I now try to support my remaining associations and became a life member of the 101 Bty Association this year.
My service was not as glorious as others who have been profiled in this newsletter, but I am one of four generations of my family who served, and I am immensely proud that I wore our country’s uniform. I owe much of my good fortune to the Australian Army.
But the good news is that after some 36 years, Eliza and I finally got together, and we live in a federation cottage on a quarter acre block in the village of Gunning on the Southern Tablelands north of Canberra. We have dogs and cats and chickens and a rooster and we grow some of the best-tasting tomatoes and other fruit and veges whenever we are not travelling overseas.
And in the end, I got the girl.
Ubique.