AUSTRALIAN Army Lieutenant Colonel Rebecca Talbot — a former Sutherland Shire resident — was honoured in the 2015 Queen's Birthday honours with a commendation for distinguished service of duty in the Middle East.
Lieutenant Colonel Talbot, 39, displayed exceptional leadership and exemplary service as a commanding officer of Force Support Unit 9 on Operation Slipper in 2014.
"Her outstanding technical mastery, motivation and foresight ensured her unit consistently maintained an exceptional level of logistics sustainment throughout the wider Middle East area of operations," her citation stated.
"Her deployment legacy was the successful redeployment of personnel and highly sensitive material from across a dispersed theatre including the closure of the Australian ammunition storage point at Kandahar airfield."
Lieutenant Colonel Talbot joined the 213 Australian Army cadet unit at Sutherland when she was at Sylvania High School; she was school captain in her final year.
She went to the Australian Defence Force Academy in Canberra after finishing her HSC in 1994 and graduated with a degree in history and politics.
Lieutenant Colonel Talbot, who lives in Queensland, has had three overseas tours: East Timor, Afghanistan and Iraq.
