South West homecoming for Wishart family during Anzac Day services

As Australia and New Zealand took a moment to pause and acknowledge those that served the country in international conflicts, one local family of Army veterans reunited to pay their respects. Three members of Nannup’s Wishart family reunited in the South West this Anzac Day, taking part in the Bunbury dawn service before travelling down the Bussell Highway to participate in the Anzac Day march in Nannup. Wishart family patriarch Ian Wishart — a former dairy and cattle farmer — and his two sons Michael and Neil each served in the Australian Army, with the trio sharing the rare distinction of serving in the same battalion — the 2/4 Royal Australian Regiment — during their respective stints. Speaking to the Bunbury Herald ahead of Anzac Day, Neil Wishart — who flew in from over east — said while it will be will be a big day in terms of travelling around the region, it was something the family had been wanting to do for quite some time. “We just never got around to doing it until now,” he said. “Michael and I have been floating around the countryside for many many years trying to tee everything up. “I know I’ve spent a couple of Anzac Days overseas on deployments so just trying to get it all organised can be pretty difficult.” Neil said he was also ready to experience the nostalgia of returning to the small town he grew up in. “Coming from a small dairy farm and deciding this was what we were going to do with our lives, this town sort of moulded us into who we are today,” he said. “It also gives me a sense of pride that this town did the juice for a couple of guys that decided that serving the country was the way to go.” Ian Wishart joined the Army in March 1960 and was discharged three years later, Michael Wishart joined in June 1985 and was discharged in July 1995, while Neil Wishart joined in August 1989 and was medically discharged in June 2021. While Ian’s stint in the Army was primarily taking part in training camps, Michael would be sent to Malaysia four a four-month training exercise where he was a member of the team that located a POW camp used by the Sandakan death march during World War 11. For Neil, his stint primarily comprised of training for the first 10 years until he was deployed to East Timor in 2001, followed by the Solomon Islands in 2003, his first tour of Iraq in 2005, Afghanistan in 2009 and 2010 and returning to Iraq in 2015 as part of a team that trained Iraqi soldiers. However, it was not until a visit to their unit museum when Neil noticed his brother’s signature on the nominal role for the 2/4 RAR battalion. “I spoke to him about it and he said ‘if you look closely there’s Dad’s signature too’ so I was quite proud to find out that all three of us were in the same battalion,” he said. “For the first time in many decades, there’s three family members that served in the same unit.” Neil said the experience of being in the Army certainly brought him closer to his brother Michael and his father despite being the only one of the three to have been deployed multiple times. “All our training was very similar and we could certainly relate to each other when we would come back from leave,” he said. “Despite the differences in the years of services, it was quite interesting to learn that some of the training hadn’t changed in all these years. “I remember we took Dad out to Singleton, which is the infantry training centre in New South Wales, and he said it hasn’t changed since he had been there in the 60s. “When Dad was there it was post-Korean and World War 11, Vietnam hadn’t quite kicked off but they were gearing up for training in the jungle and then Michael went through and I went through and it was all jungle warfare. “Everything was exactly the same, even our uniforms were exactly the same so not much had changed in that 30-year period.”