• Serco Defence Managing Director Clint Thomas; Doug Baird, father of CPL Cameron Baird VC MG; Michael Madden, author of The Victoria Cross: Australia Remembers; George Petrou, the artist.
Serco
    Serco Defence Managing Director Clint Thomas; Doug Baird, father of CPL Cameron Baird VC MG; Michael Madden, author of The Victoria Cross: Australia Remembers; George Petrou, the artist. Serco
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A portrait of Victoria Cross recipient Cameron Stewart Baird will be put on permanent display at an ADF base named in his honour.

Serco Defence has accepted delivery of the painting from the artist George Petrou and will support its transfer to the forward operating base at Al Minhad Air Base (AMAB), in the United Arab Emirates, named Camp Baird in 2014 to honour the fallen hero.

Corporal Baird was a soldier in the Australian Army who was tragically killed whilst on operational service in 2013 in Afghanistan. He was posthumously awarded the Victoria Cross for Australia and is the 100th Australian to be bestowed the pre-eminent award.

The portrait was formally received by Serco Defence Managing Director Clint Thomas at a special event at the Australian National Veterans Art Museum (ANVAM) in Melbourne. Corporal Baird's father Doug Baird attended the presentation, along with Chairman and Director of the ANVAM Mark Johnston, and Brigadier David Smith representing the ADF.

Thomas said he was pleased to see the portrait going to a base that honours the service and sacrifice of Corporal Baird.

“Serco is proud to have been supporting the ADF and its members in the Middle East for more than eight years. I am very pleased that we have been able to play a small part in ensuring this wonderful painting of Corporal Baird can be put on permanent display in the forward operating base that proudly bears and honours his name”.

“We appreciate the gesture by Serco to build on Corporal Baird’s memory and legacy through art,” Johnston said. “Memorialising him in this way provides a link to Corporal Baird’s own connection to the arts, most famously through his emotional musical tribute to his mate, Private Luke Worsley, which is just one of many ways Corporal Baird will be remembered.”

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