Senator Jim Molan reacts prior to delivering his first speech in the Senate at Parliament House in Canberra.Credit:Alex Ellinghausen
Andrew James Molan was born in Melbourne on April 11,1950,son of a World War II veteran,Andrew Molan and Noni (nee Harnetty). He dreamt of being a soldier from his early days and in July,1968,was admitted into the Royal Military Academy,Duntroon. He completed university degrees in arts and economics and learnt Indonesian. In 1972,he was posted to the 1st Battalion,Pacific Islands Regiment (Papua New Guinea),returning a few months later to marry Anne Williams,whom he had met as an officer cadet. Both of them returned to Papua New Guinea where Molan completed what was to be a three-year stint,in which he helped the country move towards the democratic system that was instituted in 1975.
Molan then served in the 9th Battalion,Royal Queensland Regiment,and in the 3rd and 6th Battalions Royal Australian Regiment. He was at one point dispatched to the then Trade Union Training Authority College to learn how to become an industry advocate,which he found to be “an extraordinary experience”. His first child,Sarah,was born in 1981,followed by Erin in 1983,Felicity in 1984 and Michael in 1989. In 1992,as a colonel,Molan was posted to Jakarta as the Australian Defence Force attache,where he served until 1994. In 1998,as a brigadier,he returned as defence attache for another two years,where he saw first-hand Indonesia’s chaos following the fall of president Suharto,the Asian financial crisis and East Timor’s vote for independence. In 1999,when the Australian Army was deployed to East Timor,he was sent there.
Major General Andrew James “Jim” Molan,AO,2007.
Made an Officer of the Order of Australia,Molan became commander of the Australian Defence College. The United States was keen to bring commanders of allied nations into the command structure and Molan was offered a job,which the then Chief of the Defence Force,General Peter Cosgrove,urged him to take. In April 2004,Molan was posted to Baghdad as deputy chief of staff for operations for the new Multinational Force. Then he became chief of staff,effectively putting him in command of a force of 270,000,including more than 130,000 Americans,the rest drawn from dozens of coalition nations,plus Iraq itself.
Molan set out to create new mechanisms to co-ordinate and improve the security of vital infrastructure,monitoring,security,repair,ministerial liaison,contracting and command. He was in command during the brutal battles for Fallujah,Najar,Talafar,Samarra and Mosul. Molan survived a 23 mm anti-aircraft gun attack on a Blackhawk helicopter. On his count,he was involved in 15 attacks,including rocket-propelled grenades and mortars. The Iraqi elections scheduled for January 2005 represented a huge challenge. In the seven days before election day,coalition and Iraqi security forces were attacked about 800 times and on election day 260 times. On the night before the election,a rocket hit a room next to where Molan was,killing two Americans. It failed to detonate,which probably saved Molan’s life.
Molan,awarded the Distinguished Service Cross and the US Legion of Merit,retired from the Army in 2008 and published a book,Baghdad,Running the War in Iraq. He settled on a property near Queanbeyan and became busy as a member of the local bush fire brigade. Owner of a light plane,he flew a civilian helicopter in rescue operations as well as police and firefighting operations and became director of the National Aerial Firefighting Centre. He gave evidence on crisis management to the 2009 Victorian royal commission on bushfires.