Crusade of a different kind
Richard Burton, Roger Moore, Richard Harris and Hardy Krüger; those were days. What red-blooded movie goer could forget these stars in their 1978 action thriller The Wild Geese, a movie about a bunch of mercenaries hired to rescue a deposed African leader from execution.
Well actually The Note had forgotten all about it until this week when the name leapt out from the pages of last year’s WA Department of Education Services annual report, normally about as far away from the world of the Wild Geese as you could imagine.
What piqued our curiosity was the fact that Wild Geese International had been re-registered as a training organisation by DESWA.
Wild Geese. Training. It certainly got The Note excited imagining Sandline types operating in the badlands of Dwellingup.
A quick search did find a reference to a South Aussie organisation by that name which purports to be a Combat Veterans Radio & Communications Group. ‘Gotcha!’ we cried, somewhat prematurely it turned out.
There is, it appears, a very legitimate company called Wild Geese International in South Perth which offers training and recruitment services to the hydrocarbon industry.
Conservationists like to consider the oil and gas industry as nothing more than mercenary, but The Note’s recent experience of this largely alcohol free and risk-averse business is that Burton, Moore et al would go nowhere near it.
WGI co-founder Grant O’Keefe said the name was a bit of joke that stuck after admitting to one of his colleagues that he’d work for anyone with the right amount of money.
“People never forget the name and it’s a very good ice breaker for new clients,” he said.
“We have a few more ethics, though,” he added.