Return to previous page	Listen to interview
Michelle Stevens Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 19 January, 2001 - tape 1 (1hr 3mins)
Mitch Stevens interviewed at Kingsville on 19 January, 2001. So can you start with where and when you were born? I was born in Longreach in Queensland, in 19 June 1964. I’ve got five brothers and sisters, my mother’s still alive, I have a stepfather. Any military in the background of your family? My youngest sister was in the Army for 3 years, my Uncles were in the Army during the World Wars. Right, did you talk about that kind of experience in the family at all? Just with this one uncle. He talked occasionally his experiences in the War. Just when I got home over Christmas. Right, what was your first job? My first job was a batch clerk for the National Australia bank. Right. I left there and I joined the Princess Alexander hospital, I nursed as an enrolled nurse for 3 years. Leaving that, I joined the Airforce on June 7 or 8 1989. Why? Why did I join? My sister was in the Army at the time. And I had a lot of other friends that were in recruiting in Brisbane and I just thought it seemed a good idea. And why the RAAF? Didn’t want to joint the Army because it was a bit too butch for me. Right, and the RAAF wasn’t? No. The RAAF’s more civilians in uniform. Shall we say. All right, OK. Where did you train? I trained, I did my recruit training at RAAF Base, Edinburgh in South Australia. And then from there I went to Laverton for my trade training as a Communications operator. OK. What sort of training do you get for a Communications position? Um, basic typing, back room sort of stuff, for top secret, because your clearance is top secret crypto, so you get your back room training. What does that mean? Back room training is working on the crypto machines. Ah say a top secret message will come through, it will come in in code and it will goes into the back room, so you have to decode it and put it into message format and then hand deliver it appropriately as per your manuals. OK, you’re not code breaking, you’re simply using others … . Yeah, a set military code, it’s across the board. OK, and then your first position? It was at Glenbrook. And I worked in the Com Centre, and then got posted into AOCC, which is air operations. Still at Glenbrook, Air Operations Centre, that was Air Ground Air radio type of work. Right, had you been trained for that? You had to go to Laverton and do a course for a month. Right, OK. Tell me about Glenbrook, about the Base. Were you living on the base? I lived on the Base. Right tell me about living on the Base, what was it like, what did the place look like, what would a normal day have been like? Um, you could say Glenbrook look liked a Country Club. It did - it had old historic buildings on it. Our accommodation was excellent. You had units and there were 4 bedrooms on the Ground Floor. Then you would step up into like a lounge room, kitchen, bathroom, toilet, shower area. And then you go up to another little level and then there’d be another 4 rooms, so it’s an 8 accommodation block. The lounge room area, you had your TV, your heater and your couch and all that sort of stuff that was supplied. Private rooms, I assume. Your own private room.. Which was quite big , because I had double bed in there and a desk with my sewing machines, cos I do a fair bit of sewing and chair and a cupboard. So they were pretty roomy. OK, what other facilities where there on the Base? There was ah, you had your Mess, and attached to each Mess is your Bar and you had to take turns at rotating, working the Bar as part of your extra duties. If we wanted to have the Bar open you had to work. They had a pool, tennis court, gym, a little shop that you could buy lunch at if you didn’t want to eat at the Mess. That was about it. Hospital? Oh, yeah, yeah, medical. Not a hospital as such, we only had medical because Richmond wasn’t far, it was about 25 minutes away and that was where the Base hospital and Base.. major Base dental surgery was. And what was a normal day like there? Glenbrook was rotating shift, roster, so you worked a 12 hour … either 7 in the morning to 7 at night. 7 at night to 7 in the morning, 2 days on, 2 days, 2 night, 4 days off. You’d just go into the Com Centre, and depend on what area you worked in, you just went there for your 12 hours. And then you’d go home. With meal breaks? Definitely, with meal breaks, a lunch break and dinner break. If you didn’t have a dinner break, hot meals would be brought down to you if you lived on. What did you do on your time off? At Glenbrook my time off. Parties. On the Base or outside? No, sometimes on the Base cos they used to have bands, hired bands and things like that. Discos or whatever, cos the Base was a fair way from Penrith, so if you wanted to go out, I think a Taxi was about $15 down into Penrith, so unless a few of you went out, you didn’t really... Very self sufficient? Very self sufficient. You didn’t have much to do then the rest of the people of Glenbrook? Not a great deal, no. And you were there for 2 years? Yep Happy there? Yeah, yeah, enjoyed it. Mostly young people? A lot of young people. OK. Then to Tindal? Yes. Why? I requested to go Tindal actually, because it was in the Northern Territory, I’d never been up that far before. I just didn’t want to go back to Amberley, Brisbane, which meant you just went home to your family and you didn’t see anything and you didn’t experience a lifestyle. So I requested Tindal, furthest away as possible. I was there for 12 months. I met a lot of nice people up there. The Base was very self sufficient there, it had your living in accommodation. It actually had the Base and then off the Base, but it was still classed as being on Base. You had your living in accommodation and it had married quarters. It was like a little … your own village, sort of thing they had the gym, pool and everything and that was classed as being off Base, so that all the spouses and children could use the facilities as well. And they had a outdoor theatre, they had football fields all that sort of stuff. The guys used to play against teams in town and they’d take turns of either playing in town or on the Base. They had a big outdoor theatre on weekends at night. Do you mean cinema or live theatre? Ah, cinema. On weekends there we used to water ski. We had a water ski club. Where? In an old uranium mine, at, where was it, mid way between Darwin and Tindal. It was about an hour and half's drive up. We drove up, all of us on a Saturday morning and ski for the weekend, go camping, and come back Sunday night. Wash the boat and get ready for work the next day. Right, was the work much the same? All the same, it was when DisCom was just coming in as well. DisCom was the new way of grouping all the communications centres together. Right. Now from there you went to Cambodia? Yes. All right, did you choose to go on those kinds of postings? I begged to go to Cambodia. My boss didn’t want to send a girl. But by that stage of being in the Defence Force, I wanted to, I joined, eventually, like I saw, I joined to serve my country and going to Cambodia was obviously the step. What did you know about Cambodia before? That made you want to go? Um, just about the.. I had seen a documentary on Cambodia about Pol Pot and all his massacres sort of things, and the reason we went was so they could have a free and fair election, which, um, everybody, well every country deserves to get … and I just thought, yep, I wanted to be part of it. So, what did you think it would be like? Before you went what did you expect? Oh, not a great deal, I’d seen photographs and um, I had friends that I was writing to over there. And and I knew it was quite War-torn. And there was still a lot of Khmer Rouge rolling around attacking people, etc, so I knew it wasn’t going to be safe, as such. Didn’t worry you? No, no. I was fully confident with my um, military training, and weapons training etc, and I was confident I could defend myself or the people around me if it came to that. You’re in communications, how much weapons training did you have? Oh, heaps, we do actually the same as the Army. We have to keep proficient on weapons training and ground defence, like that’s um pretend Wars. We do, we had to do all that every 6 to 12 months, so. What sort of weapons were you proficient with? Um, the SLR - it’s a rifle, so. That’s the only one to start and later I learned pistol. OK. Did you ever have to carry weapons in Australia? No, only at ground defence, but they were loaded with blanks not real bullets. So, this would have been quite a change then? Yes. Did you have to carry weapons all the time? You had to have your weapon on you at all times. You had to sleep with your weapon, if... When we first got over there the Sergeant, before it got hot, the Sergeant used to, when you were asleep sneak into your room and try and steal your weapon, and if he could successfully do that then you’d be in a hell of a lot of trouble next day. So you had to um … . And did this happen to you? Were you able to stop him? Oh, yeah, I slept with it down the spine of my back. And with my head on the muzzle. So he couldn’t find my weapon when he came in. Righto, all right, so you had some idea, what you were letting yourself in for? Yeah. Where did you, how did you travel and where did you land? We travelled by aircraft, stopping at Bangkok on the way overnight, and then landed in Phnom Penh. And what did you see when you got off the plane? Just the local airport, it was. We had the first couple of days touring, sort of the sights, like the Genocidal Museum and the killing fields just to familiarise ourselves with most of their history. Right, can you explain what the Genocidal Museum is? The Genocidal Museum is … it’s a Museum area that they’ve got over there, where they used to torture all the people that they brought in … the um, well educated people, as they were saying. Um, it had the torture rooms, with the racks and they’d still like be stained blood marks on the walls and things like that, so you got a feel for what happened. They had photographs of everyone that they had captured and tortured and labelled with their numbering system. Was this new information for you? No, I had, it was pretty much, the same sort of Museum thing that they show on the Killing Fields movie. Right. So, The Killing Fields gives you a very good aspect to it. You mean the movie does? Yeah, the movie. Right. You then said you went to the killing fields. What did you see there? Ah, there were just pits, empty pits of what they dug up. And then in big glass cases, they had all the skulls of all the people, all the bones in the cases, so you could you see how many. And you still felt confident after this? Yeah. OK, so what happened then after the couple of days in Phnom Penh? Ah, we went by truck up to Battambang, overnighted there and then from there we were sent out to our appropriate detachments. Battambang is like the top half of Cambodia, midway, and then we sent out to Siemreap Right, and yours was Siemreap? So what did you find when you got there? Ah, landed in a United Nations helicopter on the Siemreap airport. With that month’s rations of food. That you had to carry yourself? No, they, it was just a delivery they were making. Yeah the rat packs for our area. Movcon greeted us, that was a Dutch Association over there. Movements, Movcon was their actual name. There were 3 gentlemen there, one really big rowdy bloke, funny as, and another skinny bloke and another skinny bloke with a moustache who was in charge. They were very very funny gentlemen. Obviously been there too long and saw the lighter side of everything. And then, I was picked up by Corporal Dudley, and taken back by car, to our Base. Right, what did that look like? It was just a house by the river, at this stage. How many people? How many Australians? Oh, I don’t know for sure, cos we were in the middle of … me coming was when other people were due to go home. So we had a bit of a period I think where there might have been 15 of us there in between days off. But on my way to our accommodation they played a little joke - an exploding bomb, joke on me. Oh yes, go on. On me. They tried to make it look so serious but you could see through. It was really funny. We’re driving along and we’d stopped and there was this land mine just all of a sudden out in the middle of nowhere. Where we knew they were all covered. And they keyed up a couple of the local blokes, to sort of hold the truck up and stick weapons in your face, just to scare you. Apparently they did this to all the newcomers. And ah … Men as well as women? Yeah, yeah, oh yeah, and ah, they’re sort of … "What are you doing here? You shouldn’t be passing through here!" And one of the other guys started laughing, and I just lost it then, cos I thought, "Yous are having a go at me! My first day!" So that was pretty funny. And when you got there, what was your work like there? Ah, I had to work in the Com Centre there, we worked on radio, and had hand held motorolas, so we could communicate like, we all had our own call signs. And we could communicate with motorolas through to the United Nations Military Observers (UNMOs). Where were they? They were located … our, our house was away from the communications camp, but then we moved into ATCO huts behind the area, so eventually it was … we had the Indian Field Hospital behind us, with the Indian detachment and their living quarters. Then there was us and our communications centre, then there were other Offices around which had like the UNMOs in, some of the election staff in. We had the Bangladesh, were our like guards, except they had weapons and no bullets. The Bangladesh couldn’t afford to send their soldiers with bullets, so they sent them with uniforms and guns with no bullets. We didn’t know that at the time, and they were our, supposedly guarding us. They had like a few other civilian people that were associated with the United Nations in that area as well. Um, like their payroll and things like that. So the Australians, were only in this communications? Communications, most of the communications and I think medical, mainly only in our own hospitals. Righto. What was the function of the communications? What was it being used for? To provide communications for all of the United Nations. So this was radio you were saying? Yes, we were … .. Only radio? Radio, telephone um, motorola system, that sort of thing, so we had to install like the DON 10 cables which hooked all the telephone systems up. OK, how did you relate to the local people? How was this base part of any other kind of community? Ah, we were, located not far out of the main area of Siemreap. We used to go into the markets there, to do our shopping for fresh vegetables and things like that. We, previous to going, you were supposed to have done a course on the language, but … what happened was I went in December, I wasn’t really due to go until April the 15, but I went in December, because I did my training in November and towards the end of the time, there was one guy with the army who was due to go, who kept coming, turning up late, and the Commanding Officer, didn’t want to take somebody who was unreliable so, out of the people left he chose to take me. So I went with 3 days notice, I didn’t even get to go back to Tindal to pack up my living quarters, anything I had to get a girlfriend to do all that for me. Ah, yeah I just went with 3 days notice, rang my mum and said, "I’m going to Cambodia tomorrow", sort of thing, so I never got to see them before I left as well. And not enough language training then? I had no language training, so, there was … we used to have these women from the community and we paid them to do like washing, or cooking or something like that, and they … I learnt most of my language from them. And also, just out of the books, that the guys had. How important was it to have the language? Um, it wasn’t that important, really, because a lot of Cambodians spoke french. And I knew High School french from when I was at High School and I also had done a few other french courses, later on during my time. So I knew a fair amount of french. So I could communicate either that way, and the locals were very keen to learn our language as well. So most of them, wanted you to speak english to them, so that they could pick up what to say and that sort of thing. What other nationalities, you’ve said Bangladesihi, Australian … French Foreign Legion, was in our area. There was the New Zealand detachment. There was, English, they were the, can’t think what they were called, can’t think of what they were called... But that means that basically english and french would get you through? Yeah. With all the other groups as well as with the locals? Yes, it was handy that I knew some french, because the French Foreign Legion, they didn’t know a lot of english, and they only spoke french, and I could understand what they were saying to me, but I couldn’t … I didn’t know a lot, you know to answer them back, in how explicit their wording is. So that sounds like quite a lot of contact with the local people, then? Yeah, yes we had heaps of contact with the local people. Do you think they were glad to see you, to have you there? Ah, the general feeling was, yes, yeah … it was just the soldiers around, their soldiers around, that I don’t think were too happy, because they were trying to prevent the election from happening. Right. Now how did this happen? How did they try to prevent the election from happening? Um, they used to drive pass and shoot, shoot at the compound or um, shoot into the sky. They’d set curfews, they’d also set up land mines on their side of your, with like a wiry thing that went across the road, and if you went over it, boom. That was always set up like after our curfews and things like that, so. So how did you protect yourself against this sort of thing? Ah, we didn’t go out after curfew, when things like that happened. We weren’t allowed out. When was curfew? I think it was … depends, some nights it was 8 o’clock, some nights it was 10 o’clock, some nights it was 7, just depends on what the locals decided on that particular day. How did you find out about this? There was a guard area not far from where we were and if we were leaving the compound to go, like just to the local - they used to have a local bar there run by a New Zealand guy - just to go up there to have drink or whatever to get away from the scenery, they’d stop you on the way. And go, "Curfew! Curfew!", so you’d just go home. Right, so you never did tried to resist the curfew or … … . No, pretty foolish. Were you under instructions that it should be defensive fire only or … We were told, we were told not to fire. Not even in your own defence? No, not to fire - because we were there for peace keeping not peace making. Right, so why did you have weapons then? Just in case. I suppose, I guess for our own protection if we were to get attacked, then um, we obviously would have to protect ourselves. Right, and were you ever attacked? Yes, we were, we were attacked quite a few times. One time in particular, was Trooper Rose and I were in communications centre we were on a night shift, um, we were actually watching a Diehard 3 video at the time. Being night-shift, there was nothing on, no one was around, I had a little portable television and we put that in the Com Centre, we just chipped in and bought it from the local shop. We put it in the Com Centre with the video machine, and um, we were watching Diehard 3, there was a lot of shooting going on in that. At the time I used to smoke, so I was standing on the steps with the Com Centre door open sort of watching the movie and having a cigarette and I said to Rosie, "You know that video must be up really loud. Because the shelling on the video sounds like it’s outside." And he goes, "I’ll turn it down." Anyway he put it on mute and outside we could hear all the shooting. So, um, he paused the video at the time, we went round, woke up the Sergeant, I locked the Com Centre door and through the Com Centre we had a window where … the other office is where the people used to come in to pass their messages in through the window if they want it sent. So he ran around to speak to the Sergeant to wake the people up, because we had incoming fire, I slipped through the window and we had all our weapons in a rack, at this particular stage - we only had just first moved in, there, and this was one of the first attacks - We had our weapons in a rack, and we had the magazines in the top filing cabinet, I was loading the magazines onto the weapon and passing them out to people as they ran past the door to take up their positions. At this stage we hadn’t even built bunkers to get under - we only had trees to hide behind. We had a lot of incoming fire at this stage, and I dropped a magazine, bent down to pick it up and we had incoming fire into the Com Centre and when I stood back up, where my head was, was a bullet. The guys actually fished the bullet out and gave it to me as your good luck. That night I shot 53 rounds, we don’t know if we hit or not. And that was about it for that night. Had you been preparing for this by practice drills? You’d been preparing for it, by practice drills from the day one that you joined the military - that’s all you basic training is about. So, yeah, mind you. And in the morning everything went back to normal.? Yep, we got attacked, a couple of more days after that as well but we had actually had built our bunkers. We weren’t allowed to go to bed that night. After that incident we had to start digging. Right. So, we were digging and loading sand bags, and everything, till we had our bunkers. And there was another time, we got attacked and we were in our bunkers, it was pouring down with rain, we were in waist deep water, couldn’t get any communications with the Capital, because of the time of the day, I could only get em with, um, Sihanoukville, which was further out on the beach. We were getting shelled at this stage with ah, B40 rockets. They weren’t coming close enough to actually, you know, hit us or anything, it was just in that general sort of area. We had to seal off our gate, which was entry into our area, and the Indian Field Hospital, now at this stage a lot of town people, because the rockets were being shelled into town, a lot of the local town people were running out to our Compound for protection. So we took in as many people as we could through the gates, and um, yeah, just sort of sat and waited for them to come near us so we could attack. And did they? No. Luckily, No. Any casualties? Um, not with our area, no. Apparently, at that stage, there was a German nurse or doctor or something, in the town, and he got hit by a rocket in his room. But we didn’t know him. It sounds like, more as though it was trying to scare you than actually being serious warfare. Or do you think they … . I probably think that’s probably their tactics. I think they thought too, when they attacked the Com Centre at that time, that we had their payroll in the Com Centre, but it had been moved the day before into another building. So I think they were attacking it, trying get to it, to a safe to get um, get the payroll. That’s what we presumed. Were you there when the elections happened? Yeah. Describe the elections? Ah, they had the elections. The build up as well. Ah, the election team came over, there were 2 Australians in the election team, up near where we were. They spent most of their time, just sort of sending out ballot forms, and they’d set up an area and people could come in and get their ballot forms, or come in and get their forms about who they should vote for and that sort of … that sort of deal. And they used to send a couple of us a day to go out and guard that area. I think people, the local people were very keen to have this election, um, they were very responsive, like on the day of the election, there were hundreds of them just lined out the door waiting, to get in, to vote. Where was the polling booth? Ah, it was, in one of back sort of areas, of Siemreap. I can’t exactly remember the name. And d id you have to provide protection for the voters? Yeah, we provided protection and communications for them. So like, if anything was happening, we radioed back to our Headquarters and they’d deal with the situation. And did anything happen in Siemreap? Ah, not around our election area, when I was out there, no. I don’t recall anything, I think our election went pretty well smoothly. Except for a few nights, um, they had like some of the locals would shoot up in the air, and things like that, I think that was a scare tactic. How long did the process last? Um, I think the build up, was more than the actual election. The election lasted … I think they voted over a couple of days, um, and then they did their ballots or whatever. Did you have to protect the ballot boxes afterwards? No, no I don’t recall. You also said, that you went out on Marine ops with the English. How did that happen? What was that about? We had to provide communications, for them as well. And they had a dinghy, portable blow up dinghy thing and what they had to do is going around to the floating villages to, check on people in the floating villages, and um, complaints about weapons in that area and things like that. So I mainly went along with them, with my rifle and the radio, just to, if anything out of the ordinary occurred, I could radio back and let them know our position and what was actually happening. Describe the floating villages. Um, they were very unusual things. Um, they were like little open houses, on like a raft, and they’d built their little house above it and it just floated, and they were all just tied together, so that they all could stay together. There was like a Vietnamese floating village and a Cambodian one. Where were they floating? Just in the Battambang River. In the main rivers, it was very unusual, you just get in this dingy thing, and you’d go for ages, and then all of sudden you, would just come across this group, of, like boxing cases, sort of thing, all just floating, and um, yeah, all these little families, and little kids and everything. So how did … what was the economy of the village? Was it a fishing?. Fishing, definitely, fishing and I guess they would have worked on trade to get there other supplies, like trade their fish for um, whatever else they needed. And what were the English trying to do? Um, not quite sure, I think … The impression I got, um, most of the stuff was like on the need to know basis, I didn’t really need to know, I was there to provide communications and weapon support. But from the gist of what I got, they were um, investigating weapons, claims and um, just I think also checking on their general welfare and things like that, because there were a lot of fighting between the Vietnamese floating village and the Cambodian. And I think at one stage that the Vietnamese floating village got in such a um, situation there, that they had to actually be towed further down the river, cos it was very dangerous for them to stay where they were. Ok, um, what other sorts of incidents occurred, that um, in the time that you were there. Your were there for 2 postings? Two cycles, yeah. Other incidents … we used to have to supply a border support. There’d be, I think there were an American, a Bangladesh, and an English, United Nations Military Observer. And we’d have to provide a communicator. I remember Rosie had gone, and it was Christmas Day, and I was working in the Com Centre that day, and he was radioing in - you have to do hourly checks, just to make sure that, you know, we had still had communications etc. And he got shelled very badly on Christmas Day and he would, and he was in his bunker, they were getting shelled and he would be radioing and telling me all his details and, at one stage he goes "Oh, listen to this," and puts the hand piece out of the bunker, and all you could hear was just shelling everywhere, and that was Christmas Day. And I’m pretty sure that was done because it was our Christmas Day, to upset, upset them... Another incident we had um … United Nations helicopter got shot down, landed on the runway, um, the Russians gave support for helicopter flying. They both got out of it, out of the incident quite ok. It was lucky because they were at the stages of landing when they got shot down. That was just shot down by your locals around. A Polish log company which was over near the airport as well, they got attacked on several occasions. Just general shooting into their compound. That would be about it. Was there such a thing as a normal day? Um. A normal day. If there was what would it have been like? A normal day would consist of, um, getting up, um, having your showers, doing PT. When, what time? What time? um, about 5, 5-6. Ah doing PT, which could consist of … one of our PT lessons was, it was while we were building our bunkers, um, we had to tug a trailer down to an area, fill it with sand, tug it back to another little area, fill the sand that we picked up into sand bags, pile the sand bags onto the trailer, and then run with it back to our area and then load all sand bags on our area. So that sort of made it, as your PT as well. And then you would either be rostered into the Com Centre or you’d do other duties, such as laying DON 10 cable, fixing antennaes, fixing up telephone communications, rostered into the kitchen to cook, help with the cook, um, go to the market to buy the fresh food or vegetables, go to Morris catering to pick up any other supplies that you couldn’t get at the market. Then you would have a session where … we had a [minimy?] rifle, so we would do a lot of weapons training as, we used to have races to see who could pull their SLR apart and put it back together quicker and blind folded and things like that. Then you’d have lunch, and pretty much that sort of stuff all day. Go and do the mail runs to the airport, to pick up any incoming mail, or whatever had come that day for us. And then dinner, if you’re working you worked the night shift, or sat around and had a chat and went to bed. If you were on night shift, what did you do in the day? Slept. Did the whole camp work as one, or was what you’re talking about, what the Australians did? That’s what we did, the Australians did. What would be a normal complement of Australians, the Australians in that group? In our group, ah I think we had about 10. Ten of us. Hard work? Hard work, yeah. Satisfying? Very, very satisfying, by the end of the day you were so buggered you just fell into bed. Regardless of what you had been doing, and also the heat and like it was very hot as well. But you grew up in Queensland. You would have been all right. Used to the heat, didn’t bother me too much. Just a few more degrees hotter. What about the routine for a week, um, were there things that happened on a regular basis during the week? U, yeah, yeah, pretty much, you’d have um … like you’d have your mail drops, I think they were Tuesdays, and Thursdays, you’d go out to the Airport to pick up your mail drops and, um, you’d do … shopping would have been a particular day, um … you tried to work to a roster, but just sort of depended, like you knew your roster for the week, where you were working, and when you weren’t working there were always others things that had to be done, um. What did you do with your time off? Time off, days off. You didn’t have days off. None at all. Not in country not really no. On your specific days off, where you didn’t work in the Com Centre, you’d be helping around the camp area, to get things you know to a comfortable level, for yourselves. Like between our ATKO huts we um, bought a whole heap … we chipped in money and bought a whole of wood and we built a platform area, so that when it rained we didn’t have to slush into the mud to get to the toilets or showers. So there was always something we could do to improve where we were living. Which is what we did most of the time. What were the toilet facilities like? Just an ATKO Hut with your showers in it, and toilets in it, like um, tin shed. Pit toilets? No, no proper, proper flushing toilets. Flushing toilets? All mod cons? All modern cons. So how did you relax? Because you can’t... You would have to relax at some point, I suppose telling me you were watching a video at one stage, that would be a way of winding down a bit. Yeah, we had MTV. That was broadcast in there. So we used to watch that with some, like rage film clips. At night we … it was funny, at night most nights, the New Zealand detachment, they were all blokes, they used to conveniently drop in at dinner time, because they had to get their own meals, so, and we had a cook. And they would conveniently drop in at dinner time, for dinner. Pretty much every night, so we used to chat with them, watch the telly. Did being a woman make any difference? No, the guys there were very protective of you, being a woman. Ah, say, we were in the Com Centre, or we went out to, there was a bar just up the road, called the Mine Field Bar, it was run by a New Zealander, he actually came over, had married I think a Cambodian woman, and had set up this bar, so we would occasionally go up there as well when there was no curfew or you know when we were allowed to. We’d go up there and that’s where sort of all of the Nationalities would get together and have a drink. And so we then sort of got to talk to people up and relax there as well. Were there women with the other groups. You said not with New Zealand what about the other groups? No, no, no there was … . How many women were with the Myself and another girl Kylie, but she went home not long after I got there. So I was the only woman left in my area, there was 2 girls with Morris Catering, 2 civilian girls, they were English, so I mixed with them. There was females in the Election Party, so I would get to mix with them. And, if you were at the Bar, and if one of the French guys came over to chat to you and if they were talking to you for too long, someone from my detachment would come up and sit right beside me and be like, "And what do you want? Have you finished talking to her? She has to come back to us now". Sort of thing, so they were very … . But that was being protective, rather than interfering? No very protective, yeah. Right, OK. Um, after the elections did the atmosphere change? Um, yeah, there was still a lot, like night time shooting into the air and that sort of thing. They used to shoot into the air when it rained, and things like that. I think our … where we were they seemed quite happy with their sort of outcome. Not long after the election, I left and went down to Phnom Penh. In preparation for everybody to go home, I was going to be one of the people to stay behind after the detachment went home, and I had to get ready to go down to Sihanoukville, becasue that was the detachment I was going to be running. Right. I ran it, I did go. You did go. Yes, I went with 2 Army boys and myself, and um, I was in charge of that detachment and we just worked on a rotating. Until others went home. Everybody went home on the 15 um, October, and then I went home … we went home a month later, we were sort of the finishing up party. At Sihanoukville is where they loaded all the ships and everything with all the Army tanks, and everything - utes and trucks and whatever - to go back to Australia, so we sort of had the detachment down there for that particular purpose. So, it would be very different living in Sihanoukville, after living in … Living in Sihanoukville … We lived in the ATKO huts, um, we still had a few problems, with locals, like they’d pull you up on the side of the street, and question you with a weapon in your face, if you’re going to the markets or whatever, just to intimidate you. Um, but, the rooms that we had, it was located on the beach. So I could lie in bed with my door open and I had the perfect view of the ocean Beautiful, absolutely spectacular. So you could run slow motion, down to the water? Pretty much, if you were game to go swimming there. Why not? There were a lot of jelly fish, and things like that and I didn’t … after what had happened through the year, I wasn’t that willing to leave my weapon too far from me. Fair enough. OK, um, is there more to talk about in Sihanoukville? What … No not really, that was just tying loose ends up before we went home. Ok, where did you go when you came home? Did you have leave when you came home? Yeah, I had 2 months leave, I went home to my parents’ house. Did you feel the need for that? Oh yeah, yeah um, when I was at home, my first couple of weeks at home I was very jumpy, any um, like a car back fired and whatever and I was sort of … you know because it sounded like, ah weapons, it took me quite awhile to settle back in. Into normal life. Did you do anything positively to encourage that, or did you just let time take its course? I just let time take its course. I caught up with my girlfriends from school and you know went out, and re-acquainted myself with life. With normality? Normality. OK And food Yes, did you like the food in Cambodian? We lived mainly on ration packs or on fresh rations from … fresh food from the markets. We ate quite, when I was at Sihanoukville we ate quite a lot in the local restaurants, cos we got to the stage where it was "Ugh! not another ratpack". Couldn’t do it, um, consequently I lost a lot of weight there. But yeah, the food was really good, you just sort of, you ordered something, would wouldn’t have a clue what you were ordering, but you’d just hope for the best. And mainly, it was mainly seafood and the food was spectacular, their cooking and everything. Right. Some of them, if you got it off the carts, we used to call them the "cholera carts", you were pretty sick after. I had one incident where I ate, I had a drink at a bar and I ate the ice, and ended up getting a bad virus. I had to be helicopted out of Siemreap to the hospital. That was around June, it was over my Birthday, because my parents had sent me a birthday cake, and the guys had ate it. Ate it before I got back, but they were generously enough to take photos of them cutting it for me. And they had a photo of me beside the cake and happy birthday on it. Before they ate it. You said you got mail regularly, with such things from home? Yeah, my parents, my mum used to send me home cooked stuff. A Sergeant - Sergeant Joy McPherson that I used to work with in Tindal - she would send gift boxes over with um, just stupid little things in, and lollies and chocolates and um, you know, things like, she’d send toothpaste and deodorant and stuff like that, shampoo and just any little thing she picked up shopping, thinking oh, you know she might not have any shampoo you whatever and ah, … … Was it hard to get those kind of things? The local market had quite a range of sort of um, Americanised items so, not really, I think the main problem being a woman, is just getting, woman’s needs, which my mum sent to me anyway, so I didn’t have to worry to much about that. Did your pay change while you were in Cambodia? Yes, quite significantly, um... More? Well we were receiving our pay was in … tax, was tax free, we received United Nations allowances, we received like your hard line allowance, from the Army and your normal pay, and there was nowhere for you to really spend it. In Siemreap … In Phnom Penh, sure, because you were allowed to go out to all the Bars and night clubs and they had shopping facilities and things like that so you blew you money when you were in the Capital. But not in Siemreap … I saved quite a lot of money. Bought a house when I got back. Right, OK, so you came back and had a break for awhile and then you went back into normal RAAF? Yeah, into communications centre at RAAF Base, Richmond. Um, I stayed at the Com Centre for … till September of that year and I applied for flight stewarding and was successful and became a flight steward September, 㥦. Worked as a flight steward out of RAAF Base Richmond. What sort of work is this? Flight steward? flight attendant, like on your normal aircraft. You were a flight attendant, one of 6 flight attendants, on the Boeing 707, which is … most of it was long haul, overseas, and around Australia, and it was troop carrying. We did the occasional VIP, which was during election tours, between Keating and Howard, that era. Just taking them, their staff, their press, etc around to all their different locations where they had to do their campaigning. After 4 years of that I got posted to 34 Squadron in Canberra which was the VIP section of Fairburn, RAAF Base Fairburn it is, which is the VIP section of flight stewarding and it deals mainly with um, your head of state which is John Howard, Kim Beazley, and any politician or Minister within the Liberal Political Party, at.. well, the Party that is in at the time. That was, on a Falcon 900, a 14 seater, a very luxurious little aircraft. And we used to fly with 2 stewards then, and I made Purser, like checking as well of the flight stewards and … . That would be, very different sort of work? Very different. Very formal in comparison … Yes, yeah Talk about that a bit. Um, What did you wear for instance? Oh, we had to wear our Airforce uniform, which consisted of either skirt or trousers, your blue shirt, we had a tie and a vest, that went with to make it look a bit more presentable. So you wore the dress uniform? Yeah. Right. Like, it was sort of like a waitering role, it’s exactly the same role as you would in a civilian aircraft, say like QANTAS or Impulse, and we used to have to serve like, the Prime Minister... You had to watch your Ps and Qs and you know, be polite and know your service very well. Like you had to set the table for him. Linen table cloth and set his table and they have 3 course dinner or lunch, or whatever, that meal period they were missing being in the air in between all their meetings, etc. Did you ever have to deal with foreign dignitaries as well? Yes, we did. I dealt with Prime Minister of New Zealand, my girlfriend dealt with Prince Phillip, when he came over, she flew him around. A lot of them, the different dignitaries, that you flew with actually gave you little presents from their country. The New Zealand guy gave me a little box of coasters as a thank you for flying us around and you know giving us your service, etc, etc. I think Debbie got a little something from Prince Phillip, I’m not quite sure. Did you still.. was the rest of your life a RAAF life? Yeah, yeah. Right, how did that operate? Did you still live on Base? Ah, in Fairburn, yes, I lived on Base, um, we’d have your mess there and you know your gym, just the normal local, normal facilities that you’d have on your Base. Your work day at VIP was either you were flying, or you went and you filled salt and pepper shakers, or you took cooking classes because your had to cook on board, you washed up, the catering from another aircraft, so that they could go home and stocktake and prepare menus and like your manifests and load your own baggage and that sort of side of things prior to flying. What were the hours like compared with the other work you were doing? Um, at Fairburn you’re pretty much on call, but the Ministry had certain flights so, certain places they had to be, during that month, so you had a rough idea of where you were going to be. Now everybody had a mobile phone, and we were on call, um, you had your stand-by days and your days where you actually had your day off. But you could still be called on your day off to go in, and it would be um, like a political emergency, or something happened in … somewhere, that the Prime Minister had to be at urgently, that’s when you would be called in to work and you would just go in and get everything ready and off you’d go. But, would you just stay with the flight for as long as it took? Or did you have hours on? No, no you stayed with the flight. If the flight took 3 weeks, you were 3 weeks away from home. And there would be enough people there to work rosters? Yeah, yeah, there was ah, I think there was 24 of us and there were 5 aircraft, and 2 per aircraft. Flight attendants per aircraft, so sort of a rotational roster. OK, so what made you leave? I, had an accident when I was in Canberra. I got run over at a roundabout, and I had a bad leg injury which caused me not to fly, so I asked to go back to my original job, which was communications. My posting came through, I got posted to Williamtown, at Newcastle, and Canberra wouldn’t do surgery because I was posted to Williamtown, so I had to wait till I got into Williamtown, and then I had my leg surgery then. And ah, I was with them for the 12 months, I went back to communications, which by this stage had turned to … from radio and all the other back room area to computers, IT. Um, I got posted in as um, Acting Sergeant, um, in charge of the IT Workshop, and help desk and - mind you having absolutely no computer literate, literateness - um, it was damn hard work. I had to learn on the job, the job as well as telling my troops how to do their job. So um, I did this by starting little workshops on a Friday morning. Like we’d close our workshop on a Friday morning, and I’d have someone … I’d draw on the knowledge of my staff, I’d have someone who’d worked radios before, or worked you know, IT area, how to fix a computer, or how to build it from scratch or how to connect a printer or whatever. I’d get them to tell the rest of the people and myself how to do it. And show us how to do it, so that way I was learning as well as giving knowledge to the other girls or boys that were there, that didn’t know how to do that particular side of work. So when did you leave? I left um, December 13. Why? A combination of things, um, my leg was pretty badly injured, and I didn’t want to get medical-pensioned off, because I wasn’t sure if I’d be able to work afterwards, and I still like 35 at that stage, I wanted to work. So I got a job with Kendall Airlines, because being flying with the Airforce that was easy to get. Also John Howard wrote me a reference, so, I put that in my application. And I started with Kendall Airlines January the 4th. I worked with them for 6 months, then I had a lot of problems with my leg again, so I had to have more surgery, so I got a job, a ground job which was Personal Assistant, floating Secretary for an Accounting firm. And which is Pitcher Partners in the City, I worked there for 6 months and once my leg was better I went in search of a flying job again and I now work for Impluse Airlines. So you really love flying? I love it! What is it about flying that you love so much? The fact that you have so much people contact. You have a plane of 117 people, that are all yours to look after. You have to ensure their comfort and safety and you give them, like, the beverage service, and you can have a chat, just the person contact, I think. I’m people person, not a sit-in-an-office 9-to-5 girl. OK. And I like the shift work, because you can do your shopping, on your days off and you’ve got time during the week to relax, I don’t care about working weekends. Doesn’t bother me. You joined the Peace Keepers, and Peace Makers Association? Yes. Why? Um, I joined them originally, to just so I could keep in contact with people. And I’ve actually got a Committee position now, got voted in last year. My duties this year are to organise, like our ANZAC Parade, and the UN Day in October and things like that, with the aid of Paul Copeland. What do you think of Australia, taking on a Peace Keeping role? I think it’s just the next natural progression step. Every other Nation does it, and you’re part of NATO so, its majorly our responsibility. When I was at Williamtown if I hadn’t had my leg surgery, they had people going to East Timor I would have willing gone there as well. It was just, I was in a full leg cast and couldn’t go. I was very disappointed about, because that experience would have been worthwhile as well. You see it as a responsibility then? Yes, you join the Defence Force to defend your country, so it’s your responsibility to go on these sort of missions, I feel. I mean why else do you join the Defence Force, get a good wage, get a good career and live in a cheap house with your family, I think that’s what a lot of Australians think, but um, I saw it as join to defend your country, and that’s what I wanted to do. I didn’t just join to get a great career which I got anyway, so.
Return to previous page	Listen to interview

Top of page

Victorians at War - Oral History Project