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Simon Moore-Wilton Transcript of interview by Ina Bertrand 25 January, 2001 - tape 1 (1hr 3min)
Simon Moore-Wilton interviewed in Hawthorn East on 25 January, 2001. So, can we start Simon with when and where were you born? Well Ina, I was born in Sydney on 29th February, 1972. Right. And a little bit about your early life, your parents’ jobs, the schools you went to, those sorts of things. Well my parents and their young family, including my younger sister, stayed in Australia for a short time after we were born and then we moved over to Geneva in Switzerland with my father’s work. He was working in the Department of Primary Industry and Trade at that stage, so we moved over there for about 3 years and had some fond memories of making snowmen and eh … Well you would be learning to talk at that stage. Did you become bi-lingual? I can't really remember to be honest with you, but apparently my French pronunciation is quite good, so I am sure I picked up something around the traps. It isn't too good any more. Ok, so then you came back to Australia? That’s right, came back to Australia and soon after that we moved down to Melbourne, again with my father’s work and that is where I completed my schooling down here. Which schools? Well, I first went to Koska Hall, which was the preparatory school for Xavier College in Kew and after leaving Koska Hall I went straight into Xavier College and then completed my HSC there. Ok, what made you join the army? That is a question I have asked myself often I think. Is there any army background in your family? There is a bit, or military background. My mother’s father fought in the First World War and he was a man I had a great deal of admiration for and a great respect for, and it was funnily only enough after his death that I learned of some of his exploits. And it was only after his death that I found out he had won the Military Medal. But he was a bit of an inspiration I suppose. Also my father’s uncle was an RAF pilot during the Second World War. So there was some history there. I suppose above and beyond anything else it was a sense of adventure, a bit of excitement. I enjoyed the prospect of doing something in the military I suppose and I always gravitated towards … from the day that I joined, towards joining the infantry. It sounded like a fairly rugged and exciting life. Right, did it begin at school, were you for instance in the school cadet corps or anything like that? No, we didn’t have a school cadet corps. So there wasn’t a great deal of exposure to the military, apart from sort of being given the opportunity now and again to go along to … I remember going to a military show up in Puckapunyal when I was about 10 or 11 and to a few air shows and that sort of thing. But generally there wasn’t a great deal of exposure to the military in the early part of my life. Yet that was your first job. Yes, yes, that’s right. At one stage I think I wanted to be a marine biologist, but wasn’t particularly good at maths or science so I never made it into that field. So, talk about the first time you joined the army. I left school and I joined the Australian Defence Force Academy and I was only there for a year. I went up there with grand visions of being in the military and for the first part of it, it was actually very fulfilling. I enjoyed the military training and I enjoyed being out in the field and doing all those sort of things. But then unfortunately we had to come back and start studying, which was something that I wasn’t too keen on. So you hadn’t anticipated that? Well, it was all there in black and white but I suppose I didn’t want to see the reality of it, so most of my time was spent playing football and drinking beer and generally misbehaving and after a year I left. Well if you were having such a good time, why did you leave? Well I suppose that I saw another two years into the future that I would have to be doing the same sort of thing. My academic grades were way below average and I didn’t see a lot of future there. I was a bit eh … I suppose I was a bit disheartened, and so I decided to leave. And then you did all sorts of things didn’t you? Yes I did, I ended up working as a barman, as a cellarman, working as a waiter, got into the hospitality trade and thought one day I might own a pub with a good mate of mine, but I soon saw that as a life that I wouldn’t be suited to and that I missed a lot of the camaraderie, the goodwill and the work ethic, I suppose, of what I had learnt in the military. So those other jobs, they were in Sydney? That’s right, yes. And you married at this stage? No, I didn’t, but I did meet my wife to be. We were working in a hotel in Sydney together and she was the lady in the office and I was the fellow working down in the dungeon, in the cellar and we struck up a relationship and had a great time and we have been together ever since. Ok, so what made you go back to the army? Well, I sort of harked back to that sense of, I don’t know if it was a sense of wanting to belong to something, but I remember being very inspired by a person that I knew, who I was associated with, working down at a hotel in Bondi at the time and I had already thought to go back into the military, but it was solidified by his advice I suppose, which was to commit to something and when you commit to something, you know, great things are possible. I wanted to get back in because I missed the military lifestyle, I wanted that excitement and adventure again and I suppose it was something that I knew that this time I was determined to do it differently and to be better at it. Did you have any difficulty getting back in? Em … that is a funny story actually. I didn’t really have any difficulty, but when I went for my Selection Board, I was certainly dragged over the coals so to speak and the Selection Board who interviewed me for the second time now asked me why I hadn’t done this or done that and why should we take you back and so I had to really defend myself on my feet and tell them why Simon Moore-Wilton was going to be of benefit to them in the military and I managed to do that - just, I think, by the skin of my teeth and so they took me back in. And you went back to the Royal Military College Duntroon? Yeah, that’s right, which was an option I actually had when I first joined the army and my father convinced me that I should go and get a degree and do some tertiary education. And so I listened and, perhaps at that time, it wasn’t the best thing for me. So, this next time, I went back into Duntroon, and happy to do so. Can you explain the difference between ADFA and Duntroon? Well ADFA is a tri-service officer training establishment and, so it comprises officer cadets from the army, navy and the Air Force. The joining up age is literally straight after school - people can come along if they are a bit older and it is essentially a military university modelled on West Point, the Canadian Officer Training School and so … So it is a 3 year … ? It is a 3 year course and the officer cadets go through … they do a period of military training at the beginning and at the end of the year and in the middle of the year, it is essentially like a normal academic university year, interspersed with some military training either during the week and on occasion at weekends. And, at graduation, having passed all the academic subjects, you are awarded a degree and then the cadets from each specific service then go away to their own respective schools and continue with purely military training. For example, the army officer cadets who graduate from the Defence Force Academy then go over to Duntroon and do 12 months of military training to turn them into junior officers. The alternative is for people who either already have a degree or who haven't got tertiary study or who are perhaps ex serving soldiers, who go straight to Duntroon and then do 18 months of pure military training and then they graduate as lieutenants into their respective area in the army. And you felt that Duntroon was more suitable for you? Yeah, absolutely, I was more so interested in the military aspects of the training at ADFA and so I found Duntroon challenging, but it was far more fulfilling. Can you talk a little about the sorts of training you did at Duntroon? What the subject matter was? When we first got there, we were shown how to shine our shoes and make our beds and that sort of standard introduction into the military and after about a week we went out into the bush. We lived in tents for a while and were shown some basic military skills and this was all basic skills work, the handling of weapons and navigation and communicating on the radio and giving orders and all this sort of thing. We did that for about 5 or 6 weeks and then we came back and then we started some other studies in military law, military history, the military appreciation process, teaching us how to think and basically working up to the level of a junior commander in the army. The vehicle for training, I suppose, that is used is an infantry platoon and so you are in that scenario or that setting when you do your field training. And is there a lot of induction in (I can't think of the right word) military culture like … em I guess people from outside... hear stories about bastardisation and all that kind of thing. Did you experience anything like that or would you like to comment on it? I don’t think I experienced any bastardisation. I mean the senior cadets at Duntroon are given a fair sway in terms of we are their responsibility. As a result there is a line that really shouldn’t be stepped over. I don’t know if that is written in concrete or written in sand, but I certainly didn’t experience any bastardisation. As for the culture, I think, yeah, there is formal teaching in terms of etiquette and military history and the customs and traditions of the army and you also absorb a fair bit by osmosis, just being within that culture and basically, well for the first 6 weeks we were locked away so to speak. Is there rivalry with the other forces? Army above … ? I think there is healthy competition between the forces, definitely. But the nature of service is such that we have to work with each other to such a large extent - more so now than ever - that you do get a better appreciation, a better understanding and finally I think about working relationship with other members of other services. And you graduated at the end of 㥧? That’s right. Ok, and where did you go then? Then I was lucky enough to be posted to the First Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, which is an infantry battalion located in Townsville, at Lavarack Barracks. Before going up there I had to complete my Regimental Officers’ Basic Course which was held at Singleton, just north of Sydney there, in the Hunter Valley and there we learned about some more refined infantry skills, because I was posted to the infantry course, so we learned a bit about ambushing and a bit about patrolling and we also learned how to run range practices, live fire activity, so that our troops could have the benefit of conducting that sort of training and we could supervise it. And that took the best part of a month and then we embarked on our sojourn up to Townsville. There was myself and half a dozen mates. We drove from Singleton up to Townsville. Were you able to keep with the same group of mates? There was six of us, I think, posted to 1RAR in … at the beginning of 㥨 and there were only a couple there who I weren’t particularly close with at Duntroon, but we certainly forged some strong bonds through that first year, yeah. And if they weren't my mates beforehand, they certainly were after. Describe Townsville, describe your living quarters and what the job entailed up there. We lived in the officers’ mess which is a two storey, I wouldn’t call it demountable, but it was a two storey, intended not to be a permanent structure. It wasn’t in particularly good repair, but at the time and for our purposes it suited us just fine. We each had a room and we shared a bathroom and a shower between two and so we were very happy, it was a great mess. Had a lot of good times in there. Got up to … Everything in the one building? There was an accommodation building and underneath that was a TV room where the living-in members could sort of relax and there was a laundry set up and then the living-out locker room. The members that lived out all had their lockers and then there were a couple of rooms underneath, one of which was the Commanding Officer’s room, which was kept aside for him and a couple of spare rooms. And you lived in? And I lived in, that’s right. So how did you sustain a relationship? Well, long distance, yeah, it was difficult. Because, also for the 18 months at Duntroon my wife Annette lived up … and my stepdaughter Sarah lived up in Sydney and then I was to have a further 2 years in Townsville, where they were still in Sydney and I was up in Townsville, so for 3&#frac12 years we didn’t live together. So, it was difficult, and I was lucky enough to get the opportunity to go down 3 or 4 times a year and see her, and for her to come up a couple of times, so, I think … absence makes the heart grow fonder - I know what that’s all about. Ok, what did you do in your spare time? We didn’t have a lot of spare time. Em … I guess we went out a fair bit. Townsville is a great watering hole, there is just about a pub on every corner and so we went out and spent our spare money as best we could. There are occasions when we actually did get ourselves together enough to go and, to do something constructive. Whether it be a bit of fishing or some sailing, some sea kayaking, we used to do a couple of trips over to Magnetic Island, which is just off the coast of Townsville, which were great, which were hilarious trips actually. And apart from that, there wasn’t a lot of time off, we were pretty busy. Ok, describe what the work entailed then. Well, we each marched in and we were given command of a rifle platoon. So we were responsible for the training and the administration of the platoon, along with the platoon staff, you know, the platoon sergeant and the section commanders, the section second in commands; a platoon of about 27 or 30 men. Most of us in that year had platoons that were a bit reduced because we were what they call "off line", we weren't actually part of the ready deployment force battalion at that stage, so we weren't at a moment’s notice to go. I remember having a platoon of about 20 men and we went out on exercises, we worked off ships, we went and did patrolling exercises, we worked as a company group which is about 100/110 men and we would go and practise attacks by day and night working in … What was your rank at that time? I was a lieutenant. So, how did you come to go to East Timor? Well I did … I had actually left the First Battalion at the end of 1998. And I was posted as the liaison officer to the brigade commander and it was a new brigade commander that year, in 1999, Brigadier Mark Evans, who was subsequently to take a brigade overseas. I was his liaison officer and so by default, I suppose, wherever he went, I went as well. I was his … So once you were working for him, you were part of the ready deployment force? That’s right, the ready deployment force, or the RDF as it’s known, consists of the Third Brigade located in Townsville, also the Parachute Battalion Group which is based on the Third Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment - 3RAR - and who are a Parachute Battalion and also earlier in 1999, the First Brigade in Darwin had also been brought onto RDF status. So essentially, what that means is that we have to be ready to deploy on operations at very short notice. Have your bags packed? Have your bags packed and be ready to go and "come as you are", that is a catch phrase I’ve heard thrown around, which is thrown around which happens to be quite true. So, did you have to have everything ready for the whole brigade besides yourself? Everything ready for the whole brigade beside yourself? You had your own bag packed, what about metaphorically, how did you pack the bag for the … ? Well, at the end of the day I suppose the buck stops with the brigade commander, so that the readiness of the brigade is ultimately his responsibility. But it is an individual, as well as a collective responsibility. Individually, every man and woman at the private soldier level has to have their bags packed and be fit enough and be a good enough shot to be ready to deploy on operations. Their personal lives also have to be taken care of so any welfare issues, etc. have to be in hand - the ability to have bills paid or children taken care of, especially if both husband and wife are serving members of the military, so there are a lot of issues there that readiness implies. And then collectively it is up to the platoon commanders, the company commanders, the battalion commanders or unit commanders to ensure that all the equipment, all the material, all the troops are trained and basically that the level of training, the level of equipment maintenance, essentially the level of deployability is greater than other units which are not part of the RDF. Were you expecting to be sent to Timor? I think in the early stages of September we pretty much knew that we were going to go. I think it had got to such a stage that, and this is my own personal view, is that the government probably had no other option with the weight of international opinion and what was actually happening in East Timor being beamed through on satellite TV and what have you. I don’t know if they had any other option. Did you know much about East Timor, had you been following the debate about it, did you know anything of its history? I wouldn’t say I knew a great deal, but I knew enough to be interested in it and to be constantly reading the papers in the regional and world section every day to find out who the major players were. Were you given much briefing? Absolutely, yeah, I was actually very impressed by the level of briefing that we received. There was a great deal of effort put in by the Intelligence Cell of brigade headquarters to produce products for dissemination right down to the private soldier level so that a soldier could access this information and find out all about the country, all about their … the opposing force, you know, what their intentions are, what type of people they are, local customs, who the East Timorese were, what their situation was, who were the main players in the game. So that was very impressive, I didn’t feel as if … So you felt prepared. Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely. And later on, in the operation, I think that … I can't really speak from an infantryman’s point of view on this, because I wasn’t employed in that capacity, but from speaking to people who were and working with people who were, I think that our training and that our method of operation were proven over in East Timor. And certainly there were a myriad of improvements to be made and a lot of suggestions to make some changes to the way that we do business, but I think essentially what was done over there and what is being done over there now is a testament to how well Australian soldiers are trained. Ok, how did you travel? We flew over direct from Townsville. We left on the morning of 20th September and we boarded a C130 Hercules - which is a medium strategic lift aircraft and we touched down in Dili Airport at Komoro Airfield. And what did you see when you got off the plane? We actually saw Dili before we landed and we … there is a great mountain range behind Dili which essentially forms a spine along East Timor. And we came out of this cloud and it was quite a sunny day and we had to do a couple of loops because the airfield was blocked at that stage, I think, with other aircraft disgorging their cargo and their troops. And so we did a couple of loops, I was sitting opposite the brigade commander’s driver, who is a great fella, Lance Corporal Christopher Hoff and I looked past "Hoffie" out the window and could just see this pall of smoke all around the city, and it was like a haze, and there were small sort of spot fires throughout the city and I remember thinking, "My God, this looks just like Townsville", and it kind of does. Much larger mountains out the back, but it is essentially quite a flat city, until you get down into the southern part and very dry. I expected it to be a bit greener, but it was actually very dry and it was, yeah, and so em … and that was our first sighting of Dili. What did the smoke make you think of? Well, I thought to myself, there’s trouble down there on the ground. I didn’t really know what the smoke was, it just looked like burning buildings and we were a good way away. I didn’t know what had caused it. There didn’t seem to be, and certainly I couldn’t see, but there didn’t seem to be any fighting down there. Because when we departed we fully expected that there may be, there may be some sort of opposed entry into Dili, that there might have been fighting off the plane. But there wasn’t? But there wasn’t. Ok, come back to the question that I asked earlier. When you got off the plane what did you see? Well, it was eh, it wasn’t chaos, but it was certainly, it was a hurry-up. We got off the plane and there was just dust everywhere and then there was Komoro airfield and there were Indonesian troops all around there. We grabbed our bags and a couple of boxes and just shuffled off the plane and then we were sort of herded as we were through into Komoro Airfield. We were met there by some British chaps and also by some members of the Second Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, the 2RAR fellows who had gone in before the brigade headquarters tactical party, which consisted of about 10 of us. Eh … and then we went in to our little spot and we actually set up the brigade tactical headquarters within the baggage claim area of Komoro Airfield. The airport was naturally a mess. There was rubbish everywhere, there was human faeces all over the floor and the place stunk to high heaven. And then we squatted and started to set up our spot. Were you the first Australian party in at that … the group that you just described? No, no actually, we were not. "Operation Warden" which was our operation was preceded by "Operation Spitfire" where the airforce and other members went in to Dili and had to try and extract people from places like the UN Compound, the Australian Consulate I think, and I am not too sure, and then bring them back into Darwin. It was basically a services protected evacuation operation. That was "Operation Spitfire." So they were the first Australian troops to go in and do the business, but the fellows from the Second Battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment were the first Australian troops to hit the deck on 20th September. I think we were on about the seventh aeroplane in. So what was your task? Essentially we were there to provide Command and Control for the brigade elements and to ensure the brigade got in on the ground in a steady state and achieve the mission, which was to provide security within Dili and the environs of Dili. So, there were some signals personnel of the brigade tactical headquarters, there is obviously the brigade commander, myself, brigade commander’s linguists who is an old mate of mine Ben Farinazzo, his driver, his own personal signaller, the brigade major, who is basically the operations officer for the brigade and a couple of others and we went in and set up a mini little headquarters for want of a better description and started communicating to the sub elements within the brigade and making sure that it all came together and ran smoothly. If it doesn’t you have got a situation where there is a great deal of chaos and that is something that your adversary can take advantage of and it can be quite potentially dangerous to your own troops. So did you clean up the airport? Or was that not ..? Eventually, that wasn’t our mission, so to speak, but it soon became quite unbearable and we had people in there to give us a hand and just clean up the place a bit. We later learned that in that area that we were holed up in was a vast amount of people who were just forced to sit there and wait and, you know, defecate wherever they could. So it wasn’t particularly pleasant. Were there other nationalities there? Not straight away. But eventually a plethora of other forces came to be in Dili and it must have been like a mini United Nations there after a while. There were Americans and there were French. There were Italians, Brazilians, Thais, Filipinos, etc., etc., so it was absolutely. Who coordinated all this? Well that was at the highest level coordinated by headquarters Interfet, which was commanded by General Cosgrove. So they were responsible for getting a group of this melee of nations and ensuring that they were tasked, given areas of operation and made sure that there was a fair amount of liaison conducted to ensure that everyone was working towards the same goal, which was to provide stability and peace for the East Timorese. So what part of the job did your group get? Well, essentially the Third Brigade was tasked with securing the environs of Dili. We also had, not an alternate, but a parallel mission which was to go further out to the east to Baucau. This was an alternate entry point if Dili was opposed, that we may have gone into. That was subsequently given to the Filipinos and they were out there providing humanitarian aid, security, etc. So, we were primarily concerned with Dili for about the first 3&#frac12 to 4 weeks. Ok, how did you secure Dili? Essentially the Second Battalion em mounted up and did a sweep through the city from Komoro Airfield into the heart of Dili, which is where the port is located and they came from west to east. Once that port was secured the Third Battalion on HMAS Jervis Bay, which is the big Catamaran, quite distinctive, would then come in and then they would push out further into the eastern and southern areas of the city and secure their area of operation and essentially what would happen from then is that those battalions would then give areas of operation to their companies and subsequently to their platoons and they would conduct security operations, lots of patrolling by day and night, block searches, searches of houses and at the same time they would also be offering humanitarian assistance, arresting militias, capturing weapon caches, disarming people so very, very busy time. And what was your personal role in this? Well I, pretty much had to make sure the brigade commander was taken care of, got where he was, rephrase that. He, … I had to ensure that he would get where he had to be at the right time. As I say his personal staff officer so any errands that he needed done, if he needed to relay information to anyone, that was my brief. I was very fortunate because he gave me a fair amount of responsibility and I think used me very well. He basically used me as his eyes and ears when he needed to find something out and our communications weren't particularly good at the time or if the matter was of a sensitive nature, then he would send me away to go and do the job, find out what is happening, look at the issues. For example, I would … I might go down and visit the headquarters of the Second Battalions, speak to their commanding officer and their operations staff. Find out what their issues were, did they have enough water, did they have enough … you know, what was generally happening in their area of operations, and then I would come back and I would back-brief the brigade commander and also the brigade major and certain key players within the brigade headquarters. So that was quite fulfilling because you could go out, speak to a battalion commander and then come back and relay that information so that something actually got done and got fixed. Were you armed? Yes. All the time? At all times, yeah. We were essentially a very small team. There was the brigade commander and then there was the brigade … regimental sergeant major or the RSM, Warrant Officer Kevin Woods. He was a great man, there was then the commander’s linguist, as I said Ben Farinazzo, there was myself, then Christopher Hoff who was the driver and then Tim Wedesweiler who was his personal signaller and basically we were a small group and we would go out and conduct visits, see how things were going and there were certain meetings each day that we were in Dili with one of the Indonesian armed forces commanders, the TNI. We would go down to his villa, his little 'palace on the beach’ and Brigadier Evans would have a meeting with him every day to basically co-ordinate Indonesian and Australian activity. Not that there was much Indonesian activity, but to ensure that any unnecessary conflict didn’t take place. And on certain occasions also to lay down the law and say this is what we are doing and this is how we are going to do it and they’d stay out of the way … What change did you notice? What were the visible signs of things happening? I remember that first day in Dili driving from the airport into the main city of Dili and it was like something from a movie set. It was actually quite surreal. I didn’t actually feel like I was … I didn’t feel like we were actually there, it was quite bizarre, there was just … everything was razed to the ground and just burned out. And there was this haze everywhere that turned the light a very strange colour. Smashed glass I remember everywhere in the shops. And there was just no one around. There was literally no one around, I think we must have seen 2 people on that first day on that drive into the city. And of course the most visible sign is that the people began to return. And when they did, they looked in a terrible state. Some were emaciated and they looked in a great deal of pain, their eyes were wild with fear. And that was the most visible sign, is that people really did start to return and they poured down from the hills from places like Dare to the south of Dili And then life began to return to some state of normalcy, if that is what it could be described as, and then you would see, you know, men and women out with their families. You would see them trying to eke out an existence by picking this weed out of the monidrains that they constantly picked and ate. People then started setting up foodstalls. That was another really significant sign that things were starting to get back to some state of normalcy. There were some quite passionate demonstrations through town by Falantil and Fretelin supporters. I remember one day being caught behind this truck which was just pouring with people and they had a megaphone and I think one fella had a trumpet and they were just clapping with joy and it was a big thing for them to do. 'Cos the Indonesian soldiers were still around at this time, they hadn’t left yet. So they really started to become far more confident and I suppose the final real indicator that things had changed was when we saw the TNI troops packing up and leaving, getting on the boats at the Dili wharf and sailing back to wherever they came from. So what did Dili look like when you left it? There was a lot of road wire around, there was a lot of sandbags around, the markets were in great shape compared to what they had been and the fellows from the Third Combat Engineer Regiment, which is part of the Third Brigade did a fantastic job there. They set up basically the infrastructure for the market to once again re-open and they had a great opening ceremony there. So the market, it was good to see the markets up again. The city was just thronging with people and there was, I suppose the thing that I knew, but that I couldn’t see was that there was an underlying tension in Dili when we left. That is how I personally felt, that there seemed to be this underlying tension that, ok, we have come this far, but what now and, you know, there seemed to be an aggression which I could fully understand from the East Timorese. You know, they had obviously been through some horrific experiences. Did you have much contact with East Timorese yourself? Yeah, I did. I mean I didn’t speak the language at all, but I knew enough to say "hello" and "good afternoon". And as far as my rather pathetic sign language would take me at the time. I had a fair bit of contact with some East Timorese. Ben Faianazzo the linguist could speak fluent Indonesian and picked up some Tetum quite quickly, which is their local language and so we would go around in the streets and occasionally we would drive around and do our own thing and get out there and have a look and see what was happening, speak to people, find out what was happening in their lives, see what their concerns and their issues were, which was very interesting. And so it wasn’t on a really personal basis, but we would go around and speak to people on occasion. What sense did you get of what they thought of Australia? Well, I don’t know what they thought about Australia, but they sure as heck liked to see us there. They were absolutely overjoyed and I remember the first few weeks that whenever we would go past, they would all just stop and they would wave - I don’t know whether that was out of forced habit from their predecessors, but they did seem genuinely happy to see us there and if we went up to them and spoke to them on a personal level and took the time out to sort of see what their conditions were like and speak to them about their lives, they were very, very accommodating and their hospitality was just overwhelming. I remember one day we went down this series of alleyways and came to this very small dishevelled shack, I suppose and offered these people some food out of our own rations, offered them to their children and they brought out some food for us which was just amazing, because they had nothing, absolutely nothing and yet they would give … quite amazing … I have a lot of respect for them from what I remember. Were you glad to leave? I am going to sit on the fence here. In some ways yes I was and in some ways, no I wasn’t. I was glad to leave because I knew I was going to see my family again and I was sad to leave because I knew that I was not going to be with some fantastic people who I worked with and who I really got to know very well and I was sad to leave because, I am not sure how I put this, but I … I was sad to leave because I felt a great deal for the East Timorese people in our area, down in Suai before I left. When you first arrived, did the task seem overwhelming? No it didn’t, but I am not sure that I would be the best person to ask about that because I am sure that General Cosgrove … the task must have seemed massive, I mean we are talking about a whole country here. I mean sure it’s not a large country in terms of geography, but this was basically "raising a phoenix from the ashes" you know. He has got to restore a whole country, or provide the impetus for that. So, a massive task. But I think that the job that we were given to do was not unrealistic. The resources that we had to do it at times stretched us, but we … … to do was not unrealistic. The resources that we had to do it at times stretched us, but we got the job done and we always get the job done. Every journey starts with a single step. Absolutely. Absolutely. There was some great improvisation, ingenuity, sort of … Give us an example. I will give you one of our own actually. We made a shower block which was a terrible shower block, but it is all we had at the time. We just grabbed some pieces of dirty old burnt corrugated iron and managed to construct this ramshackle shower block - with personalised towel hangers, I must add - and that was our … that was our shower block for our stay down in Suai. The engineers were fantastic. I am not sure if it was ingenuity on their part, but certainly they worked extremely hard to build the things that they did. They were building a bridge at one stage which seemed a huge task and they got on and did it and it was a miracle that they did with the resources and time that they had. Yes, so I suppose … there was just a lot of good work done. Australians have a reputation for ingenuity. Do you reckon it is an Australian trait or was it shown by all the other groups as well? I didn’t see too much of any of the other groups, except for the New Zealanders and the Canadians and that was when we were down at Suai. The New Zealanders certainly were very industrious and they were a very professional lot. They were from the First Battalion Royal New Zealand Infantry Regiment and they were, they were hard workers and they certainly made themselves as comfortable as they could. The Canadians built what we called "The Silver City" out at a place called Zumalai, which is east of Suai, some distance, and they had an engineer company and they basically had this team that goes around the world with blue prints and they source the material from the country that either they are in or a country close by. And they come in and they just build this pre-fabricated set-up which was just amazing. And I think eventually they were going to hand it over to the local community as a school and eh … so that was very clever actually, I was most impressed with that. But I think from the Australian perspective it is a matter of there is the job, the job has got to be done. If you don’t necessarily have everything you need to do it, then get something that will do it and just get the job done. When did you come back from Timor? I got on the plane from Dili on the 8th December. The brigade headquarters, after Dili, as you might have guessed, had moved down to the south west corner of East Timor to an area called Suai and I left there, went up to Dili, spent a couple of days in a stopover house, I suppose, where we washed all our kit and had a shower ourselves and got some briefings and then went out to Komoro Airfield and then hopped on a Thai C130 Hercules to come home. It was amazing that last couple of days to see the changes in Dili. I mean it was like a city again. And there were people everywhere and I was glad to go at that stage. What did you come back to? A new job? I came back to a very excited wife, first of all and I came back to leaving Townsville, a new job certainly and I was posted down here to Melbourne at the end of 㥫, so we spent about 10 days in Townsville busily organising our lives to pack up and then move down to Melbourne. What is your job here? I am now the adjutant at Melbourne University Regiment which is in Carlton, in the city, and again I am personal staff officer to the commanding officer, but I am also responsible for a myriad of things which keep me busy and out of trouble. I am involved in training sometimes, in personnel issues sometimes, security issues sometimes and generally a bit of a jack of all trades these days. What do you see as the function of a university regiment? Well our university regiment is designed to provide officers for the part- time land army. We only train them to a certain level and then they go to the Royal Military College, Duntroon where they undertake a further 6 weeks of training and then they graduate as second lieutenants in whatever corps they are allocated to. And is this a very live culture too? Is it getting harder to find people to join the University Regiment or easier? We have had a reasonably good success rate with applicants. We graduate around about 30 lieutenants each year. So that is not too bad. It is not as many as we would like to … I don’t know if it is becoming more difficult. I certainly think that from our unit’s perspective, it is always hard work recruiting. We often don’t have the time that we would like to spend on recruiting activities and our recruiters are part time members, although we believe that everyone in the unit is a recruiter. So it is difficult, yeah. But you now are able to have your own home, rather than live on the base? Oh absolutely. We had our own home in Townsville. Annette and Sarah came up at the beginning of 1998 to some wonderful floods - that you probably heard about on the TV back then, so their introduction to Townsville was by no means pleasant. But we had our own home then and stayed in there for 2 years until leaving Townsville and find ourselves in Hawthorn in Melbourne, so we can't complain. Do you see yourself as a career officer for the rest of your life? I have thought about that, I suppose, since the day I joined and 'rules are for fools says the guidance of wise men’, but I am going to stay in until I think the army doesn’t need me any more or I no longer believe in what I am doing. And I don’t think there is any danger of that. Did you join any organisations after you came back? No I didn’t, didn’t join any actually, which is strange for me because I am usually a pretty keen … a pretty keen rugby player and I joined a Brothers club up in Townsville and that was a good social outlet because you can tend to become quite insular in the military when you work and play with the same people. What about military organisations? Eh … well .. The RSL or the … I am not a member of the RSL but I am a member of the Association of First Infantry Battalions which I have … just sort of kept my membership up with and also the RAR Association which is the Royal Australian Regiment Association, so I am members of both of those. Did you join the Peacekeepers and Peacemakers Association? No I haven't. I didn’t know one existed, but I am sure I will find out about it. What do you think is Australia’s role in this kind of activity, this sort of action? How do you see the military, the Australian military contributing to peacekeeping around the world? Well, personally I think we have a wider responsibility in terms of being - I know it is a cliché - but a good global citizen, to contribute wherever possible to humanitarian operations. I think the nature of power in the future is changing and I think we’ve seen the deterioration of nationalism in some areas, but I think we are seeing the rise of nationalism in other areas. And as such, we need a force that is highly responsive, extremely flexible, but still able to carry out a broad range of military options for the government, so I see us being different from what we are now, and certainly different from what we have been in the past, as in our organisational structure. So I think we are going to be pretty busy over the next however many years. Do you have any bad kind of experiences or memories of your time in the army? I don’t really have any bad experiences. I think I have been one of the luckiest blokes alive to be honest with you. I have had a great time in the military. I have really enjoyed myself. What is the best thing about it? I suppose the privilege of commanding Australian soldiers. I have never had more fun in my life. It is a fantastic … it is not a feeling of you are in command, so you have got more power or you are in command so you control everything. The real buzz I get out of commanding is being presented with a problem, and being able to involve others so that you come to a workable solution and then go out there and make that thing work or make that thing happen and when it does and when it works really, really well, it is a most fulfilling feeling. And when you can see on your team’s faces that they believe in what they are doing and they know they have done a good job, that is fulfilling as well. So I suppose that is the best thing about being a junior commander in the army. Not to mention a great deal of fun. Well you have suggested that the role of the military is changing, so perhaps it becomes more of a humanitarian agency. Can you explain about that in Timor? Well certainly humanitarian operations were very important. Our operation in East Timor was designed specifically to provide security for the East Timorese people, and that we did, but by default you also … by also you become involved in humanitarian relief as part of that security operation. And you said you moved from Dili to Suai after only a few weeks. That’s right. What was the compound like at Suai? It was centred on the courthouse at Suai and it basically took up an area the size of a city block and there was some other units co-located with us and there was an element from the Fourth Field Regiment which provided essentially security for the Suai area. They were acting as an infantry company. There were reconnaissance helicopters from the 162 Reconnaissance Squadron, also based in Townsville. And then there was the brigade headquarters with the Signal Squadron which provided all the communications, and that was no mean feat. So we were all in this big sort of compound … not a great deal of wire around, but a bit of patrolling going on and there were areas there … there was a mess tent there and there was a little hospital there. I mean there was a couple of treatment rooms where both … Local people as well as military? For local people as well as Australian soldiers would come in and be treated and the medics there certainly really worked hard and did a great job at giving assistance to the local people. So, from the humanitarian perspective, the medics., the soldiers themselves, you know gave a great deal of aid to the aid agencies, if they needed a hand and they could lend a hand if it was appropriate to do so. The brigade PR officer, Major Chip Henriss-Andersen, actually ended up becoming an "ad lib" English teacher for a while there. He set up shop in what was the old school up near the Suai Cathedral which was the site of an unfortunate massacre before we arrived and he had a few children there he was teaching English lessons to and I believe after I left this had sort of grown into scores of children who were being taught English and they got some teachers in and started up a school again. He was a great hit with the kids actually and did a good job from what I hear. So your military training has to include a whole lot more than just military activity? Well, yeah, I suppose it does. If you were going into another country I’d warrant that it would do you well to learn about their culture, their language, what type of people they are and when you are there, I suppose a fair amount of common sense would dictate that you look at what they require, what their needs are, what their wants are. I mean we could stand there like stark sentinels and try to provide them security, but then we are really helping them to rebuild their lives and to give them a future.
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Victorians at War - Oral History Project