Mark Povey - Somalia veteran

Joining the Navy

I joined the Navy as a 16-year-old. I was living in South Australia and I joined in 77. I was a 16-year-old and I left high school. I was in fourth year high school at Salisbury East High School in South Australia. I had no idea at an early stage what to do with my working life.

Dad's mate's son came home from HMAS Leeuwin as a junior recruit, had a pocket full of money and it seemed like a good idea at the time so I applied for the Navy and went through the rigmarole of doing all the tests and all selected and I joined HMAS Leeuwin in July of 77. So as a young 16-year-old it was, we just were just thrown I suppose to the wolves, had to grow up overnight. And I did 12 months in the West.

Learning all the basics of the Navy. We still went to school every day we did Maths and English and Science. And then after 12 months in the West Coast came to HMAS Cerberus over on the Mornington Peninsula and I did my basic Storeman's course and on completion of that I was posted to HMAS Watson in Sydney.

Consequently I did other postings and went to see in 1980. Did 15 months on a on a destroyer escort. Went to Noumea and Vila, around Australia and after I went to the Royal Naval College at HMAS Cresswell and I did a three and a half year posting there where I met my now wife. She was the first female cook in HMAS Cresswell. We got married. We've had three children since. My wife got out and I stayed in the Navy and eventually got out 1998 after completing over 21 years in the Royal Australian Navy. [Cresswell] was classified as part of the ACT.

So we always got the Canberra Day holidays as well as a New South Wales holidays. But yeah, I suppose it goes to show that every single state and territory in Australia has a coastline.

Stores training

As a member of the supply category we need to go to a shore establishment to learn the basics of storing a ship and also learning all the paperwork that was required in those days because in those days there was no computers. So everything was done manually. So everything was done in the old hard ledgers, all the orders were done by the cooks all written by hand.

All the menus we used to type them up on the old typewriter. So we learnt our trade in a Navy base preparing us ready to go to our first sea posting so when we got there, because, on my first sea posting I had a petty officer as my boss, there was a leading seaman stores victualler, and there myself and another AB.

So we had already learned our trade by the time we got to the ship so that we were not left to our own devices but we were able to do our jobs on our own and not requiring other people to give us, to help us out, so that's the reason why we spend so long ashore before we go to sea.

Working as a victualler

I was a stores victualler sailor and the category I was in we were disbanded. We were amalgamated with the stores naval category in 1992. So when I first joined it was two stores categories, stores victualling which was food and clothing and stores naval which was everything but food and clothing.

And the Navy decided in the early 90s that they would get rid of one of the stores categories and just make it into one. So then we could also go from being in charge of, say, the clothing store or a victualliing office, we could go to a naval stores, obviously, and be in charge of all the nuts and bolts and all that sort of stuff as well.

That was my trade, as a victualler working in conjunction with the cooks, work and doing the menus, ordering all the food, ordering all the clothing, all the bedding. And especially at sea, making sure you have enough food from one port to the next.

Training at HMAS Leeuwin

When I joined the Navy in 77, and I was in the last intake of 12 months through HMAS Leeuwin. You do an aptitude test and they then classify you in two different educational streams within Lewin and depending on where your education stream is, depends on how often you did part a ship within HMAS Leeuwin. So the class I was in, we used to go to part a ship every Monday. So we'd spend the day working somewhere within the establishment be that at the gangway with a quartermaster, being in the galley with the chefs.

So you learned all the jobs throughout the fleet and you went to the clothing store, you went to the vitler office and it was during that time at HMAS Leeuwin, working in those different departments that you started to take, "I wouldn't mind doing this" or "I wouldn't mind doing that". And during that time I chose to become a stores vittling sailor and that's the only way. Nowadays they have to already have the category picked out before they actually join the services.

Applying for Somalia

I had been at sea since 1990 before coming to HMAS Cerberus in 93, much to mine and my wife's disgust, we were sent to Victoria and I'd been ashore for 12 months after three and a bit years at sea. And it was like "Now I can spend some time with my wife and three children". And the youngest had only just been born in the November for I went to work one day in the March. And my boss said to me, "They're calling for volunteers to go to Somalia. They want a senior storeman to go". And it was from HMAS Cerberus.

So I rang my wife, and I said to my wife, Lorraine, I said, "They're calling for volunteers for Somalia". And she said, "I don't know why you bothered to ask where you're going to volunteer. You're going to put your name in the ring anyway". So I spoke to my boss and he said, "You put the request in and I'll recommend you". So I requested to be recommended as a as a volunteer for Somalia.

My boss wrote a letter, it went to the commanding officer at service and he sent off his letter of response as well to Canberra. A few weeks later, I was at home and my boss rang me and said, "You've been selected". So I have no idea what the process was. I do know there was another chief storeman serving at the time, he had volunteered too and I was lucky I was given the call up.

So I had a few weeks prior to that to get ready in place to go to Randwick where we did our training. All the inoculations, I had to have my shots, dentally fit medically fit. And on ANZAC Day 1994 I boarded a plane on I flew to Sydney and ferments commenced my training at the army base of Randwick. And we were there for three weeks and we we learned how to find water in the desert, how to change tires on vehicles. So things that we normally wouldn't be doing in our everyday career.

We went out to the rifle range were to be Steyr qualified because once we got in country we carried a Steyr rifle every day of the week. We had to be medically fit. So we had to do the army basic fitness tests, we had to pass that, the sit ups, the push ups and the run. And then early May, mid May 1994, we boarded the aircraft and we flew to Africa. And that's when the adventures began.

Pre-embarkation training

We were on the middle of an oval at Randwick at the army barracks and we were digging holes in the oval and, you know, we were putting plastic sheets down and putting dirt down and leaves in the bottom of the hole and putting a rock on it and leaving it there overnight. The next day, we'd go and see how much water dripped down.

It's like, "What, there's no water in Somalia?" It was just eye opening the things that they were teaching us. And it wasn't till we got in country that we, well it became a reality, that we didn't even need to learn some of the things they taught us but, I suppose, you know, they had to make sure that we were ready and able to be able to do our job for the entire time we were over there.

The contingent

There was actually, there was 42 of us in the contingent that went to Somalia. There was some reserves, were there just in case. There's a bloke that I speak to every now and then on Facebook, Lindsay, he did his whole training with us and he never even got a call up. There was three or four other members of three services.

They did the training with us and they came over in the August of 94. So there was already a contingent in country and there was another part of the contingent had come in halfway through. We had we had service personnel that had done their training with us so later on, when the people in country had finished their six months after we'd already been there, they were their replacements. So there was probably about 50 under training, but only about 45 of us spent time in country.

Arriving in Somalia

Early in the morning we flew out of out of Sydney, we flew to Perth. And then from Perth we flew on to into Harare. We spent the night at a hotel in Harare. The next morning, on another commercial flight, we flew to Nairobi. And we spent another night in a hotel in Nairobi.

And the next morning, we all got our cams on and we went out to Nairobi airport and boarded a UN C 130 Hercules and we flew north and arrived at Mogadishu airport and walked off the back of the aircraft into about 45 degrees Celsius. And, you know, the heat hit us and we realized now that this was for real. And we were met by the outgoing contingent, we were issued a Kevlar helmet, ballistic vest, and our Steyr. We then knew that this was for real.

Rules of engagement

We learned our rules of engagement; we got given our cards and so we knew that we just couldn't go over there and just use our weapons Hell for Leather, you know, we were bound by the United Nations mandate.

In Somalia at the time, we were peacekeepers not peacemakers, and there's a difference between the two. So we knew where we stood and what we were allowed to do and what we weren't allowed to do

Senior storeman

We're a very small minority. There was probably 17,000 Pakistanis in country, there was about 16,000 Indians, we all performed different roles but the Pakistanis and Indians were more for security. There were small contingents from Nigeria, and Botswana and from Kenya, there was, you know, a few 100 from each of those countries. So the load was shared across the board. There'd been other countries prior to us being there.

There was an Irish brigade. There had been Egyptians and and so forth. So yeah, we were a very, very small minority. But we had, myself and a lot of people within the contingent, they were at looking after the movement of all people and stores within and without the country. So a lot of our people worked at the airport, doing all the movements of the aircraft and people. And I was the senior storeman for our contingent a, so anything that we needed was my job, and I had a leading hand as my offsider, to make sure that we had all the equipment that we needed for our time in Somalia.

Keeping fit and fed

We would do PT three mornings a week at six o'clock in the morning. So everybody was up early, three days a week. Once everybody else went to work, those of us who stayed within the house complex in the university compound in Mogadishu. We had Somalis who came to work for us. So we had an army RSM who gave the Somali workers jobs. I would always be always getting requests from all the other parts of contingent to go and get stationery, paper or any other equipment they required. Even down to, I'd organise to get everybody's beret size so I could organise to get the UN berets, the UN badges, the UN cravats.

And to get stores in the UN system is not like going down the street and just walking in and asking across a counter. They make you jump through hoops. And so if you requested me to go and get some new biros or some carbon paper or paper, it would probably take me two days just within the UN system to be able to get that stuff to give it to you. Because I don't go to one person to get the paperwork signed, I would go to three or four people and each person had to have their own little stamp, and then a little bit of identification on their paper to make sure that they were justifying their existence within the UN scheme as well.

Every Friday, myself and we had a Navy Lieutenant, he was a supply officer. So we would have to organise to get down to the seaport. And we will take two vehicles down, and we will go down and do our rations run for the week. So the UN would give the contingents X amount of money for the amount of people that we had in the contingent, and we would go down to a company called Morris company, they were a company out of Brisbane, they had all the food, so we would go down there and and get our food from them so we could feed the contingent through the week and as as a storeman, that was part of my navy job, that's when myself and the supply officer would go down and get the food.

So the seaport where the food was, was probably about five kilometres as a direct route. That was too dangerous. So we had to go via a bypass route, which would take us about 25 kilometres to get back down to the seaport to get our stuff. And as I said, we'd go down with two vehicles, one driver and two shooters minimum.

K4 and a bypass route

Through the centre of town was a place called K4, it was like a roundabout and had about five roads that lead in and lead out. The problem being within Somalia at the time, especially in Mogadishu was there was a lot of banditry going on and where K4 was a vehicle would come in one street open fire and they had these vehicles called technicals that had 50 calibre machine guns and so forth mounted on the back and they would come in guns blazing, shoot at UN vehicles and then they would they would just make a run for it and do another street.

There was a Malaysian brigade that was based right opposite K4 but even though they were based there it was still wasn't safe for the UN vehicles to drive through the centre of town. So they they made this bypass route that went through the back, it was all barricaded off and they had boom gates and the only vehicles that were allowed to go through the bypass route were UN vehicles.

Convoys

One of the rules that was, especially for the Australian contingent and I think was for every contingent was that you weren't allowed to be out in the street in one vehicle on your own. You had to go out in two vehicles. So every day of the week, if you needed to go down to the seaport, there would be vehicles leaving on the evening out from the embassy compound. And you would go down together en masse.

So armoured vehicles would lead the way and in between the UN vehicles would be another armoured vehicle. So we would go down in a convoy, the convoy would go down to the sea port, and would return back to the university compound on the odd hour. So if you missed the return it at 9am, you have to wait till 11am. Consequently, if you need to get down on your own, you had to make sure that there was you and another vehicle to go down.

Sometimes there wasn't enough people working, Australians working around the house where we lived, we had become friendly with a few US Marines and either they would want to go down or we would go down, we'd go down together, they would take one of their vehicles and we would take one of our vehicles and we go down as a twin convoy.

Into a war zone

We got off the plane. As I said, we got given our helmet, a ballistic vest, and our weapon and we boarded a couple of minibuses and the outgoing commanding officer of the contingent, took us on a trip around the airport, took us on a trip to the other Australian compound which overlooked the airfield, showed us around there and then we went to the main gate to the airport to travel across the university compound. And as we arrived at the gate, having been in country, about an hour, gunfire started happening outside the gates.

So it was like, "Oh my God, this is for real now". We just waited in the vehicle and we sat in these vehicles for about 40 minutes, or thereabouts, and then we' got the all clear and they opened the gates and we were out in the streets. There was people walking the streets, local Somalis walking the streets and the first impression I got was that everything had been destroyed. There was no infrastructure.

They had destroyed the water plant, the electricity plan. So obviously, there was no power in country, there was no water in country and the place was, well it was a war zone. Everywhere you looked there was bullet holes. None of the locals had anything of significance. Everybody sort of lived day to day and the reality set in that this was a country that was in a lot of trouble. I suppose we were just hoping that the small bit of job that we were going to do was going to be helpful for the time we were there. But it was a real eye opener, that this is what happens to a country in wartime.

Somali workers

We had we had 10 Somalis working for us, nine males and females. She came in every day and she helped clean up the house. The males did gardening and we had we had one of our workers, he had had three businesses before the Civil War. He was a carpenter by trade. So anything we need to build, he would build it for us and the workers would keep the place clean and would weed and garden and it was just...

I know it doesn't sound like much that they were doing but it sort of gave them a bit of significance that they could go to work every day. We paid them a small token every week but they were lucky because there was other people who had nothing. We used to give them lunch every day. If we had stuff left over, we would give it to them the end of the day and they would take it home for their families. They had nothing.

You know, if we have an old pair of shoes, we would throw them away. If we had an old pair of shoes there, we'd have our workers clamouring over a pair of shoes that they would fit one their children at home. So it just it became real then that these people had nothing. I came home on leave in the August, I bought a heap of seeds and I took them back and I gave them to one of our elderly Somali workers.

He looked after and grew veggies for us. I gave him you know packets of carrots and peas and so forth and to just to see the look on his face when I gave him the seeds so that he could grow some more vegetables, you know, you can see that you've done the right thing by them. But, you know, once we left, you know, they were left to their own devices and you start to wonder what happened to them after we left the country.

Little local interaction

We were there to make sure there was some stability within the country because at the time there was still the power struggle between certain warlords. We weren't to interfere with anything like that. That was obviously done at a higher level than than we were concerned. But no, we had hardly any interaction with the locals, apart from the the workers that we had, and there was a lot of workers coming in every day of the week for the UN doing specific jobs. Whatever the UN had them doing.

That was, you know, the UN's job. One day we walked past and they were fixing the roof on a building and it was all done by Somali workers. So, you know, the UN had them gainfully employed. But as you as you asked, no, we had hardly any interaction with the local population outside of the two compounds.

Anzac House

The compound we were in was the old university compound. The building we were in was a disused motor pool, it was a solid concrete building. That was called Anzac House. We were the last, the fourth and last contingent to stay in Anzac House. It was home away from home. I shared a room with a navy Lieutenant and there was two army blokes in another room off us. We just slept on cots. I had a busted wardrobe for my locker. There was a big room for about 12 other blokes, they all slept in cots. So we sort of tried to make it as homely as we could.

When we first got to Somalia in 94 there was a couple of big air conditioning units in our compound. And when I say our compound, it was only like we had a razor wire fence around it. We had a gate; the gate was locked at eight o'clock every night. And within our compound, we had two big air conditioning units. So the place wasn't air conditioned and you can imagine how hot it was. So we organised a crane we spoke to a few Somali workers and we did some bartering and some tooing and froing and as the senior storeman in the contingent, scratched a few backs and gave out some water and some ration packs and so forth.

Got a crane in; we lifted the units up onto the roof. We bartered and scrapped our way to get some trunking. We got the unit's working and we had an air conditioned building. We found, for want of a better term, we found other air conditioning units to air condition some of the rooms.

So we sort of made it more homely. We had a wire fence. We got sacking and covered the fence in sacking so that we had a bit of privacy so no one was perving on us all the time. We just made life a bit more bearable for the time we were there. We had an outdoor gym that previous contingents had set up. When we were there, we set up a bar area. So we could sit around and have a drink at night time instead of just standing around.

So yeah, we found things to amuse ourselves, just to make each day become more bearable...we had TV which was sporadic. We could get CNN every now and then. We had a video recorder. One on the army blokes, he would go and get videos and we could watch videos at night time. Radio was Somali radio. So the only music was Somali music. The only language was Somali on the radio. So you know the radios in the vehicles were never on.

The US had iaison officer, they had a bar in country so we could go and have a drink with them. Next to where we lived was the UN bar. We could go in there and have a drink. So we weren't limited to what we couldn't do. We had to be careful that when night time when we're out and about within the compound, just be aware of our surroundings. Even though all the Somalis had gone home, there was still gunfire going on every night of the week. So, you know, we still had to be aware of ourselves.

Hard Luck Café

To get out so the the main compound out on the road, the last vehicle traffic was four o'clock in the afternoon. So after four o'clock in the afternoon, no more vehicular traffic would leave the compounds. Then we had our own compound within the big picture, our gate would be locked at eight o'clock.

Most of us had a key, so if we went out to one of the PX stores, we could go out lock the gate and go about our business and then be able to get back in at night time. So even though the gate was locked, it just stopped other people from other contingents trying to get into our bar, into our sleeping area.

The, you know, we had a picture up on the wall, painting, it was called Hard Luck Cafe, not Hard Rock Cafe. We had two Indian gentleman, Indian officers rock up one afternoon, walked through the gate and said, "Can they get a drink?" And when we said, "We don't sell drinks here". And they looked at the painting and said, "Hard Rock Cafe?" and it's like, "No, this is the Hard Luck Cafe.

Constant threat

It was just a constant thing all the time. There was a time there where some Somalis were within the major compound and some of them had weapons. Our RSM, he made us get up onto the roof of their building, we had sandbags sections up on the roof and we went up there and our weapons were on instant, ready to open fire.

And there were Somalis running around the compound shooting at buildings and people. And in the moment, you're not worried about what's going on, you're more worried about are you going to do the job properly. It's not till afterwards that you think, "Oh my God, there was blokes down there shooting at us".

So, you know, and there was a time, you know, we had to go and get some new tires for our vehicles, went to another compound, we pulled up, there was a vehicle sitting next to us and I was driving the vehicle at the time, and there was a bloke driving a vehicle and above him was a few Somali militia and they had all their weapons trained on the vehicle. It's moments like that you think, you know, "How close are we to be to being shot?" So it sort of puts you in perspective of how cheap and how quickly a life can be taken."

Clan rivalry

They would come in from two gates into the university compound. They all had ID cards. So the only Somali workers were UN workers who had UN ID, and they would come in every day of the week. And, I don't know if you know, the structure of the Somali people, but they can have, the father can have multiple wives. So they have the clan and the sub clan on and so forth.

So we had workers who had the same father, but had different mothers and the mothers were from different clans and those clans, when we were there, could have been fighting each other. So even though these blokes had the same father, their sub clans might not have liked each other. And so you had the friction between your own workers.

And you had to sort of like tread a fine line between being friendly with one and not being friendly with the other because there would be that bit of angst between between co workers. So it was just a hard thing to sort of adjust to that, we come from a society where it's mother and father, whereas over there it's their way, and it was, you know, it's what we had to, you know, sort of get used to.

Bandits

When the UN first went into country in early 93 when the famine was on, and that was under Operation Restore Hope, they were sending a lot of food convoys north to a place called Baidoa. The bandits would be coming in and they'd be stopping the food convoys and taking all the food off them and then off they'd go into the African countryside, and then they would be selling it back to their own people.

So, you know, you had these people who were under the famine and you still had bandits who were still stealing the food and then selling it back. It was just so, I don't know what the words are, it was just strange to understand that the people of your country could do that to fellow countrymen.

Ration packs

We used to go down to the seaport once a week to get our food. So we could go down and get meat, veggies. The meat we used give to a kitchen from a company who would do it, cook our evening meal for us. When we first got there, we didn't have a chef. After awhile, we got a corporal from the army would come over and he would cook dinner every night for us. But yeah, we'd go down and get, we could go and get beef and chicken, get fresh fruit, fresh vegetables.

Our Somali workers would bring in fresh bananas off the plantations on the way to work. We had a barbecue every Sunday. Of course, you know, we would invite other contingents to come and have a feed. We would feed our Somali workers. We had got bread delivered every day. There was a small little bakery somewhere in Mogadishu that was making bread, not like we would know bread back here in Australia but small rolls and small loaves so that we had fresh bread every day. No fresh milk. It was all UHT milk. We just had to do with what we could with what fruit fresh fruit and vegetables we got and what fresh and frozen meat we got. R

ation packs. We would use ration packs, if we were out on the road and depending how long, we always had bottled water in the vehicle. And you would swap ration packs between each country. The Americans have pretty good ration packs. We got some Italian ration packs, they had little tetra packets of white wine in them. Malaysian ration packs. So you would swap and change and try each other's ration packs. In my opinion, the best ration packs were the Americans.

We flew to a place called Beledweyne to get some vehicles to the UN. The American ration packs just sat in the pocket of our cams had a slate that you put water on, put your meal on and the water reacted with this tablet and heated your meal up. And you know we're in the African bush having spaghetti with meatballs and there was no hexamine tablets and it was great.

So so we we rarely ate ration packs, but when we did have to go out and do a job we made sure we had the American ration packs with us because they made a decent meal...they always had in their packs, always had m&ms. They had Twinkie bars, bars or chocolate. Our ration packs had bars of chocolate but when you open an American ration pack and you see m&ms and Twinkies, it's like it was like Christmas Day all over again.

Power and water

We had a massive water bladder outside of our of our accommodation. There was generators running 24 hours a day every day, and I'm talking massive big generators that the UN brought into country, so that ran our power. They had a water plant built by the UN so they were running water to all the contingents. So we we had running water, we had a hot water system, we had hot showers, we had washing machines so we could wash our... So we were limited with the amount of pressure we had but we still had running water and we could do our washing and we could have a hot shower.

We had lights. We had power for the TV and for the air conditioning, but the constant noise of just generators going on and on and on, you know, once you left the country, the quietness descended on you and it was like a blessing to be out of country for for a few hours. Every now and then I had to go to Nairobi on business to get stuff for the contingent. The UN made sure that those people who are working for the UN in country were looked after, in respect to, you know, power and water.

Being out of country

We used to go down to the airport, we'd leave our weapons behind, leave our helmet and ballistic vest behind, get on the plane, fly to Nairobi, be in civilian clothing, walking around, you know, the normal sounds of life, you know, traffic, walking into a cafe, walking into a bar, walking into a shop, being able to buy a newspaper, being able to just sit down have a coffee.

It was just a bit of normality in your life after however long, you know before we'd been out of country. My job was always in country apart from if I was on business for the contingent, but we had part of the contingent, were actually based in Nairobi. So anybody who was flying into Somalia, or flying out, they were met by the Australians at the airport.

There was a contingent of people in Mombasa, for people who wished to, you could go on R & R to Mombasa. So we had Australians based in Mombasa, so they will get you off and on planes. So it sort of gave you a bit of something to look forward to. I know we were in the military but life became regimented every day we were in country and, you know, you're always aware of what was going on around you.

And then once you got out of country to Nairobi, or to Mombasa, you were allowed to let that veil drop and be a bit more humane, again, a bit more human. But once you got back into country and you put your gear back on, then you know, the mind switched on again and, you know, you went on with with business as usual.

R & R

We got UN leave and they gave us a dollar amount to use on our holidays. I saved one of my blocks of R&R and I tacked it onto my leave and I flew home for two weeks to Australia. I arrived home just before my wife's birthday in August and I spent two weeks at home. And it was just good to be at home for a period of time and get some normality back into your life.

My wife did say that at night time, some nights, I would wake up her up by my dreams. It sort of always, at the time, you're always dreaming of what had happened, you know, daily occurrences in country. We could use our our leave and go anywhere we wanted to. A couple of people toured around Africa, a couple of people went to Europe. A few of us come home and spend some good times at home with the family before we went back into country again.

Leaving country

Our job starting in early October was to start getting everything ready to come back to Australia that that could come back. We had to send all our weapons back. We held on to our weapons up until probably two days prior to leaving country. Any equipment that was beyond repair stayed within country. So all the weapons came back.

The RAF aircraft arrived two days before we left country, all the weapons went on to the aircraft. A lot of radio equipment went on the plane. Anything that was of significance, came back to Australia. We handed our accommodation over to a Malaysian brigade. When we handed over, the fridges that we had there supplied by the UN, the beds, our workers had made them.

So we just handed over accommodation and all the white goods we had there. Prior to leaving country, some of the ammunition that we had was getting close to being expired. We went out one day on what was like a range. The RSM took us out and we just fired the rounds off as they couldn't come back into country, so we had to get rid of it the best we could, which was, you know, firing it.

But a lot of other stuff that was no good was just left in country you know, it was no good coming back to Australia. It had been in the heat of Somalia for nearly two years and it was no good to come back to Australia. So that was myself and my lead man's job to make sure that all got back and especially the weapons were all accounted for.

Debriefing

We were debriefed in country, the army sent, because it was a majority army run contingent, the army sent two psychologists into country and we were interviewed a couple of times and it's not till you start being interviewed by the psychologist, nothing's changed until they ask you questions as we are today and I took up smoking again, I hadn't smoked for years.

The RSM said to us, "Why are you the smoking, it'll kill you?" And we say, "Well there's people out there who want to kill us too." Cigarettes were 20 cents a packet. You know, cigarettes were cheap. At night time we used to drink, sometimes we got, especially on a Saturday night where we had a Sunday off for work, because we had one day off a week, nice to have the Sunday off.

You have a few drinks and, you know, have a good night and our drinking levels went up, our sleeping habits changed and it wasn't till we got debriefed by the psychologist in country that you realized' that, "Hang on, I haven't smoked for X amount of years and I'm smoking now. I didn't drink beer for a long time, now I'm drinking a heap of beer every night".

Sleep was hit and miss. So it wasn't till then you realise that life had changed. And we did a couple of debriefings over a few days prior to leaving country. But once we got back to Australia, we just went on leave over the Christmas break and back to work as normal in the New Year.