Transcript
Back in those days we would spend 6-8 months a year out bush. Because we were one unique armoured cavalry squadron, we supported two infantry battalions, and artillery, and everyone else. So we were quite the rarity. We were out bush a fair bit supporting everyone, and it was not uncommon to be out bush in the field for eight months. Live fire activities all the time because we trained for conventional warfare; that's what we did in those days.
We were actually out bush and finishing an exercise about to go back for a weekend and then come back out again, and they said, "Right, we need four vehicles to stay behind." I was picked as one of them and I wasn't sure why with an infantry company. And they said, "You're now starting force preparation for a place that we're deploying in two weeks’ time, there in Rwanda." And we just said, "Where's that?" They said, "It's in Central Africa." And we said, "Well, what's going on." And they said, "Oh, it's just some skirmish and stuff that's been going on. A bit of conflict. And you're deploying in support of a medical force as a security."
So that was sort of the brief and that was it. Bearing in mind, my regiment went to Somalia as well two years earlier, so a lot of practices we did were from knowledge we learned from the soldiers that were gone. My whole regiment went with 1st Battalion. We were supporting the 2nd/4th Battalion those days. And Alpha Company, 2/4 RAR was to go, and our four armoured vehicles were to protect literally the whole 300 contingent. So we quickly devised some form of plan going off what was learned in Somalia to bring into what we thought we would be doing over there when we get there. That was it.
And that's all we knew. And when we did a little bit of training and went back to the base to quickly sort out our affairs to go... Because we were ready to go, I mean, we were prepared. But we were prepared for a combat role because that's what we trained for. Realistically, when we got there, it wasn't. There was just something totally different which, with the UN, is a little bit different. We weren't peacemaking, we were peacekeeping. And there's a big difference there, especially when you're peacekeeping, as we found out.
