Transcript
I originally spent about two months or so in Kuwait with a forward repair team, so a group of us went over to get some Special Forces vehicles up and ready to be redeployed into Afghanistan and we actually had a really good time in Kuwait. We're all still very close, we had a lot of laughs and the threat in Kuwait, there was no real threat, it was just a staging area, right?
So we had some really enjoyable moments, we'd go out to markets in various places around Kuwait, we nearly drove across the Iraqi border once by accident, a lot of really enjoyable moments there. And we weren't due to go into Afghanistan but in fact, we were only supposed to be there for maybe one to two months, get these cars ready and then just go back home.
About two months later, we were still there and then I walked into the workshop area at one point and we weren't far away from going home, so I think maybe a week later or two weeks later, we were actually due to go home. So we were just looking forward to it at that point and I walked past a captain and he was from the Special Air Service Regiment over in Perth and he looked at my name...Well, he was reading some names and he read my name and I piped up and he said, "Oh, you're coming with us." And I looked at my ASM and I said, "Going where?" And my ASM, Mick, he said, "You're going into Afghanistan," and I went, "Oh shit, all right."
So again, it went from one level to another at that point for me and it was only myself and two others that went into Afghanistan at that point. So about three or four days later, we went from a really mellow, almost training like environment in Kuwait, no threat, no body armour, no weapons, to being fully kitted up and sitting on a tarmac at about midnight, waiting for an American C-17 to lower its ramp and we were just to basically get on that plane and go into Afghanistan with a whole bunch of vehicles.
And again, had no idea about what we were going to face when we got there. I was just told that my role in going over there was to set the workshops up, so that when, I think it was Alpha Company 4 RAR rotated back in, everything would be ready to go.
