Transcript
It was quite sort of surreal as we got there, places were on fire, infrastructure was damaged, the TNI did a lot of work to say, "Well, this was our country, now that we don't need any more". There was a lot of damage done, powerlines etc. You had the militia fighting who were probably supportive of the TNI or the Indonesian military. So they were still an element at large.
But in short once we landed, yeah, everything was ablaze. Fire. Dili itself, started to be secured by that company and other armoured vehicles that were there and we virtually pushed straight out to the border. So down near Balibo we were initially posted there and then we moved out to our own separate area of operations down in Marko and we used to open and close a what we call Junction Point Bravo … I mean there was still things on fire still, you know, it was a place of disarray.
However, we had to get out to, imagine, well I won't say imagine the border, it's a very short creek line as far as you to me away, was a line drawn in the sand as far as this is now East Timor and that's West Timor which is, West Timor was Indonesian. So yeah, we, it was quite surreal. Ironic too the TNI were driving out, or elements of them were, when our guys had already landed as well. So following them out to the border and off they went back to the West Timor and that creek line was the difference between two countries.
