David McCammon - East Timor

A long held interest

I can't remember a period of my life that I didn't want to join the ADF. So it's hard for me to put into context or identify where that point was. I was always interested in the military. I read a lot when I was younger about it, interested in my grandfather's stories or his generation's stories from the Second World War.

I remember as a kid writing to defence recruiting to get stickers and so forth. So that was always on my mind, that's what I wanted to do. And coming towards the end of school, I joined the reserves. And then pretty soon after, I did go to university for a bit, but pretty soon after applied to go to RMC and was very fortunate or fortunate enough to be selected to go. And it's where the journey starts, I guess.

Officer Cadet School, New Zealand

I was selected to go to RMC, and then I actually received my letter of offer and I was working with the Army reserve at that time. I was actually about to go to Malaysia on an exercise, and I got a phone call from the captain that ran the depot where I worked and he said, "You've being selected to go to RMC, but defence wants to offer you the opportunity to go overseas and do OCS New Zealand."

And I said to him on the phone, "Well, when do I need to make a decision?" He said, "Today would be good." And I said to him, "Well, what do you think? Because I've got no idea really." And he gave me a view of RMC and OCS and he said, "I think if I was you, I'd take OCS." And I said, "Well, sir, if that's your view, that's what I'll do."

And I remember I got off the phone and there was another captain that was taking the exercise to Malaysia. And I told him, he said, "Oh, I wouldn't have picked OCS." And so OCS was seen as, and still is seen, as a much more condensed course than RMC. So it's 12 months instead of 18. It's modelled on the old Portsea course that Army used to run right up until the start of ADFA. And it's very much a field focus, so a lot of field time.

So really first big time away from home almost really, I mean, done smaller things, but left quite young. I would've been just 19, maybe 20, when I went, arrived in New Zealand for the very first time, met the DA, defence attache, and then got on a bus and went up to Waiouru where they run their training, which is like most great Army bases in the middle of nowhere on land that most people don't want. There's not a tree in sight. It's like Arctic Tundra. And then there's a bit of shock of capture as you do your first six weeks.

In hindsight, when you get a bit older, you look back and wasn't that hard, but it certainly felt really hard when you're young and you're doing it. It certainly was the hardest thing I'd done up until that stage in my life. So just a huge amount of things condensed into a 12-month period.

And you learn a lot in the lessons that you get taught, but you almost learn as much about the culture of the organisation through osmosis. And it's only when you get a bit older that you realise or start to make sense of why you do things in certain parts of your training and so forth.

First postings

So I turned up at 5/7RAR or fifth, seventh battalion of the Royal Australian Regiment, which at that stage was the only mechanized battalion in the Australian Army and was based in Holsworthy. So, I arrived in Holsworthy just before Christmas, got my gear and, and met the adjutant. Sorry, it would've been just after Christmas. And I was there with a bunch of other junior officers that had come out of RMC.

The first thing we did together was we went up to the school of infantry and did our regimental officer's basic course, which was the course, once you're qualified as an officer, then that's the course to qualify you in within your specific corps. So went up and did a bunch of tactics phase.

We learned the skills of manoeuvring a platoon, learned some skills around running live firing and training. And then from there went down to Puckapunyal and did what was called the mechanized regimental officers course, which then qualified you going into 5/7 and get on M113. So that was a course run at the school of armour. And that was a great course and my first exposure to armoured corps.

I'd had very limited exposure in New Zealand because they didn't have tanks. They had some APCs at that stage, so really exciting time. And that training worked out to be about two months in really important, forming some of those friendships or lifelong friendships with those other lieutenants. And in particular, because we went from there to a battalion that moved from Holsworthy into Darwin and then had a really rapid rate of readiness change and then went to Timor together.

So in hindsight, I look back at that time and those two years, amazing time for the Army. The Army went from a peacetime Army. I remember thinking, being in a battalion where there were no medals, a few Somali Vets. That was literally it. And then two years later, the entire battalion deploying into Timor.

So that started the journey in the battalion. And I remember my first exercise was down in Puckapunyal and everything is new and exciting. But at the same time, you all of a sudden taking on this responsibility of a platoon and learning a lot about yourself and learning a lot about relationships because I was a young lieutenant. I mean like most lieutenants, probably about 20, 21 by then.

You find you're one of the younger people in your platoon. Certainly platoon sergeant, and generally your corporals were older than you, but you have that responsibility. So a really rewarding time and a really formative time for the rest of your career because you learn so much about interacting with people and responsibility and training.

Training up

In 1998, we were in Holsworthy, but the brigade was moving into the Darwin as part of Army presence in the north. The battalion packed up in Holsworthy and we went into the newest lines in defence at that stage, these amazing facilities, which in itself was a huge deal. And at that time, I was just a young officer, but you could see in the background that the wheels of readiness changing. We arrived in Darwin.

There was a new brigade commander that now governor general, General Hurley was there. We had got a new CO, Simon Gould, exceptional officer. And we were told that the battalion needed to go from a reduced readiness. It was at about 150 days, and the battalion was told it needed to get ready to deploy.

And so in the background, there was a lot of discussion about what was happening in Timor. And you realise and you start to put two and two together that these things start to be interrelated. So the brigade went on this huge exercise down at a place for called Epenarra And at that time it was the first time the brigade had deployed like that. And it was just an amazing exercise because they were trying to cram so much in and get the readiness right across the brigade.

And in the background, as I said, there was discussion that Timor was ramping up. And I remember before we went down there, well just after we returned, the then CO's brother John Gould, who's a senior officer who has spent a lot of time in Indonesia, he was involved with the East Timor elections. And he came and briefed us, although that was a bit later on, but I remember that the RMO or the doctor, one day coming in and saying, because the battalion had been told, we're getting Japanese encephalitis shots.

And I remember him distinctly saying, "Well, that's it. I think we'll go to Timor because," he said, "it's an expensive vaccination and I'm not sure defence will be giving it to everyone if we weren't warned out to go." But so all that was happening and the battalion was training up for a range of different things, but there was a feeling that this might occur.

On notice for Timor

And then interestingly then at East Timor, the elections occurred, and that started to look like there would be a large defence commitment. And the company I was in Bravo Company, we got warned out to go to America because there was a company in, I think it was 2RAR hour that was meant to go to America for an exercise. And so, because that battalion went on reduced notice to go Timor, they couldn't go to the US.

And so our company got picked up and we were flown down to Randwick. And I think we got there Thursday, Friday. And the intent was we would spend the weekend in Randwick and then fly out to California, or I think we're going to Hawaii then California for this joint activity at the national training centre.

And that afternoon, I remember the OC, Shane Gabriel, just an exceptional OC and leader. He got the whole company out on parade. And so I said, "Now you've got a lot of allowances to go to the US. You've got the weekend off in Sydney. Be careful about how much money you spend because we might go to Timor." And as the Army works, the barrack room lawyers of the NCOs and that said, "Ah, well, there's no chance we're going to Timor because there's no way the Army would fly us all the way to Sydney to go to the US if we're going to go to Timor."

So the company had a big weekend in Sydney and then we went off to RAAF Base Richmond and, and we had actually loaded the plane to go to the US and the company commander, Shane got a phone call and it was the phone call from the then land command that said, "You're not going to the US. You're now on notice to go to Timor." And we're in the terminal and he told the company, "We're not going to the US. We're going to Timor," which was huge. Right? Most of the entire company had never deployed. Or he said, "We're likely to go to Timor probably." He didn't say we're going to Timor, but it was quiet and expecting a bit of emotion in the room.

And then someone puts a hand up and asks the question that was nearest and dearest to the diggers of the company. And it was, "What does that mean for our duty-free?" And, and the lady that was there from customs said, "Well, you're going overseas. So you get to keep your duty-free." And there was this sort of roar of "Yes, we get to keep our duty-free." And then the second question came, which was, "Sir, what does that mean for our allowances?" And Shane said, "I expect you'll have to pay them back." And there was, "Oh." Everyone was upset at that.

And then there's just so much excitement in the company that we were going to Timor. And it's hard for me to recall those days and what order things happened, because it all just seemed to be just a frenzy of things happening. Stuck in Sydney. Then we couldn't get planes back, because planes were getting used up north and we went back and there was just a real buzz in the battalion. But then also it was interesting because there were parts of the brigade that weren't going, and there was frustration in those people that were feeling like they were missing out.

A frenzied preparation

I look back and I've done a lot of deployments and some far more difficult and having far more emotional things occur, deaths of soldiers and so forth, but that trip to Timor was such a foundational part of my career. And so fortunate to have some great mentors in that trip of company commanders that I worked for, Shane Gabriel, Jake Ellwood, CO, Simon Gould and people like Wes Valant and others that really spent a lot of time getting us better and getting us right for that trip.

And, I look back, and that battalion, we had reduced readiness, but back then that was the first big op that the Army had done. And you look back and there was no rules, right? It was the Wild West almost because we were just trying to get there. And as I said, it was just a frenzy of things happening. You were getting new equipment, you were getting new people.

And then, I'd use the example of I actually flew in as part of the recon party for the battalion into Timor at the advanced party. And we went in, I think it was a Royal Thai herc and you went in and the herc was so full of equipment. There were land rovers of people sitting everywhere because it was just getting people into Timor. And obviously at that stage 2RAR and 3RAR and three brigade were already in there.

Patrolling

So area of operations. So, the battalion effectively took the battalion AO off 3RAR, which was largely around Dili. And then companies get their own individual area of operation internal to that. And then in that area of operation, basically the OC, the officer commanding at the time, set the patrolling tempo. And so we would do half platoon or section patrols at that stage. And there was the company to IC who's a captain would basically do up a patrol matrix or a patrol order.

And so you would be told, "Right, you are going for a four-hour patrol from 7:00 in the morning. You are to patrol this area. You were to look at this point of interest. You're to go and see this point of interest." And then you would go and deliver as to your platoon with a patrol route, the way that you're going to walk and actions on. If something happened locations you're going to see.

And it was a mixture of doing that dismounted, doing that in carriers. So you'd do that. And as well as that, there'd be a platoon that would be doing security for the base that you're on. So you might get that task. And then there'd be people that were the quick reaction force. So you'd sit on a quick reaction force.

If I remember rightly generally we had a section, and those guys would be just ready to go with their gear at a moment's notice in case one of the patrols had a problem or needed reinforcement and so forth. And so just tempo was just constant. And then soldiers would do picket at night on the patrol base, so sentry. And the officers would do generally a stag on the radio because you had constant coms into battalion headquarters.

Protecting Xanana Gusmão

Timor was part of Indonesia and there was a vote held to see if they wanted autonomy. And when that vote was held, Timor voted to be an independent or sovereign state. And when that occurred, the security situation deteriorated. And so there was a UN mandate cut to effectively provide security into Timor to allow for the withdrawal of Indonesian Armed Forces and allow Timor to set up as its own entity. So that's why we were there. And I guess which leads to one of the very first or key things 5/7 did.

There was Xanana Gusmão, the leader of the independence movement then for Timor and subsequently went on to be their leader. He returned to East Timor. And so there was a rally held for his return and my platoon was part of that. So Bravo Company, we were given the job of security. And so there was concern that there might be a threat against him and there was security for him, but really we were there because the crowd was going to be huge and it was. And were there as the quick reaction force or held there just in case.

There were the other platoons. There were platoons that were doing security in and out of the venue, but we were held there just in case we were needed for a security reason and just a huge day, right? I was in awe of it then, being responsible or being part of it. But it's only when you get a bit older and you're out of it, you're fully grasped that this was an incredibly important moment at the founding of Timor-Leste.

And, it's a bit sad because I can't remember anything that Xanana Gusmão said because I was so focused on our job that day and so forth. But in hindsight, one of those defining moments in history and was fortunate enough to be part of it.

A normal day

So in those first couple weeks, and I think for the majority of the deployment, it's hard to have a normal day, because there was so much going on and the security situation improved and then we moved to a new area and then it improved. And every time you move to a new area, there were different issues and constraints and so forth. But generally a day would be get up and you get an int summary from the night before.

There'd be company orders. Generally you'd have a part of the day that you'd do a patrol. Then when you came back, you'd have to do a patrol report, which highlighted the things that you'd seen, anything out of the ordinary, covered off on where you'd been. And then clean your gear, clean your weapon, and then you'd start the cycle again sort of thing.

The Oecusse enclave

My platoon was fortunate enough that we got picked up to go into the Oecusse enclave. We were part of the first part of INTERFET to go into Oecusse. So, East Timor was clearly the Eastern part of the Timorese Island or Timor Island. The Western part of the island is still part of Indonesia. But there is a small part in the West Timor component, that's part of East Timor. It's not an island. It's part of the mainland, but the border all around is West Timor.

And, so once Dili was secure in that there was an intent to go into the Oecusse enclave. And my platoon was detached from the battalion infantry, battalion we were part of and went and worked with a small group that effectively became its own entity in Oecusse that was built over the time we were there. But the initial part was a component from the Special Air Service Regiment led by Jim McMahon at the time.

My platoon got beefed up with some recovery assets because we were going there by ourselves. And, then a few days later, the Gurkha so there was a Girkha company as part of the British commitment came in as well. And really, again, exciting time. My OC told me basically, "You need to go and report to battalion," which is when you're a junior officer, you don't go to battalion headquarters very often.

Went to battalion headquarter. Saw the CO. He sat me down. He said, "Right, you're going to go do this." And some gentle guidance mentoring about what I should be thinking about, what I should be doing, what I shouldn't be doing. And then I was cut across and I went and saw the then CEO of response force, who said basically, "The ship sails tonight. You need to be on the ship.

We're not sure what it's going to be like there. So bring as much stuff as you can." And so we went back and we just loaded our carriers with ammunition, but also rations and fuel and just loaded them up as much as we could. And we went down the port and we got on landing craft heavies. I can't remember which ship it was, but we got on one of them and we sailed out a Dili port and we sailed around into Oecusse and hit the beach at dawn.

Exciting times: On the ground in Oecusse

We were met and the SAS troop had set up a harbor on probably the key ground or the highest point near the port. And we went up there and we really had no idea of the security situation. There was talk about militia, significant numbers of militia, in the area. And so we established a defensive position up there with the troop and dug in but there was nobody. It was a complete ghost town. And that was hard to work out what was going on because no one was there. And so we started patrolling mostly in town at that point.

The SAS patrols went a bit further out and then we followed them out and we were doing a bunch of joint patrolling with them. And then it started to happen that people started to return. And they'd all been hiding in, in the hills. All of a sudden, well, it wasn't all of a sudden, but over the afternoon, we went from nobody to thousands and thousands of people.

And I remember we came off of patrol and they were all congregating at the church and we went down and there was so much emotion from them and they were so thankful. And I remember just having my hand shook for hours as we were there and just an amazing experience. And then we started unloading food and so forth that we had. Again, just an experience that was a big experience when you're there.

But again, in hindsight, one that you don't fully grasp until you are out of it for a few years. And then, we started patrolling in town. A larger force came in as the headquarters, and we started to provide more humanitarian support and went broader out of the area. And yeah, it's just so rewarding to be part of doing that for people and being there as well as an independent platoon.

I was young, obviously had amazing corporals that were just doing things Outside of that operational environment. Probably wouldn't be given that latitude, but there was so much on, so it was getting corporals to go out and secure food points or go out and secure buildings. And, it was, again, just a constant of getting things done and going out and seeing people.

And once we'd secured the main town going out to smaller towns and doing the same thing, and we did that. And, then we were there for a period of time and we never really returned to Dili because when we came back, the battalion had moved out closer to the border and we returned there. So again, had this experience in Dili and was starting to get used to it. And then had an experience in Oecusse, got used to it.

Went to another AO, starting to get used to it, then, then the battalion went to the border. And again, throughout all of that, the security situation was dynamic, depending on where you were, depending on what you were doing. Worked with a Russian UN observer in Oecusse, worked with all different types of policemen in other parts in Dili, so forth. Yeah. So really exciting times.

A border incident

So there was some interaction but it was fairly limited engagement with militia. I mean, it's such a loose term and such a varying scale. And we certainly took weapons off people, found weapons, but largely homemade weapons and so forth. And there's always talk about militia and you'd go and clear areas. And then depending on where you were, again, the situation changed.

So when in Dili it was dying down, but then when the battalion in early 2000 or late '99 went out to the border, then it changed all of a sudden, again. Because you were patrolling on the border and you could see the Indonesians on the other side of the border. And there were militia patrols coming across the border. And one of my sections was shot at, by militia one evening. And again, it was interesting because it occurred at a time where we thought that stuff was over.

If we were going to get shot at, it was going to happen in the first couple of months, whether that was Dili or wherever or in Oecusse. But interestingly, it happened towards the end of our tour. And they were near the border and they were shot at night. Effectively militia fired at them and then quickly escaped across the border. And we didn't return fire. It was hard, as it always is, there so much confusion when shooting starts.

So we called out the QRF. I went out with the QRF to point where that had occurred and we pieced it together and we sent out a clearing patrol, but it was at night. And we were pretty conscious of where we were in relation to the border. So we didn't patrol as far as we probably wanted to, because we wanted to just make sure that we didn't have an issue so to speak. And then the next morning we sent out a broader clearing patrol. Charlie company got involved and we found the point where they'd fired out from because they left their casings. And so that occurred and the security ramped up again.

Two great lessons

At that time as well, we were doing a lot of IDP or displaced person reunion. Because all of a sudden there was a border put into Timor. There were families that were separated either side of the border. So we'd run these opportunities for people to come and see their family, either side of the border. And I remember we did one, one day, and it was a lot of people and trying to be a controlled environment. So basically we set up wire.

People had to go through a checkpoint, and then they'd go into a holding area and the same would happen on the Indonesian side. And they'd go in a holding area and they'd meet. And then at the end of the day, they would come out and we were at it and there was discussion. All of a sudden, the crowd got really irritated and nervous. And you could feel it. You could feel the tension.

It was really hard to work out what was going on, and then through interpreters and so forth, the message was that the rumour going around was there were militia that had come into the crowd and were going to throw hand grenades. And so the crowd started to get excited and get overwhelmed. And then there was pushing and shoving and the crowd was starting to lose control. And so the Indonesian Army response was to fire warning shots.

So they fired a big burst of ammunition over the top of the heads of the crowd, which as you can probably imagine, doesn't generally settle people down. So quite interesting, I had my back to it when they fired. And I dived into the ground and I remember looking up and the CO, Simon Gould was there. And he was just standing there cool as a cucumber and just his hands out and just saying, "Indonesians, settle down, settle down, settle down." And I thought, "Well, that's probably what I should be doing." Then I got up, dusted myself off. And the crowd, we couldn't control it. And there were very few of us there.

There was, as I said, the CO who was providing a great leadership example to us. And my OC at the time, Jake Ellwood, the OPSO, Shane Gabriel, a section run by Corporal Lipman, and then thousands of people. And then the people all tried to leave. And, as I said, we'd put wire up to control people in and out. And we'd deliberately generated a choke point so we could control it. But as you can imagine, people all wanted to get out and just leave. And they were pushing against the wire. Again, the CO came up to me because it was my platoon trying to control people through this. And he came up to me and he said, "I think you need to cut the wire." He suggest, "I think you need to cut the wire, Dave." And I said, "Oh, I think we can control them, sir, through this." He said, "I'm not sure. I think you might want to cut the wire." And I wasn't sure he was right, but we cut the wire and he was right. He was definitely right.

And the minute we cut the wire and gave that escape at avenue to people, the tension left. That evening, I was there thinking, "Well, I learned two great lessons from Simon Gould. Go that day one when we were getting shot at that I took later on into subsequent deployments is you got to remain calm.

Right? Because everyone's looking to you for an example. And then the second one was again, remaining calm, not telling me exactly what to do or deliberately giving me an order, but giving me the space to make the right decision myself and learn from that as well. And Yeah, so things, again, I took on, on future to times. I went away and hope to emulate that example that was given to me as a young officer.

The value of service

To a person, I really feel that organisation stepped up and delivered. And I think the Army did, right? I think that was the Australian Army deployed into Timor. We did it on a shoestring. We made do with a bunch of stuff. And so I think when we came back, we were so proud of ourselves. And then you start to miss people a bit because you've spent so long with people.

At points in time, you'd be living 10 of you in a very small room, or always in each other's personal space. And then you get back and all of a sudden, you don't see those people every day. But the Army is a funny beast because that's like a posting So you miss it, absolutely. But I feel like you always miss parts of the organisation or parts of the team you've been in because we are so good at building teams.

We're so good at finding that group or that's sweet spot of people working together. But that end, we moved back into a new team or we move out. And so yeah, towards the end, you do miss it. And then now for me, that's 20 something years ago. And I think for me, now where I am in life, what I think about it is how formative that was for me, for learning so much.

And learning so much I didn't realise I'd learn until I get opportunities like this to reflect on those experiences and. And those examples that people gave me of leadership and how to hopefully follow some of those great examples. And, then as I said, some things that you don't realise how rewarding or how exciting they were to be a part of at the time are the key takeaways for me.