Family military heritage
[We have] two hundred years of military service, all volunteers, primarily on my father's side, dating back to my great-grandfather, who volunteered for the South Australian Imperial Bushman Rifles, and served in South Africa during the Boer War.
Then my own grandfather, who enlisted in the Second World War and served as a radio operator in northern Australia in the Torres Strait. My father, who served as a volunteer in the infantry, served in Malaya and then in Vietnam.
Father's death in Vietnam
As a son of a soldier, the military life was embedded in me quite early. And the fact that my father was training for Vietnam, as I was born and growing up, was quite prominent. And then the reflections on his side of the family to me, as I was growing up, on the history behind all those males volunteering and serving, was often reflected on. So, I was aware of it and it was a motivation, without doubt, for me to volunteer to serve.
My father deployed on his second tour for Vietnam out of Sydney, and my mother chose to take the family back home to the Barossa Valley, in South Australia, and be with my grandmother while he was going to be away. I do remember the day quite vividly: being there at Williamstown, at our home, and watching the arrival of the police and some Catholic nuns.
The police went inside our house, and the Catholic nuns took me around the front garden, and they broke the news to me that my father wouldn't be coming home from Vietnam. At one stage, I broke away from them and went inside. Something that will always remain with me is the picture of grief on my mother's face, as a 26-year-old, being told that her husband had been killed in action in Vietnam. So, it is a day that's indelible on my memory.
I didn't take a great deal of notice, as a five-year-old, of all of that moving around me at the time, but what struck me was shortly after two things: one was being told how he was killed in action. That was that he had been killed while going into a minefield to rescue some other soldiers. The humanity of that really struck me at an early age: the sacrifice of that, of knowing that there was a risk but accepting the risk and sacrificing your tomorrow for someone else's today.
That really struck me, from my early years. The second piece was characteristic of that era, and that was the fact that you could not talk about this experience outside of your family. I was met at school shortly after they broke the news to us, and the Catholic nuns [who] met me at the front gate said, "Look, don't tell anyone about the passing of your father. Don't talk about it in the schoolyard."
That was bewildering to me. But it was their way of protecting me. This was the anti-Vietnam era, 1969 –the height of the anti-war movement. They were simply trying to protect me from being ostracised by children who might be channelling the views of their parents in the schoolyard. So, it is an experience that was certainly etched throughout my life as a still point. It was a motivation for me to join the armed forces. …
It was from that moment, where I had realised the humanity of my father's sacrifice and death, and the motivation to emulate his service as much as I could. It was clearly a motivation in terms of the lifestyle that it offered, and the benefits that it offered, from a career perspective, which is why I chose to apply for a scholarship entry to Duntroon.
There was a university degree and, whichever pathway my career would take me, I knew that there was sustenance following service: in education and in other benefits for the next career. So, it was a motivation through my father's service, through an adventurous mind, of enjoying that lifestyle – but also having an eye on the future.
Mother's resilience
My brother was fifteen months old. My mother is an extremely resilient lady. She lost her own father when she was young and she was a girl that had grown up in the country. And the manner in which she then rose, to look after my brother and I, and work to put us through private school education, was an absolute inspiration. … I think that she chose a life of looking after her children.
She was very well supported by her own family: three brilliant other sisters who looked after her and her own mother. She exuded that resilience to my brother and I, throughout her life, and I think also that she made a good example to other women that she met in her life. That Last Post ceremony was a wonderful symmetry for my own career: to have been motivated by my father's service and then to spend my last day of permanent duty telling his story at the Last Post ceremony, and having my mother and brother there, to be with me for that, was a very touching moment and a wonderful way to round off my own thirty-seven years of service.
Duntroon
I had served in the Army Cadets in high school. I had done a schoolboy's visit to Duntroon and spent three days there being guided around the curriculum and the training. So, I was not surprised, on my first day, with the procedures of breaking-in from civilian life to military life and the alignment to discipline and the training in the field, et cetera.
I was familiar with all that, having grown up on sheep farms and [having] spent time living out in the bush myself. So day one was not difficult for me, in that I was ready for the discipline, the sharp shocks, the training that was following there. I think I was still very young, though. I'd only just turned seventeen, and I had a lot of growing up to do.
I was fortunate that that four years at Duntroon enabled me to grow up. I don't think I would have survived a shorter induction into the Army, and not having those developmental opportunities that Duntroon gave me before I went out into the significant Army, afterwards. I thoroughly enjoyed Duntroon. There are people there that I made lifelong friendships with. The training was hard. The university balance with the military training was hard. But I am so pleased that I was able to have that experience. …
I probably preferred the outdoor life as opposed to the academic life. But, again, I was lucky. I had chosen to study arts, and a double major in history and English, and I've always been very interested in English and the study of language, of poetry, and those sorts of aspects. So, I had that balance, if you like, or fortune, in that the military training kept me motivated but the English literature training was also something that I was absorbed in. It was just balancing those two, those time and space zones, that was the challenge at Duntroon – and growing up at the same time.
Graduation from Duntroon
[It was] a very significant day, more so because your family is there to witness that passing-out after four years of training. I think a sense of relief that the training was over, too, and that you are about to go into – as I described earlier – the real Army, and a sense of gratitude, too, to those that had taken you on the journey. Many of the people that were instructors at Duntroon, in my time, were actually Vietnam veterans.
Some of them knew my father, so I was grateful for them on the journey that they'd taken us through. I certainly felt ready from that four years of development to go into the proper Army. So, it was a significant day and I was very, very pleased to have family there.
Posted to Townsville
I asked to go to the Infantry Corps, and I was posted to Townsville, north Queensland, and I had asked to go there. Those infantry battalions were the battalions that were on standby as the ready deployment force for the Army at the time. They were, comparative to the rest of the Army, well-resourced and certainly had the right amount of people to do the task and all the training areas to prepare for their task were nearby, and the weather was great, in terms of far north Queensland, and the lifestyle was great.
So, my introduction to real Army was really great. … At the end of 1984, I launched myself up to Townsville, then took some Christmas leave, and started full time in 1985. … The Army of that day was very different to the Army of today in a number of areas. The standard of enlistment was different: so, the education level of a lot of the soldiers was different to the higher education levels that there are today.
The standard of equipment was quite poor, and there was a great deal of improvisation that we did to make do with the equipment that we had. The level of resourcing that we had, in terms of ammunition and in terms of vehicles, was quite low – even though Townsville was well-resourced compared to the rest of the Army. So, I was really pleased that this Army of the era taught me a lot about adapting and improvising.
Our soldiers were accustomed to spending long periods in the field and adapting their living standards, compared to some of the generous standards that we do offer the Army today. I don't say that as a criticism. [It's] just the way the Army has – thankfully – evolved to a well-equipped, well-educated, and well-resourced Army and Defence Force.
But I was grateful for that era of being subjected to a paucity of resources and having to really work hard in training and improvising. It was a really good break into the Army and a life that we all aspired to be called to, to defend our national interest – whether that was through a United Nations operation or a humanitarian assistance operation. All of those were things that we were happy to dedicate our training to and stand ready for.
Reliance on non-commissioned officers
I was blessed, because, when I came into my platoon, there were many experienced soldiers and really good quality corporals, but the sergeant was the rock. Listening to him, and working with him, as a team in training the platoon, I was very grateful that I had a strong sergeant. You relied on that non-commissioned officer quite early in your career to guide you through good training, good discipline, and a good approach to soldiering.
So, I was again very fortunate, from that perspective. I think the key was to be prepared to make mistakes – and I made many mistakes in those early years! The secret was trying to not make the same mistake twice. What held me up was having that experienced group of non-commissioned officers.
Lebanon
That was a United Nations truce supervision organisation posting. We had about thirty Australian Defence Force officers who would go across on a twelve-month rotation. Our task was to observe the ceasefire truce between Israel and some of their neighbouring countries. I did four months, initially, in Syria, observing the Golan and the ceasefire line there.
Then I did eight months in Lebanon, observing the ceasefire line between Israel and Lebanon. A routine that was normal was that you would go out for three to seven days to an observation post. You had vehicles to patrol out from that post and liaise with those UN forces that were enforcing the ceasefire. But you were unarmed, and you relied more on your personality to seek your observation of the troops and engage with people who were in that region.
The most significant part of that experience, for me, was in Lebanon. I'd only just arrived from my eight month stint in that part of the UN sector and, as I was being guided around by my Argentinean UN counterpart, I noticed that in this demilitarised zone there suddenly appeared to be quite a few Israeli Defence Force personnel and Merkava tanks.
Then, shortly after that, I was standing on an observation post observing from Lebanon into Israel, and I saw these tank transporters being moved into position and tanks being moved off. Sure enough, about twenty-four hours later, the Israelis launched a major offensive into southern Lebanon in retaliation to Hezbollah Katyusha rockets that had been landing in northern Israel.
We were cut off as a patrol in our observation post. Three artillery batteries set themselves up around our observation post and commenced a twenty-four-hour bombardment of villages inside southern Lebanon. It was like the sound of a Volkswagen, spearing past the top of your observation post, every few minutes, and hoping that one of the shots wouldn't land too short, on your post.
The tanks had crashed through the border and were occupying posts all around our observation post and were obviously quite focused on their mission. Then, in retaliation, continuing, [were] the Hezbollah rockets. The Katyushas were landing around, and you felt quite, if you like, very helpless in some respects, in that you were unarmed. But you still had a job to do, in reporting, as a UN organisation, what was happening around you and the human tragedy of what was happening around you, as well as the military violations. That offensive went on for quite a few weeks and was quite a baptism of fire, literally, for me on my first UN mission.
Learning from other Nations
There was a power, in terms of your negotiation with the Israelis and with the Lebanese militia forces, in that they didn't feel threatened by you. I found that was useful in a lot of my negotiations. I think, also, I had learned from some of the other forces that were in the region at the time, who were armed, and how sometimes that armed factor made it difficult for them to achieve some of their goals as a UN force.
So, I appreciated being unarmed, broadly, but during that offensive, at times, I felt fairly sterile. … It was a great experience to have different contributing nations make up your patrol group. So, a lot of Scandinavian countries – of Finland, Sweden and those sorts of personnel – were on my patrol team. The Argentinean I mentioned earlier. Our good friends from New Zealand were part of our patrol team.
The Irish, too. It was a real mixed group of multinationals. Just learning from them the manner in which they would conduct these peace operations, and learning from them more about their countries' militaries, was a really useful part of my overall military experience. To have that early in your career was useful for me later, as I was able to launch on other United Nations missions and still have to negotiate, not only with conflict parties, but with troop contributing nations. I valued that experience and learned a lot from those other contributing nations.
Interaction with locals in Lebanon
It was part of our duty to maintain connections with the local people. The photograph that you referred to, earlier, was in fact taken during one of my connections with a local Lebanese family. Some of the family would act as interpreters, for us, with the Lebanese military or the Lebanese police or some of the Lebanese non-government organisations – Red Cross, et cetera.
So, that was a really valuable part of the experience as well: learning about the culture of the country in which you were conducting your observation and duties. I really valued that part as well, and meeting those families – and understanding the pressure that they were under, in many respects, in living in a demilitarised zone and trying to bring up their own family under the threat of sudden bursts of violence, as was the offensive when I was there, at that time. …
I think it varied according to the troop contributing nation and the manner in which they engaged the local population. But, from an Australian perspective, I think they appreciated the presence of Australians and, having come from such a large distance away to contribute to peace in this nation, resonated with them. They were very interested because, from a Lebanese perspective, there were many of their compatriots living in Australia. So, there was, if you like, a touchpoint for us in discussions all the time.
The Army's training and development program
I think the Army is fortunate. It has a pretty good, steady training and development program. So, the training that you were required to do, prior to taking up some of the command positions, was quite thorough, I felt. In addition to that, when you were serving as a subordinate to some of these commanders, often you got to study their technique and their procedures, and often you were asked to act in senior roles temporarily.
So, all of that contributed to a level of confidence that I had when I was appointed to some of those positions – that, This was something that I could do. But it was also a confidence in those that I saw around me. I referred earlier to the platoon sergeants and the corporals. Well, that kept going as you went up in your rank.
There was still this backbone of non-commissioned officers that you could draw on, and draw on their experience and work collegiately with, to carry out your roles. So, I was grateful for that opportunity of development, if you like. It added to my confidence going forward to company command, battalion command, and going overseas with the first battalion, into Timor, for that peacekeeping operation.
Willing cooperation
I'm a big believer in respect as a philosophy for gaining the willing cooperation of those that you are leading to do a difficult task. So, starting from a position of respect and trying to put myself in the shoes of those that I was leading was the main philosophy that I tried to follow, in terms of being a leader – this respect approach.
I think also a philosophy of seeking to set the example, and not asking people to do things that I wasn't prepared to do myself, and, in particular, the training and development that I asked our people to do when I was a leader, I would ask myself to do that as well and hold those standards. I think that respect and example were key parts of the philosophy that I tried to take forward as a leader. … I was inspired by the United Nations Disengagement Observer Force commanding officer that I met, while I was an observer in Lebanon, and the way that he ran his Norwegian battalion, which was a battalion of conscripts, essentially – so, citizen soldiers who had come to Lebanon to conduct this peacekeeping mission.
I marvelled at the way that he got the willing cooperation of all these citizen soldiers in his battalion, but what I marvelled at most was the way that he dealt with difficult situations and, in particular, when the Israelis launched their offensive and moved a number of tanks right into his battalion camp. Him going out, on his own, in front of the tanks, unarmed, and politely requesting them to move – almost like a Tiananmen Square-type scenario – their tanks outside of his UN boundary.
When I questioned him about this later, I said, "How did you use any role of force in this circumstance?" He said, "I used the force of my personality." I thought that was inspiring: the way that he decided to present himself, in a difficult situation. Not to delegate in this case, because it was so difficult, and to not ask someone to do something he wasn't prepared to do himself – but quite brave at the same time. …
There's always something that you can learn from someone, and it might be a lesson on what not to do, or it might be a lesson on what to do, but it's all part of the learning process in my mind. People that did not treat other people with respect were people that I tried to not learn from, because I think that just creates a toxic culture in the area that they were working with. So, I did encounter those sorts of people.
United Nations impartiality
The UN has to be seen as absolutely impartial, not taking any side in the conflict. We had to take that in, as a battalion, into Timor: not take sides on either position on the border, with the Indonesian armed forces, or with the developing Timor-Leste armed forces. That impartiality was so important, I'd learned in Lebanon.
The second piece was the importance of building confidence with the local people: the way that the battalion had to operate with the local people, and win their cooperation – not only because the people could keep them informed of what was happening on the border, but also because that enabled us to direct our humanitarian aid in the right direction.
So, I learned that in Lebanon, and it's something that I took as a flavour for the battalion to adopt in Timor, as well. Probably tangential to that was the troop-contributing nations relationship. We had a fantastic Thai battalion on one flank of our work on the border, and making sure that we had a great relationship with them – exchanging the right liaison officers from our battalion to their battalion, something that I picked up in Lebanon, as well – was a critical part of a successful UN operation.
We went into Timor quite confident. We'd trained really hard as a battalion for the worst possible scenarios and we didn't encounter any of those scenarios, thankfully. But the way that the junior soldiers of the battalion picked up that impartiality, picked up the need to work with the locals – they had a natural affinity for that – and then picked up the importance of working cooperatively with the other troop contributing nations, I thought was impressive.
There was a significant incident on the border – one of several when I was there – but the manner in which it was handled by a young corporal was so impressive. It was an eruption of violence between two militia gangs on the border. It had the potential to further escalate, with the Indonesian armed forces coming in, to try and deal with the matter, and our own Timor-Leste forces coming in to deal with the matter.
But this corporal positioned himself in the centre of all this and managed to evacuate casualties from the situation and to separate the arguing parties. It was extremely impressive, but it demonstrated impartiality. It took note of what the locals were feeling at the time, and it also was a good stakeholder engagement between the two groups. It was important to make sure that that soldier, that corporal, was commended for that afterwards. But that was characteristic of the way that the battalion went about their operations there. Very impressive.
A monthly tactical coordination working group
Every month we would have a tactical coordination working group, with all of the forces assembled on one side of the border and the other side of the border. It was co-chaired between the UN and the Indonesian armed forces. I remember crossing the border into West Timor and going to a remote jungle location, for one of these meetings, and typically they involved a large banquet, talking business, and, in many cases, some form of cultural entertainment. In this case, we were under canvas tents in the middle of the jungle.
My fear was always, as a leader, to be roped into karaoke-cultural entertainment. And, as I observed the tents and the banquet set up, I thought with a sigh of relief, There's no way that I'll be ambushed with a karaoke commitment, here. But, once the banquet had finished and the meeting had finished, the chairs were cleared.
A large truck with a petrol generator turned up and plugged in the karaoke machine and, before I knew it, I was up singing a duet with the Indonesian counterpart battalion commander. The song was an Olivia Newton-John song – I Honestly Love You. And that was a challenge, singing that, with the counterpart in front of all my officers, who took great amusement from that experience of discomfort that I might have displayed.
But that was an example of how you interacted with your counterparts there. I certainly resonate with the view of your medic saying that having that cultural experience was valuable – whether it was a food experience or a cultural entertainment experience. It was all rich. I think it made our soldiers better soldiers for later campaign experiences in the Middle East.
Mission rehearsals and levels of threat
What was emerging at that time in the Army was a good discipline, in training, known as the Mission Rehearsal Discipline. So, you went through all your basic training and skills as a battalion. Then you were exposed to the Combat Training Centre, and they took you through simulations of the different events that you were likely to experience in Timor.
They set up an environment that replicated the environment that you would have in Timor. So, our battalion – at company level and at battalion level – went through these mission rehearsal activities. A lot of the scenarios for that were based upon what the Army was learning on previous deployments to Timor, or had learned on other United Nations activities.
So, the simulations were very current and I found them really, really useful, and I know that they got even more experienced and mature, as simulation exercises, when we deployed to the Middle East as well. So, that was how we stepped the battalion through the training. As I said earlier, we trained to a very high standard for the worst case scenarios.
Thankfully, we didn't meet all those scenarios, but it was a very well-prepared battalion. There are certainly differences in terms of the mission that you have – a peace keeping or a peace enforcement mission, as opposed to a defend, attack, search mission that you might have in the warlike circumstances that we had in the Middle East. But there are also some similarities. The fact that we were part of a coalition in the Middle East?
All of the things that we'd learned while working with troop contributing nations in the United Nations were relevant to that sort of experience. All the things that we'd learned about at the local population, and engagement with the local population, were relevant to what we were doing in the Middle East.
And, for the young soldiers that went to Timor and had trained up Timor-Leste police and Timor-Leste defence forces, they transcribed that experience to training the Afghan National Defence Forces as well. So, that was a valuable migration, if you like, of experiences that were applied from UN to this warlike condition and, I think, put the armed forces that went there in a pretty good position.
But then the other side of that, that is very different to the United Nations, is that task of defending, attacking, searching, et cetera, and a very demanding task to change from the UN-side into that warlike posture, as it were. But the training, in my mind, also prepared us well for that. … Invariably, it is threat-based.
Threats in a lot of our UN missions, notwithstanding Somalia, were lower-level threats. The threats that we had in our Middle East experience were very high-level threats and produced with them a level of stress, without any doubt. I think also the experience of casualties is different. A tragedy in a UN casualty is certainly there, but the frequency of casualties in the Middle East was obviously higher – and that is both wounded and killed in action.
That was a big difference for those that experienced both types of operation. The threat side of it certainly resonates with the experience of the soldier and, in the case of Iraq and Afghanistan, the fact that that threat was all around you, and was not necessarily designated by a UN line of demarcation, or a UN border, or a ceasefire, that was something that was very different and challenging for our soldiers.
I think, in both cases, you are seeking to protect the force and preserve the force but, because the threat on achieving that is higher in the warlike circumstances, there is a lot of pressure on the commander. There's pressure to achieve that protection of the force; there's pressure in trying to meet the requirements of the mission – both from a troop contributing nation perspective and there's a lot of, if you like, unwritten political pressure, too, on commanders, because this is a big commitment by the nation to contribute to these Middle Eastern operations.
Civilian disaster roles
I think you are able to bring in all your leadership and management expertise in natural disaster circumstances. Townsville was a great experience because this was a chance for the armed forces in Townsville to give back to the community that had supported us so much whilst we were going through our training and supporting our families while we were away on deployment.
So, to be able to get out there quickly, after the cyclone had passed, to start opening up roads around Townsville, to provide heavy vehicles to evacuate people, to work on re-establishing important communications infrastructure, to delivering supplies to communities that had been cut off. And then, to stretch that outside of Townsville, to other communities, in Ingham and Innisfail, that had been struck as well – that's a wonderful experience for young troops to be engaged in, and to use all their skills that they would normally use on warlike or peacekeeping operations – moving equipment, applying their equipment, liaising with the local community.
It's a great experience. But that one was very personal because we were able to give back to that community. All the leadership in difficult circumstances, in difficult environments, comes to the fore there that you've already gathered through your own training development in the Defence Force. … We'd seen Cyclone Tracy as children and that experience there, and the way the military stepped in – there had been occasions in my early career where the military had been called out for assistance with the State Emergency Service on searching for lost people.
But it seemed, at that time, that the natural disasters were less frequent and it's only in recent years that we've seen a higher frequency of natural disasters and the utility of the Defence Force to supplement that initial response operation and early recovery before the wider infrastructure kicks in. So, it's really good in supplementing the normal training and development that the Defence Force does for other activities.
Post-earthquake and tsunami assistance in Indonesia
I was working in the Deployable Joint Force Headquarters, based in Brisbane at the time, and I was the Chief of Staff of the Headquarters. We were given the task of assembling a joint task force and heading across to Indonesia to support the Indonesian armed forces and government effort on responding and recovering, specifically in Sumatra and Banda Aceh, down the tip which had borne the brunt of the earthquake and the subsequent tsunami.
So, I assisted in planning and executing the operation and I have to say that, from an environmental and traumatic experience, that was significant for all of us that were involved. The human tragedy of that had to be seen to be believed. The human tragedy of not only the earthquake collapsing buildings on the population, but then the tsunami coming through afterwards couldn't be captured through the media reports. You actually had to witness it there.
I remember we set up the the joint New Zealand-Australian Hospital in Banda Aceh inside the old hospital. We had to obviously refurbish it from all the mud and infrastructure that had collapsed initially. The tragedy of that was that the bottom floor of the hospital had been the children's ward. The casualties that had occurred there were prolific – and that's in addition to all the other casualties that Banda Aceh had experienced, the mass graves that had to be created to deal with all these casualties, the tragedy of other casualties still coming through and being looked after by a hospital, and the engineers delivering aid out to remote areas that have been severely impacted.
It really was far more confronting than any other operation that I'd been on, from a human tragedy perspective. I know it affected many of the troops that went across there. You could not put into words the human tragedy that we experienced there. I really took my hat off to the medical professionals that went in there, early, with us, to deal with that tragedy, and the engineers that went in there to deal with that tragedy on the ground of refurbishment.
Notwithstanding the wonderful effort of all the logistics that went behind that, contributed by the Air Force and the Navy supporting all that, but that operation does touch my mind often in terms of the human tragedy of it and what the soldiers, sailors, and aviators actually had to experience there. It was far worse, in my mind, than some of the war zones that they'd been in – and I count Lebanon in that as well. I'd seen some horrific things, human tragedy-wise, after the Israeli offensive, but this was significant.
Pride in Australian performance
I will always be very proud of what the Australian troops did in Afghanistan. Regardless of what have been historical outcomes since. But, to witness their achievements in being in the remotest parts of Uruzgan and working with the local Afghans, learning from the local Afghans, and the way in which they went about it with great patience, with great dignity and with great respect, always filled me with a sense of pride and a sense of gratitude for what they had done.
I have countless experiences of seeing engineers sitting with Afghans, learning how to make mud bricks from the Afghan, or learning how to do measurements for building a "qala" with wood and mud. The way that they went about that always inspired me. So, they were high points in being witness to the work that they did. Similarly, I mentioned earlier the tsunami and earthquake humanitarian operation, and watching our medics in that Anzac hospital, the way that they went about their tasks day in, day out, fatigued.
It always inspired me and has resonated in me as a memory. In Afghanistan, watching the sacrifice of those that were wounded, and how they responded to their wounds through the evacuation process – there were countless people wounded in action while I was there on both my presentations in Afghanistan.
The hard parts were the "killed in action" because it is a small army and there are many that we knew of each other and we had met people. So, I remember, on Anzac Day in 2008, speaking to a group of Special Forces men who were about to go out that evening on patrol. Among that group were two men that were killed in action later on the tour. So, that experience, of dealing with the "killed in action", has always been something that's resonated with me in my time.
There has been a symmetry, in many ways, in being a person who was witness to grief early in his life, and being witness to advice that his father wouldn't be coming home from Vietnam, and then, as Commander 3 Brigade, where we had trained up troops to go across to Afghanistan, receiving the news that we had "killed in action", and then taking that news to families in Townsville, and having the same experience again – sitting with a widow, her nursing a young child, and having the news that her husband would not be coming home from Afghanistan. So, all of those highlights, if you like, or experiences continue to resonate with me and above it all will be the people that I was lucky to serve alongside.
