Danny Blomeley - Cambodia: An opportunity

Transcript

Cambodia started to get some momentum in around '91, '92. And we were aware that there was activity happening over there. So Somalia, I think was '91 and Rwanda in around the same time. I was actually an instructor at Corps Training Wing at The School of Armour at the time. So I was a young corporal, 23. And yeah, we were advised that there was going to be two positions sent from The School of Armour to Cambodia for a 12-month deployment.

So at my stage of life and where I was at, that certainly appealed. And of course, everyone at that point in time, there'd been such a long period between active service because everything that we'd been taught was really about Vietnam, so sixties into the early to mid-seventies. And all our training subsequently, particularly at Corps Training Wing was in and around the experiences learned from Vietnam. And then there was obviously a 15-year period where there really wasn't any major service required overseas. And then all of a sudden, Rwanda, Somalia and Cambodia came to the fore. So I was pretty keen to, well, that's what you join up for. It's using the analogy of training for a grand final in a game of football, but never playing your grand final so to speak. So to be given that opportunity, certainly both hands.