Danny Blomeley - A fairly normal existence

Transcript

I think we spent, it wasn't long, maybe a week in Pattaya Australia, which was the main military base or army base in Cambodia. And then we were assigned to a... Sorry, in Phnom Penh. And then we were assigned to a troop detachment, which was, I think it was some 25K away, another province called Kampong Speu. So there was about three or four of us from memory. We moved out to Kampong Speu, which was an established troop detachment consisting of troop leader, troop sergeant. And I was one of the corporals. I think there was two other corporals there. And then there was half a dozen signallers as such.

So I think spent only two to four weeks from memory out there. It was semi-civilised. So it was a compound type environment. We were staying in those relocatable huts. And obviously our role there was signals and communication. But it was a fairly normal existence. We had the Bulgabat (Bulgarian Battalion) detachment next door to us, which was quite interesting because they weren't anywhere near well as trained as what the Australian soldiers were. So that was interesting. I think a lot of them were there actually because they had to spend part of their time as part of their prison program. So certainly, completely different to what we were there.

So we spent a bit of time there and it was after, I think two to four weeks, I can't recall. But then I was posted to a remote location down on the Cambodia-Vietnam border on the Mekong River, location called Charlie Victor three Mike. And that's where I spent, I think four and a half months, five months down there on the border checkpoint, the only Australian down there. And that's where the real experience occurred.