Transcript
We had very little understanding of what was occurring over there. I think Army started to do things a bit differently in a few years to come, whereas we didn't do any pre-deployment training. I don't recall doing any cultural training. I did do some language training, so we must've... At some point, they preempted that we'd be there and obviously we went through the normal medical processes and so forth. But the only thing I knew...
To be honest, I don't remember trying to learn anything about the country either and I think I've tried to learn a lot more about it since I've been home but I just knew that that's where the issue was and ultimately, that's where they'd send us. So it was a real unknown, it was the Middle East, it was a place where you'd never think you'd go unless you were in the Defence Force and certainly after 9/11, it was put on the map but culturally, very little understanding.
Politically, no idea and I don't think that was uncommon, particularly at our level. We were just soldiers, we were going over there do a very specific task and job and we just had trust in the command to know the politics of the place. Yeah, so from our point of view, it probably didn't really matter…I guess that's what service is ultimately.
That's what being a solider was about and I think that it should always be about, you trust your leadership, you trust your command. You sign a piece of paper that says you'll do what you're told and that's just what we did. We weren't paid to have an opinion and many of us just weren't aware enough to have an informed opinion in any case.
