Jason Rogalewski-Slade - Getting out

Running time
1 min 20 sec
Copyright
Department of Veterans' Affairs

Transcript

Yes, because we were the 1st contingent, 2nd contingent, which was Timmsy, his crew were coming in. Also, an armoured vehicle handover which is quite in depth, you got to tell them all about the armoured vehicles, where they're at, probably bit of servicing requirements. And they virtually said, "Look, we're just infantry guys off from 5-7. We're armour." And they literally said, "Look, we're just tarping them there and tarping them up." So things changed a fair bit.

They didn't do as much patrolling. Which I don't know why, but that was the new CO's call. They literally put a tarp over them and set them down there from all and sundry, from what I've been told. So this is in a two-day period, and we just want to get the hell out of country, we'd had enough. And we said, “Good luck” So because they weren't going to patrol like me, I didn't get the chance to take them out to all the places. At the same time, in that 48-hour period, they flew some psyches in, which is our site debrief.

Ideally, it was Holly, the civilian psychologist, in a uniform. Literally, civilian guys. He sat 12 of us around in a circle from different areas, so we didn't all know each other personally. And just said, "Look, has anyone got any problems?" And we said, "Look, we just want to get the hell out of here." And he said, "Look, if any you got any problems, here's my business card in my private practice, give me a call when you get back." And that was it. Done.

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