Liz Cosson - Bougainville veteran

Selected as Chief of Staff

I was working in land headquarters at the time now Forces Command and my role there was as the SO 1 logistic planning and part of my responsibility was to look at the force rotation going into Bougainville and I recall looking for the next Lieutenant-Colonel, chief of staff, to go into the peace monitoring group and it just happened to be coinciding with the time that we were doing all our planning for East Timor.

And that was one of my key jobs to do in that planning and it was the colonel for logistics said to me, "Well, have you thought about going to Bougainville?" And my immediate response was, "No, that's not something I'd be able to do". I had been serving 20 years at that time and he said, "No, I think you should, we're going to put you forward to go as the Chief of Staff", and we put up a couple of other names forward as well.

And the land commander did select me into the role and when the colonel called me up and advised me that I had been selected, my first response was "No, I don't think I can do that". I felt quite overwhelmed that I had been selected to do such an important job, knowing that had been one of my key roles looking at that force rotation.

But he sat me down and he said, "Look, you have had 20 years' experience, all the training, all the preparation to do this job, you can do this job". And I went home and spoke with my husband and he said, "It's up to you. If you'd like to do it and give it a go, you can do it, it's not a case of not being able to do it. Just go for it". So I did.

Imposter syndrome

I do often talk about the imposter syndrome and it's not, it's not just gender specific either, which is quite interesting when you talk to people that they do have a sense that they aren't the best person for a role and that was certainly how I felt. And I thought I would let people down if I did take up that position and I also felt that I was taking a role that others might be better suited to.

But you're right. All the training, 20 years of doing all of that preparation. That's one thing about the army that I am so proud of, in our whole of Australian Defence Force, they prepare you, they will never send you somewhere that you are not prepared to go. And they will make sure that you have got all the skills that you need and you just need to have the courage and I often talk about that, that courage to step outside of your comfort zone and say, "Yes, I can do this".

And then you go through all the force preparation that you do, which once again prepares you even more further for that particular deployment that you're going on and our Australian Defence Forces is world class in its training, in its preparation of its forces to face any challenge in any deployment.

Understanding the mission

I did speak to several of my colleagues that had already gone up to the truce monitoring group, as you mentioned, and the leader of that, he was a pretty gruff colonel but he sat down and talked to me about what I could expect, and that it was not going to be soft, and how I could prepare and make sure that I considered what the mission was, particularly now as it was a peace monitoring group.

And I had the opportunity to talk to previous Chiefs of Staff to get some insights from them on how I could make sure that I was ready to assume that responsibility. Did a bit of research into the commander of the peace monitoring group at the time F. X. Roberts, just to know him and to understand what his style of leadership was because as his chief of staff I needed to be prepared to support him in that role.

It was at a very crucial time for the peace monitoring group and understanding the mission, understanding what our role was going to be, was really important and the best way to do that is by talking to people who had been there.

Paradise destroyed

I remember when the Herc landed in Bougainville and just getting off the aircraft and being met by my predecessor and the commander had come out to the aircraft to meet us. And I remember the heat, I remember, oh goodness me, just the overwhelming humidity and the heat and we're driving along the roads and as we were driving along the road, my predecessor at the time was pointing out some different landmarks leading into town of destruction and I had recalled as a child being an army brat with my father serving, one of his friends had actually worked in the copper mines up in Bougainville and they were pointing out the old country club, the Yacht Club and how they used to be thriving with expats, you know, people used to live and there was a tropical paradise, Bougainville.

And what I was seeing was just destruction and the roads were just ruined and getting into the town and seeing how the whole community, all that the main city had gone. There was no office life there, there were no shops, it was just destroyed. And that was really heartbreaking to know that it had been once a thriving paradise, that's how it had been described to me, to one that now was so desperate to find that peace and to rebuild that community and it made our job even more important because you could see that destruction, it was there every day you woke up.

A wonderful experience

We worked as a team and all the representative nations there, we all came together and we had that shared vision, shared mission, shared aim that what we were there to do was to help the people of Bougainville recover and re-establish from 10 years of conflict, to rebuild their community, rebuild their schools, their church.

We were just a team and I lived in Pacific House, as it was known, with the commander and myself and Ivan our senior representative, and our senior New Zealand representative, we were all in the one house and so we were able to live and dine and talk and just reflect on a day's events and talk about the days ahead.

And it was just a wonderful community feeling as well, being able to live in the middle of the town, and every morning, we'd get up together, the house, we'd all get up and we'd go for a walk very early before our day started.

Closeness and connection

I certainly learned so much, and just our defence forces, that we share the same values and we share the same will to make life better for others and to assist them in a humanitarian way. I mean, a lot of people forget that when you're in the military, you're not there to fight a war, you're there to find peace and when you're contributing to humanitarian operations such as that and starting to know the local community and the individuals in those communities together, it does create a bond and you learn about each other's countries.

And being able to cook of an evening, we had rosters on who was going to cook the evening meal and our Nevan colleague, I mean, he wasn't the best cook, but he did sort of muck in with us in the kitchen and it was just a wonderful feeling of closeness and connection.

Y2K

The decision that was taken back then to deploy the force unarmed, and that was a really important decision that our nation made to say that we want to find peace in Bougainville and we're trusting the peace process that we are sending our forces unarmed to the island but what that also required of our force is that situational awareness because you are unarmed and you therefore had to have a greater connection in the way you approached it, knowing what was happening and being aware and being alive to any risks.

And the commander would certainly rely on his chief of staff, myself in this case, to, every day, when we had our ops briefing, to get reports from our different team sites across the island to know what was happening, where there were risks and we were certainly very focused on risks around New Year's Eve.

There was a little sense of unrest on the island the year 2000. You might remember Y2K, there was a lot of planning here in Australia as well, but over there, some in the community felt that that was the end of the world. So there was a little bit of a groundswell that was occurring leading up to it, New Year's Eve, and just being aware of that and communicating with the community and communicating with the factions, which our commander did really well, and he was always talking to them to make sure we always had awareness of what was happening on the island.

Assessing risk

We did have an incident at one of our team sites where some of the rascals did cause a bit of grief for the team site and the commander of the team site was able to secure the site and called it into the headquarters and everything was fine and nobody was injured. But there was also still a case of no-fly zones across the island where we had to be cautious where we're operating the Iroquois at the time to go on to the team sites, particularly for resupplying and checking in.

But you were alert, I don't think there was a day that I was really alarmed or the commander was alarmed but you were certainly very alert to any of those risks or those dangers. And our team sites, because they were so remote, the commanders of those different sites were very conscious of not leaving their team isolated, they would always go out in groups and pairs and making sure that they were reporting back if there was any risk and the local community, because they wanted to find the peace, they were always sharing with us and telling us where they were detecting some unrest or some threat.

Reopening a school

I always felt that we were held in high regard. We went to church every Sunday morning, Frank Roberts and I and others. We'd walk with the community of Arawans into the church and they wanted us there. They felt that we were there for them and that we were there to assist them in something that they so desperately wanted and so they welcomed us there and would come to our house, they would talk to us.

The first school that reopened in Arawa, I recall, they asked the commander for us to come and help open and I stood up on the stage in front of all of those families to open the school and it was something I was so proud to do and you could see it in the community, how grateful that they were that they were able to rebuild their education for their kids, for, you know, some of those kids had never been to school because they'd been in a fighting situation for over a decade. So it was such an important time for them and they welcomed us.

Community connection

I am a Christian myself, so to be able to go to their church and participate in their worship was something I was very privileged to do and they welcomed us into their church. And to be able to sing with them and join in with them, it was something I wanted to do and it was something that they valued, that we were doing it and I know Frank Roberts, he and I, we just loved going to the church on a Sunday morning because there'd be a procession along the streets to go into church and then there'd be this huge procession coming out where it was all about the community reconnecting. Then you'd go to the markets, the outdoor markets and buy the food and talk to the community. It was such a day of not only worship, but also that community connection.

Daily routine

So a typical day for me, after getting up in the morning and having breakfast in our house, so we're all traveling to Loloho and we'd see the troops there and have a breakfast potentially with them if we haven't had it in the house, and then we'd go to our headquarters which was in Arawa and I would get, I'd have a briefing out with the ops team and the log team and the medical team and just work out what was happening around the day.

So it'd be a full briefing session, then the commander would call myself in with these other commanders and we'd debrief him on what was happening around the island and what was the week ahead in the events. And, of course, we'd have a call into Australia to let them know what was happening and we worked with our local negotiator on what were some key events for the commander to be briefing the local community.

And so a typical day, up until about lunchtime was full of briefings every single day. As I mentioned, that situational awareness and that, just knowing and having great connection with our team sites to understand what we should be preparing for was really important and we spent a lot of time in all that preparatory work in the briefings in the morning.

And then, at lunchtime, we'd often get into our vehicles and go to Loloho, again, that's where our main team site was, and have lunch with the troops and talk to them, visit the medical centre. We'd often support local community if we'd evacuated anybody from the remote areas of Bougainville into our hospital, our field hospital, so we'd visit them and a lot of it was just connecting with people and just talking to people and getting out and about.

So as a female, senior female in the peace monitoring group, certainly no female could go anywhere unaccompanied and so I always had somebody, either the commander with me or the S3 or somebody, then we'd go for drive out onto the sites and just visit people.

Gender influences

I often think about the times where the commander in his role was very powerful. He was the boss man and he was very, very strong and he had a presence about him that connected with the community. But as a female, mostly being a matriarchal society in Bougainville, they were the boss and they used to like just to stand and talk to me.

We never sat and talk and I've always reflected on that. It was quite interesting, the boys would sit there or sit around a circle and they talk, either in the headquarters around a table or they talk on our back porch sitting around talking and the women would just want to stand and talk to me and we would talk for ages.

And it was, I'd learned so much from just listening to them but I also learned so much about their culture and about why our role was so important to them. They sometimes thought their husbands and their sons and the brothers were a little bit naughty and our role was really important to keep them on this path and that the commander had a role in talking sense. I had a role in talking to them about helping the commander rebuild that life that they wanted so desperately back and they could see that the boys were listening to the commander.

So it was a completely different role that, I used to talk to Frank about this, that I felt that I was complementing him in his role in a completely different way. The men of Bougainville wouldn't have listened to me as they did he, as I listened to him, but the women listen to me and the men listen to the women. So it was a different approach to what we're trying to achieve.

Working in a different way

It was Christmas Day, in 1999 where the officers, of course, serve the troops and all the troops were sitting in Loloho and those that could come in from the team sites were there as well and I'm just looking around the tables and I'd say, about a third, and a lot of them played some key roles, particularly in the headquarters in the planning area. And when I'd have my briefing sessions every morning, there was a good mix of male and female.

But our medical team were just wonderful and we had female doctors and nurses and certainly in the logistics area. So, yeah, women play a really important role and just understanding that we are different, but also a huge contributor in a different way in, certainly, as I mentioned, my role with the commander complementing the commander, but also being able to influence, as the commander couldn't influence.

DFAT's role

In our house, we had the chief negotiator, so he was a representative from DFAT and his responsibility was to make sure that the commander in the force understood from a foreign policy perspective, what we were doing, and in that key negotiating role, so he played a key role with the commander in taking forward that piece of that negotiation.

Community leadership

They were seeking autonomy. They were seeking to create it, their independence, and that was really important to them. They were fighting for that. They were fighting for what they believe to be their freedom and they saw that was the driving force not only in the whole of the conflict that they'd experienced in Bougainville but that was their vision to actually get some form of autonomy from the broader government of PNG.

And they had strong leadership, really strong leadership in taking that vision forward and I've always remembered the High Commissioner, Australia's High Commissioner to PNG coming to the island many times, which was Nick Warner, and Mr. Warner would come down and talk to the leaders about their vision, and just talking to them and they were very committed to finding a way through that, but peacefully. And you could see that leadership in that community and in those that wanted to take that autonomy forward.

Trying to find a way back

I always had a sense that they were aware of the fact that their island paradise had been destroyed and they wanted to find their way into the world, which, in their mind was separate to the Government of PNG. And they blamed a lot of the past and history on the way that their island had been damaged.

I always felt that they wanted to be part of a solution though. Even in the remote communities when we'd fly in and we'd land on the fields and we'd go to our team site, we'd always be welcomed and the local communities would just want to come and talk, you know.

They're just wonderful people who were trying to find their way back into what they loved about their island paradise of Bougainville because it is such a magnificent island and it has so much richness. They wouldn't have gone into Arawa and seen the damage potentially but they knew it existed and they knew of the dangers still, where, as I mentioned, the no-fly zones over the mines, they were certainly aware of that.

Overseeing the peace

We were a multinational force and we were there to support them. We were there unarmed, we weren't trying to influence, we were allowing a process to happen. We're overseeing the peace, the monitoring of that peace and that engagement between both Bougainville and the government of PNG.

And certainly the meetings that I had the privilege to attend with the commander. it was always respectful of Australia's role, that we weren't trying to influence. We were there to facilitate and support and that was a really important message that we continually made sure that was evident whenever we had meetings with the leaders of Bougainville.

Mutual trust

Having a trust in the community, that we relied on them as well as they relied on us because we relied on them to ensure that we were safe. I mean, we had gone there trusting them and wanting to help them and not influence, not try and take control.

Not coming in to say, "Look at us, we're the good people who are going to protect this island". That wasn't our job and they respected us for that and they respected the fact that we were completely unarmed.

Relaxation

We did lots to relax. We used to go swimming. It was just as I keep calling it, it was just a paradise to be able to go for a swim of an afternoon, but just connecting with the troops, I mean, just to be able to go into Loloho of an evening where'd they have a show and it was always wonderful when we had new rotations come through from Fiji or New Zealand and we'd have the haka, and we'd have the welcomes, and it was just full of that community spirit, and relaxing, reading, just talking, just sitting and talking, or just going for a walk, there were so many things that you could do. And I never, I felt tired, but I always felt refreshed. It was just such an uplifting experience.

Contact with home

It wasn't the era of the mobile phones, it wasn't often, we did have satellite comms that we could tap into but that was very costly and so once a week, I remember, we'd all take it in turns to have a call home and home could call us or we would call them. We had the facility in our house to take those calls but also in the office the commander had a call back to Australia when we needed to.

But home, I used to write and the Herc would come in every week and the mail would be delivered and we'd get the mail bags delivered. And it was such a thrill to know that you have mail, you've got a package from home. My husband sent me a package from home every week, just little treats that he'd send me and that was just, it was lovely, the old-fashioned way of getting correspondence and packages and then the RSL, of course, at Christmas sent us our packages, care packages. And the troops, I did, we all did, we just loved that when that flew in and those bags were delivered to us.

Christmas planning

Before I went to Bougainville, that's when we had deployed into East Timor and I didn't think I would ever go to East Timor. And I never did. And the planning for East Timor was my role in land command at the time. And as a logistician, that was one of our biggest challenges.

To be frank, we had outsourced a lot of our logistics. So that was a lot of planning to do to find all the equipment, and to make sure that our supply chains were in place for East Timor. And so by the time I went to Bougainville, East Timor was up and running and I do recall one of my jobs, in land headquarters was to plan for the Christmas entertainment in East Timor.

And we were planning for the entertainment for Bougainville and planning for the entertainment in East Timor and, of course, everyone wants to go to East Timor but we were lucky we had the RMC band that came to Bougainville for our Christmas lunch and entertainment and that was so special.

Planning the withdrawal

I wanted to come home because I miss my family very much but I also loved being there. And I know that when we were leaving and saying goodbye, it was an emotional time and handing over to my successor, I did feel proud of what we did because the commander had asked me during my period there to have a look at the planning for coming off Bougainville, how we would wind down our presence because, as we've talked about, the community had come a long way over the period of the peace monitoring group and there would be a time when our forces would need to leave.

So we had done some extensive planning with our team sites and particularly our colleagues from New Zealand, they were responsible for one of the key sites on when would we start to withdraw our forces. So a lot of that planning had been done and I felt proud of that, being able to hand that over to my successor, but just saying goodbye to those that we built connections with. But I knew that we're leaving it in good hands, new commander, new chief of staff and new team site leaders, and we'd been able to stagger that, over that period and I'm proud of where they are today.

A visitor in your own home

I remember when we had our psych debriefs and leaving Bougainville and they reminded us that when we go home, that we're a visitor in our own home, that we've been away for a while, our families have adapted to life without us. And my husband had actually moved us from Sydney to Melbourne, I knew. So he didn't try and run away or anything but he had moved our home from Sydney to Melbourne and I remember he met me and we went to my new home and he had set up with all the furniture and unpacked all the boxes, and he'd done all that.

And the Psych is telling me I'm a visitor in my own home kept playing out in my mind and I'd looked at where he'd placed things in the kitchen and I thought, "Oh, I'm gonna have to move those glasses because they're a bit too high up", but I didn't do it, I waited for a few weeks before I moved the glasses and he and I still laugh about that because when he returned after a six-month deployment to East Timor, I said to him, "Now remember, you're a visitor in my home".

And it was a culture shock to come home and then go to a new home and then a new job and that was the hardest part of it. I had come from land headquarters planning for East Timor, I mean to Bougainville, and then in a new SO 1 job. That was the hardest transition, going from high tempo, doing that important work that we had trained to do for a job that I'd thought was less, but it wasn't, it was probably the biggest steppingstone for me to be where I am today.

A new path

I was told, "Thank you for your deployment, you are never going to be promoted above the rank of Lieutenant Colonel and here's your job in Melbourne". And I was devastated and that's why that adjustment for me, that transition from a deployed, an important role to one that was then presented as the end of my career, I was devastated, absolutely. And I thought, "No, I don't want this to be the end of my career".

And so, "What am I going to do with this job now, to now put me on a path for a next career?" And it just so happened that my next career was still serving and I was able to go on because I made something of that new job, which I'm very proud of that. It was devastating to be told that was the end of my career but it was interesting back then, and this is not a criticism, it was just one career was to take precedent and it was selected that his career would take precedent, I had been told that Bougainville would be a good opportunity for me to be promoted to further ranks but when I came back that wasn't the case.

But, I do have to look back and say, "Well, actually, they did me a favour". The job I went to then took me on a new path in the Australian Army which was into that corporate services area and base management and delivering logistics to our 80 odd bases around Australia. If I hadn't have gone into that job, I would have never been promoted to a major general. It took me up along a completely different path.

If potentially I had gone into a job after Bougainville, that was still that type of job, I would have never reached Major General. So, you think sometimes you're losing but actually it's a win. If you take that opportunity and not see it as a step backwards, take it as an opportunity and say, "What am I going to do with this?" And I was very fortunate to connect with some incredible leaders who wanted to help me along that path and I've never regretted that job and I've always been grateful that I went into that job after Bougainville.

Conspicuous Service Cross and Team support

When you receive that letter from the Governor General saying, "You've been nominated and will you accept this honour" and you write back and you say, "Yes". I was so overwhelmed and so proud and I recall, because you're not allowed to tell anybody that you're about to receive that honour.

And of course, I did tell my husband and I said to my husband, "It's going to be Australia Day, in 2001. It will be in a newspaper", and I said, "I don't want to tell mum and dad" but they were going to be visiting us so I'd planned it, they were coming down to Melbourne and I was just so proud to know, but I was also reflecting on my team because it was for Bougainville and it was for East Timor.

The team I had at Land Headquarters planning for East Timor, I can never tell you how they worked 24 hours a day, seven days a week to prepare our force for East Timor, incredible bunch of military and civilian APS staff who just wanted to make sure that we could get our force over to East Timor knowing they were going into, potentially, harm's way and making sure we had our supply chain set up.

The CSC was not just for Bougainville, it was for that and every one of those, every one of my team works so hard to make sure we could do that. I can't do a job as one person. No one can do a job as one person and you've got an incredible team around you and I have been so privileged to work with some wonderful teams who share with you where you need to be supporting the troops, whether it be planning for East Timor or on the island of Bougainville in this wonderful department that I'm in now in Veterans Affairs.

Everybody works with you and you are a team and if you are honoured in any way, you always know that you haven't done that by yourself. You can't. And there's so many others you want to thank and give that recognition to, to say, "I wouldn't have achieved this without you". I wouldn't have. I would never achieve anything in this department without this department.

The people, you know, over 2000 staff working here wanting to make a difference for veterans and families and they come to work every day to do that. They don't come to work every day to make it miserable. They come to work every day to support veterans and families and it's a privilege to work with them.

Prove you're capable

I just wanted to get through that first year. That training and that culture shock. Talk about culture shocks, that first year getting through that. And then the opportunities throughout my over 31-year career just kept opening up and you look at women today in the Australian Defence Force, every position is available to them, they can compete, they can go for those. Prove you're capable, you can do that job.

From when I started 23 per cent of the jobs were open to women. So in my lifetime, I have seen such incredible opportunities and I'm just proud that I've been able to be one that has contributed to being able to open those doors and have the benefit of those that went before me to be able to break that ground.