Rachel Milsom - East Timor

Interest in the air force and learning French

I grew up in Canberra. My grandfather had been in the Air Force and I had a cousin in the Navy. So there had been a few military people in my family. And through year 12, I applied for the Australian Defence Force Academy in the Navy.

But I also applied for a rotary exchange year to go to Europe the following year as well, which I got, and I decided to head off to Europe. So that was in 1991, which was a really fascinating time to be over there, because the wall had not long come down in Germany. 

European Union was just forming and Maastricht Treaty had just been signed and I headed to Belgium and was in the French speaking part of Belgium. So when I came back, I really wanted to continue with my languages and became quite interested in international politics and so did an arts degree in European languages and European studies, and then started having a look at what I could do with that and Airforce Intelligence Officer was one that appealed to me. 

But through that time I was working in reserves while I was at uni. So that was really interesting, too, as an intelligence clerk. … I did French, so I continued my French right through my degree … I had done it in year seven. Like most people had done a bit of bit of French and a bit of German, and then I hadn't done it for the rest of my time. So living with a family and having to really learn it by ear and then came back and continued.

Working as a RAAF reservist

The way it works for Air Force is you committed to at the time was 32 days in a calendar year. So it wasn't quite like the army where you'd do a night, a week and then a weekend a month. It was more as required by the squadron. So I joined at 28 Squadron here in Canberra at Fairbairn and did a number of different things. 

So I got to work down in the squadrons, got to support the RAAF hot air balloon, got to do some really interesting things during that time, as well as supporting some of the exercises that came up. And from Canberra, I moved up to Townsville and not only worked in intelligence but also worked in air operations as well … I was working in Townsville, supporting Caribous and their PNG training flights out of Townsville. 

And then I also got to work with 5 Aviation Regiment as well. So I spent a bit of time with Black Hawks and Chinooks … airlift and short take off. They're not around anymore. In fact, most of the aircraft that were in the Air Force when I joined are no longer around. But that was a great little aircraft. 

And, you know, particularly for those remote areas up in Queensland and those short runways and things in Papua New Guinea, it was ideal, so great for things like humanitarian affairs and disaster relief and those sorts of things.

Working at operational support group

So mostly while I was going through uni, I was supporting operational support group, which is now combat support group in Townsville and doing briefs for the Force Element Group commander. So it would be on current situations around the world, new technologies emerging with air forces mostly. 

So, you know, it was sort of, I found it fascinating to be able to work in that space and then also got to do that with some of our exercises as well. So I was supporting again Caribous mostly through that time, helping them with their mission planning for the various missions that they were having to conduct.

Fast tracking officer training

The officer training was still done alongside permanent air force members. So we would go down at the at that stage it was Point Cook for the officer training school and we would do portions of the course in with the permanent Air Force courses. 

So that could be done over 12 to 24 months. But I knew I wanted to join up at the end of my degree, so I fast tracked myself and got through in six months ' time so I could graduate on parade with the courses that I'd gone through and I basically went through with two different courses that were two months apart, going through officer training, school, things like defence force, legal and in some of our, you know, workbooks style training we could do back in our squadrons with the training officer in the squadron. 

But all of our field activities, weapons, leadership activities were all done down at Point Cook I did ... There were still very few women and there was the feeling that you always just needed to put in 110% to prove yourself. But it was not an insurmountable thing, it was just, you just had to work really hard, I think. 

While the gender gap was improving, it still wasn't quite there and when I first joined, you know, there was still, I guess, you know, workplaces weren't quite what they are now and some of those unacceptable behaviour policies weren't quite as tight as they are now. So, you know, certainly there was tolerances that you had to make for certain behaviour and language … 

In my environment, in intelligence when I first joined through reserves, there was maybe one other. Most of the time, though, I was working independently or with a small team, and during that time I was always the only female … at the time in my last two years with reserves, I was working more than the 32. I had approval to work up to sort of 150. So most people actually thought I was full time on study leave. Not that I was studying as a reservist when I joined full time because I'd completed my officer training, I went straight into the air intelligence training. 

So that was at Canungra at the Defence Intelligence Training Centre. There were a number, there was a suite of courses that we did some with alongside Army and Navy, so some introductory course and then we went into an air specific course so that you could go and work in a squadron supporting aircrew, helping them do their mission planning.

Air battlespace management

I was an air liaison officer, so an operations officer. So helping with the air battlespace management and I was working alongside 11 Brigade and 3 Brigade. At the time, I think I was a pilot officer alongside all these army units helping them manage the air aspect of, you know, what they were needing to do, whether it was airlift, whether they were needing, you know, moving equipment around or people around. 

And it was with the Caribous and also with aviation, army aviation. So we had our Black Hawks, Chinooks and then we also had 161 Reconnaissance helicopters as well. So it was just making sure that that air and army interface was managed properly. So that was that was my role up there. 

I was at Weipa, so we'd gone from Townsville to Weipa on board Tobruk, HMAS Tobruk, so that was a really fascinating, almost full circle after having applied to, to Navy originally and then watching the ships and how the blue force and red force, so friendly forces and enemy forces, how they maneuvered in the sea and then when we got up to Weipa then setting up our command post along on the side of the airfield up there and roughing it.

F111 reconnaissance over Timor

We were briefing our, the executive and commanders on current political geopolitical situations around the world, so Timor was definitely one of those being on our doorstep. So we were aware, certainly from RAAF Base Amberley 's point of view, once INTERFET was starting, we were quite conscious about various squadrons and various personnel deploying to help establish the airfield at Komoro to enable C-130 operations in. 

I felt probably a little more aware just because of working in that space … towards the end of ‘99 we had reconnaissance F-111s working out of Tindal, providing some basic intelligence support, imagery specifically to forces in Timor. But it was quite an interesting process on how we got that support to the country … 

So they were flying into East Timor airspace, so international airspace, leaving Darwin and then into East Timor. The biggest things with the F-111s is they certainly have the legs to be able to get there. So they were able to travel the distance but they used wet film, it all wasn't digitised. 

And so, you know we had low scanner, high scanner cameras and some forward looking infrared, more precision munition sort of targeting pods that produced imagery as well. So we had to print those images off, have our imagery analysts mark them up, and then we would have an airman drive to Darwin, give them to a C-130 member and take them into country. 

So, you know, at that time we didn't have another way of doing it, that was our work around … where we were moving with things like intelligence, surveillance and reconnaissance, because prior to that a lot of those force enablers, we relied on our bigger allies, on UK and US for a lot of things we'd been doing and it really highlighted that we needed some of those capabilities and technologies of our own.

Preparing to deploy in East Timor

It was looking at force protection, so making sure that we were protecting what we were doing over there and making sure that, you know, operational security was being maintained. That was the role that I went over in and having been an operations officer as well as having worked in that force protection space, because my role at Amberley at the time was working in force protection alongside our security police. 

So it was sort of a natural move to go into that section. But, you know, with all of the trepidation that you have going into something new, doing your job for real, it was a really interesting time to sort of pack up what we thought we might need for the time that we were going. And then we caught an Antonov in the middle of the night to Darwin and then did our preparation in Darwin for becoming more familiar with the country and what we were going to be doing over there. And then we went across on HMAS Jervis Bay, which was the catamaran that was leased. And so, next minute, then we're arriving in Dili and ready to go and I was stationed with the headquarters at the university in Dili.

Viewing the destruction in Dili

The smell of burning buildings still in the air and seeing the smoke, there was still a lot of smoke and smouldering buildings and that everything seemed really quite run down and that so much had been destroyed, you know. You could see it was such a beautiful country and was really, you know, you could see just how much had just been torched on the way out. And, you know, that was quite sad. 

And just looking at how we were going then to do that capacity building and repairing and restoring security and order there, it certainly hit home a lot more about what we were there to do and it was still quite unsafe. You know, we weren't able just to walk around the country and we were armed. We had, you know, live rounds in our weapons. All of those things was a complete change from sitting in an office.

Civil military liaison in Timor

So as part of our role, we were doing civil military liaison. So we would go out and talk with the people, get a sort of a feel for how things were feeling in the marketplace, whether people were starting to move around and feel a little more safe. That particular photo was up in Baucau on the northeastern side and the kids were gorgeous. But you would have seen in that photo most of them weren't wearing shoes. A lot of the clothes were too big. They were aid clothes. 

I'd bought some boiled peanuts. And so I was sharing the boiled peanuts with the kids. You know, the “Hello Mrs.” everywhere you went and wanting chocolate and things either it was all those things you hear was exactly what it was, but just this great spirit in the people, despite everything that had happened.

The significance of Anzac Day on deployment

We would have locals that would come and clean our compounds and listening to them, they were always so curious to see the blonde hair and see pictures of our kids or know what our lives were like as well. 

And I was there for Anzac Day and I remember being out on the point at dawn when we had our dawn service, looking out to the ocean and, you know, really feeling the meaning of Anzac Day being deployed and then going to a church service up at the cathedral where, through my broken Tetum and this lady's broken English sort of asking what we were doing there and why we had this church service and explaining that, you know, we were remembering, you know, World War One in particular and going in and supporting at Gallipoli. 

And she said, “Oh, just like you're doing here”, you know, it was that real sense of, you know, gratefulness and thanks and again, you know, it was just, it's one of those memories that now I carry into Anzac Day because it was just so meaningful, that first one being deployed.

Working at the orphanage

Doing that civil military liaison with the local people, I got to go down to the airfield at Komoro, got to move in and around Dili, went out to Baucau, got to fly down to the border, as well, with one of the Black Hawks, which was really quite interesting seeing what, you know, what the situation was down there for our troops on the border. 

And on our days off, we would do things like go and work at a local orphanage and read stories and dig vegetable gardens and … there were not many kids that you would see that hadn't been touched by the deaths that had occurred in those last few days before the TNI left. It was quite confronting really.

The $20 hamburger

So we were in the university. Most of the guys were living over in, just some of the buildings in, they'd set up their mozzie domes and structures and were living in those buildings. We had two Atco huts for the females that were deployed there. So that gives you a sense of just how few of us there were. 

And we were two or three in a Atco hut with our mozzie dome set up inside and then just our gear within each of those and, you know, so we were inside the Australian compound just for our own protection … there were a number of different messes around. We were very fortunate to have been right alongside the, the Aussie and Kiwi mess. So we had great food and you know, a good supply of things. 

From memory, isn 't it funny how you don't remember some things, but certainly a lot of people liked to come to the Australian mess because we had better fresh food, better bread and vegetables and things because obviously they were a little bit harder to get hold of even through the marketplace. 

So, food 's not one thing I remember, although I remember going into Dili one day and there'd been an Australian, you know, it was big news, there was an Australian that had set up a hamburger place and we were able to buy hamburgers for $20 a hamburger … A civilian guy that had set up and was making hamburgers. So, you know, we got to do that one day and that was a big outing to go get a hamburger.

Life in the compound

It was six months ' deployment. We had communications, but it was tough and I was working between 12- and 16-hour shifts. Home was tough. It was hard to ring home. We weren 't allowed our personal phones and back then they weren 't really a thing. Writing some letters home but really there wasn't a lot of opportunity, maybe once a week I would get to ring home. 

Sometimes the timings didn't work. It was just really, you relied on the people around you and that sort of became the norm over there. Other things we got to do. We had a film night, so you'd have, you know, a screen up and play movies. My shifts were, you know, I'd do a week of about five days ' worth of day shifts and five days ' worth of night shift and then you might have a day transition. 

So often I didn't get to join in some of those things, used to get a bit cranky if the PT in the morning was right outside my tent when I ‘d just worked a night shift but really it was just relying on the people around. And we could go over to the university, there was some other TVs and things over there, sometimes just for that change of scenery going over where the other Aussies were living and just having a bit of a break away from the compound.

Dress code in Dili

We were pretty much in uniform all the time. Inside the compound you could just be in a t-shirt with cam pants, but also it was wet season when I was there and mozzies were pretty prevalent, so, trying to protect yourself from the mozzies as well, but in and around us, so we had Kiwis near us, we had Fijians near us. 

There were some Pakistanis near us, so there were lots of other people. And I think, too, because of that, in and around the headquarters area, there were probably a few more wearing uniform just because of the nature of being right next to the UN headquarters. Out in some of the units, so, if I went across to the airfield where the RAAFies were, over there, because they had their own area, you know, it was a little more relaxed than where we were near the headquarters.

Networking with the local East Timorese

Because of the nature of the role we were doing, we weren't a whole unit that moved in and out, it was just ones and twos so that there was continuity in the support we were providing because we were providing 24/7 support. So, when I left, it was a matter of the next person coming in and they sort of shadowed you for a week and, you know, you try your best to impart what you'd managed to pick up and achieve. 

And, you know, I was very big on contacts and networking, so making sure that, you know, you hand over who's who in the zoo and where the best support comes from. At that stage, we were working very closely with some former East Timorese military as well. So, you know, making sure that we were working with them and that they knew who the new people were coming in. 

Some of them were translating for us when we were out and about, most of us had done some basic language, but just to make sure that nothing was lost in translation when we were out talking with the people but also it made the local community feel much more safe and secure and knowing that we weren't just coming in, we were working alongside, you know, their own countrymen as well, and that we were working together to help improve the situation over there. 

And it was really in that capacity building space that we were working with them. Most of them spoke English very well. So it was a really, you know, it was great and it helped us improve our Tetum as well … there were some Ni-Vanuatu that were there and we didn't have any French themselves in our area. But there were some other nations where French was a more natural second language than English. And so, you know, you used every skill to be able to work together, that's for sure.

The difficulty of post deployment adjustment

I had a post operational psych interview when I was there. We then caught a ship back to Darwin and then we were kind of left to our own devices for a little bit. And it was a little surreal at that point coming back and it probably wasn't as organized as subsequent deployments to the Middle East where there was a bit more support. 

It was sort of like, “Well, you're home now '. There were times where, you know, I was a little more hyper vigilant on what was happening around or loud noises because there were some scary times over there. There was, you know, some militia that were shooting in the streets when we were out one night. 

There was certainly things that we saw. There were places that we saw where women had been taken and abused. So there were things that you can't process in a normal way and that when you come back, no one else understands if they haven't been there, so there were some difficulties in this just getting on with the job but that was the nature of us having deployed, I guess, for that first time. 

That then started a suite of almost being deployed from then on … I was at that point, I was the only Air Force person because we were a tri-service team, I was the only Air Force person in our team. So when I got home, it was it, yeah, I was the only one from my base that was deployed in the headquarters. There were obviously others that had been down at the airfield, working in an airfield, airbase, support capacity and aircrew. But yeah, it was different, different environment.

Parents ' philanthropy toward East Timor

Because of my time away in Timor, my parents became very interested in the country as a whole and the situation that I described in some of the photos that I sent home and shared with them when I got home. They 've ended up doing some very philanthropic things through their parish, and Dad 's with Rotary and a few things. 

And so they've helped set up and rebuild schools and mum was a teacher and so they sent over teaching materials and Dad worked as a pharmacist and is sending over medical equipment. Still, to this day, they send a shipping container full of equipment and beds and desks and chairs and school supplies at least one to two a year since that time that I was there … and I've certainly said to my Dad that I would love to go back with him on one of the trips that he does to see where the country is now and see some of those places where I went. 

And one of the areas that they've supported is the orphanage that I helped set up, the vegetable garden. He said it's still there. So, you know, so that was a real, you know, really interesting thing to hear. And, you know, I'd love to see all of those places and see where they are now.

East Timor as a career defining deployment

I guess that time in Timor was really what shaped my career. As I said, things within the intelligence and intelligence surveillance reconnaissance and the platforms that Air Force then introduced after that, such as, airborne early warning aircraft and being able to manage those force enablers from an air power perspective, were the things that kept me and I were the most exciting things about my time. 

And I equally loved my Air Force only deployments, where I was at a base and aircraft flying around and the times where I got to work alongside the other forces as well and internationally. I think, you know, I wouldn't have stayed in for as long as I did if it hadn't been for that experience I had in East Timor.