One Life One Chance Page 5
I entered the thick bush on my first patrol in this new environment, searching the jungle for enemy, and I was excited. That excitement turned quickly to frustration as I began to realise how hard walking through thick jungle with a heavy pack and machine gun could be. The ground was ankle-to-knee-deep mud from the constant rain. Branches and vines snagged the barrel of my gun and slapped me in the face at every turn. Any brush of vegetation against my body sent the water that was settled on the leaves cascading down my back, leaving me constantly soggy and chafing in the overwhelming humidity. Then there was the ‘Wait A While’ vine, named due to the fact that when it snags you with its razor sharp barbs it forces you to wait a while to pick it off. Trying to force through it to keep moving, leaves you with torn clothing, or worse, torn skin with a high risk of infection.
The biggest lesson I learnt on my first night in the jay (jungle) was that all of our night vision equipment was useless. There is no ambient light that can make its way through the thick jungle canopy that the Ninox needs to operate. Once the sun went down we were literally blind and unable to patrol. To move around at night we needed to construct string lines between everyone’s sleeping positions. It was an eerie feeling following a string line in full blackout conditions with the sounds of the jungle all around me.
It rained all night long, which meant staying wet and sleeping in the mud. We were warned against using too much leaf litter for a mattress as the leaves contain ticks that can latch hold of you and over time make you very sick. Big rats were everywhere and if a pack was left on the ground and not suspended from a tree they would eat through the canvas to get to the food supplies. I woke up on my third night with a rat nibbling on my left ear; he didn’t get much of it.
Then there was the war against the leeches. They were all over us during the day, presenting themselves on leaves until we walked by and they would grab hold. Every afternoon we would check each other’s bodies in those hard-to-see locations and without fail there was sure to be a cluster of leeches having a feast. One morning I woke up and couldn’t see out of my right eye, as a big fat leech had been feeding on the corner of it all night and was now blocking my vision. I had to get one of the men to burn the leech with the head of a match until it dropped off. The corner of my eye didn’t stop bleeding for three hours, it was an average start to the day.
We would normally do two or three weeks of jungle patrolling, enough to get the full effect of living in this inhospitable environment. The jungle left my morale low from being constantly wet and chafed and my body was drained, not just from the leeches but from the physical effort it takes to cover any distance in this unforgiving terrain. I couldn’t imagine how the soldiers handled months and years of it in Vietnam; it would have been a true hell on earth.
A big motivation for joining the Army was to travel and talk started to float between the men about a little place called East Timor. The eastern province of Timor was a newly formed small country with a tragic past, located a short, ninety-minute flight from Australia. Indonesia’s brutal dictator President Suharto first invaded East Timor in 1975 with the full support of the United States and Australia under the false pretext of anti-colonialism. The invasion led to a quarter-century occupation and the slaughter of soldiers and innocent people including women and children with lives lost estimated between 100,000 and 180,000. Suharto continued to have the full support of the West during the occupation years, constantly being supplied the latest weaponry until a referendum in 1999 when the majority of East Timorese voted for independence. It was then that the UN finally stopped turning a blind eye and ordered peacekeeping missions to Timor to help the East gain their independence.
The Australian Army, as a part of the United Nations force, was asked to go in to stop the killings and bring an end to the occupation. To trained infantry soldiers this was music to our ears. When people asked me why I would want to go to a war zone I could only say that it is like a fireman who never got a chance to fight a fire. We had trained for a long time to do a job and now we wanted to go and do it. Orders came down from the Commander of the Army for 1 RAR to be ready to go to East Timor on short notice. I started to get excited; this would be my first international trip, hunting down militia in the jungles of East Timor.
I didn’t know the Timorese history until many years after I had discharged from the Army. I didn’t know about the politics of war and at eighteen years of age I simply believed that good people were dying and we had a chance to go and put a stop to it. To me that sounded honourable and was exactly what I had enlisted to be a part of. I had two years of military service under my belt when we were given the go ahead for our tour. Within three months of getting the green light and the endless preparation training, we were sitting on the concrete waiting area for our Qantas flight out of the country and into a war zone. I was swelling with pride at the thought of serving my country in action. The flight from Townsville to Dili, the capital of East Timor, was short, only three hours, and upon landing we knew we were in a different world all together.
There were Australian soldiers providing security for the airport in full battle gear, ready for anything. Stepping off the plane my senses were overwhelmed with the smell of rubbish fires mixed with the occasional scent of sewage and the stifling humidity. With no customs or officials to stamp passports or check bags we were loaded straight onto flat-bed trucks to begin our long drive out of the smoky city and up into the hills, where we would be doing most of our patrolling.
It was a rough five-hour journey by truck with changing scenery and native people everywhere. I had an anxious feeling looking out at the locals; I knew we were there to protect them but at that point I didn’t know how to interact with them. I ended up giving awkward smiles and big waves. We followed a coastal road along the northern edge of the country until we came upon Forward Operating Base Batugade. This would be my home for the next six months.
The local East Timorese lived very basic lives. In the cities they had running water, electricity and were well educated, however, a couple of hours out into the hills and it was a step back in time. Villages were broken into many small huts with no running water or electricity and the people lived off what they grew themselves or could hunt in the jungle. Many locals that I came across in the bush chewed a substance called betel nut. It’s a little red nut that once chewed releases a big hit of caffeine. It turns the lips and tongue red and a big side effect of chewing it for long periods of time is that the teeth eventually fall out. Some people chew it from a young age, so by the time they reach their late twenties their teeth are well on their way to rotting. It’s very hard to pass judgement on the locals who chew betel nut or drink too much rice wine, they have survived twenty-five years of occupation and genocide, which is going to leave social scarring for generations.
We were tasked to stop the militia that had committed atrocities from doing so again, and to help the East Timorese develop and maintain their own government. We were doing this in several ways. First, conducting green hat patrols out in the jungle for periods of up to two weeks. These were patrols where we sought out any militia that might be operating along the border, and upon locating them, engaged them.
Conducting blue-hat patrols was a part of the hearts and minds operations; blue hat meaning our UN-issue blue hats, known all over the world, being worn at all times to show that we came in peace. This meant showing our smiling, clean-shaven faces in local villages and around schools to gain a rapport with the locals. We did this to encourage them to not see us as a threat and possibly give us some intelligence on the militia.
We also trained the local police and border guards so that one day they could effectively protect their own people and secure the border. This was a hard task to undertake because even though these people had seen atrocities with their own eyes, they were still not motivated enough to meet up with us for the training sessions. We would have to walk around the police compound and round up as many as we could see and get them over f
or the class. It got very frustrating after a while; we were there to help and protect them but they didn’t care enough to learn to protect themselves. So that was our basic cycle, two weeks of green face patrols, two weeks blue-hat, training the locals and securing our base for another week, then it started all over again.
While out on green face patrols at night in the bush I always knew when we were getting close to a village. First I might hear some sounds of coughing from villagers or farm animals crying out. Then I would smell the village toilet, that sometimes was nothing but a designated area of open ground. There are not many things worse than stepping in human faeces. Humans have a certain aroma that’s very unpleasant, and once that smell’s all over your boots it remains with you for the entire night and only comes off with scrubbing and lots of soapy water. I spent many sleepless nights lying awake with the smell of betel-nut faeces wafting up from the soles of my boots.
Going out on smuggler (rat-catching) patrols at night while we were on border guard were some of my favourite patrols. The border between East and West was hard to secure as it was just open jungle. The jungle was thick and full of little rabbit-warren passages through the undergrowth. So at around 1 am we would slip into the jungle and hide near some of these passages and wait for the militia or smugglers to come along. Most of the time it was locals bringing across petrol, food or other trinkets from the West to sell for a tiny profit in the East. We would wait in total silent ambush until we heard the sound of footsteps coming slowly towards us through the leaf litter. We let them get in front of our position only a few metres away and would then spring up and take them down. We would never intentionally hurt them unless they were resisting, which was very rare; they were usually too scared to talk and would surrender immediately. Most times we would seize whatever it was they were shipping across the border and let them go with a warning. It was only if they had some illegal firearms that we would detain them and hand them over to police.
One great thing about the Batugade Base was that it was directly opposite the beach and it had a killer set of beach-breaking waves. We were allowed to go swimming once a day at 4 pm once our other duties were complete. The only requirement was that our weapons had to be laid out on the beach ready in case we needed to grab them quickly, and we had to have two men fully dressed and armed, standing on the beach as protection. The men standing on the beach had two jobs to do. They had to maintain security for us in case we came under attack and they needed to keep an eye out for sharks and crocodiles. It was easy to forget where we were while enjoying ourselves on that beach in the afternoons. The sunset was beautiful, its reflection shimmering off the water as it made its way towards the horizon, and lying there on the sand I could just as easily have been lying on a beach back home in Australia.
Our base was for infantry only, which meant there were no women at all. With a habitat like that there were going to be magazines containing the naked female form lying around from time to time. One day a female officer from a base in Dili was driving through our area and wanted a tour of Batugade Base. It was simply by chance that the female officer encountered a magazine of that description and she was outraged. This led to a series of complaints to headquarters that concluded in an order coming down the chain of command to burn all the porn on Batugade Base and to screen all mail for the new contraband. It was our turn to be outraged but we had to follow orders, the burning took two full days of round the clock destruction of literature inside two big metal drums. This caused a drought of glossy magazines on an unprecedented scale and something needed to be done. My dad, who was known for being able to fix any problem, came to the rescue. The mail was now getting screened for banned magazines so Dad started splicing a page from a porn magazine in between the pages of motorcycle magazines. It worked perfectly and before we knew it the supplies were restocked and sanity was restored to the young infantry battalion. Cheers Dad!
We visited schools during our blue-hat patrols as part of the hearts and minds operations, which were great fun. The kids loved us and they would swarm around the vehicles asking for lollies, pens or in most cases simply ‘aqua mister’. I’d throw them some water if I had some to spare and it would be shared around and guzzled down in a matter of seconds. They always seemed happy and glad to see us, most likely not fully understanding the reasons for us being there in the first place. The kids were one of the biggest motivating factors for me in doing what we did; it was an opportunity to give the next generation a chance at a life free of occupation and misery.
Our tour was cruising along at a rapid pace, we were so busy patrolling and doing a variety of things for the first time that as the old saying goes ‘time flies when you’re having fun’. Once we crossed into the second half of our six-month tour we had our departure date locked in, which gave me something to aim towards.
I had my nineteenth birthday while I was in East Timor and it was different to most of my birthdays before or since. We were out on a green face patrol when we received reports that there were going to be some smugglers coming in at a local boat ramp, fully loaded with cargo. Cargo of what nature we weren’t sure, but we thought we should check it out. We made our position close to the ramp yet back in the thick jungle out of the way of the locals, and positioned two men forward under a log at the edge of the clearing, with eyes on the boat ramp. I had my turn up front with eyes on our target at 11.30 pm. Midnight arrived and my birthday ticked over while it was drizzling rain, the mozzies feasted on me and I was lying under a log in the mud. The song ‘I Was Only 19’ by a band called Red Gum about the Vietnam War started playing in my head, and I managed a smile.
It was only about half an hour after midnight when we noticed a boat starting to make its way towards the shore. I used the radio to wake up the rest of the section and get them ready for action. Moving onto my knees I shouldered my machine gun and clicked my safety catch off. As soon as the boat touched the bank we were going to charge out and take them down. My heart rate was jacked and my adrenaline was pumping. The boat was three metres from touching the bank when shouts from a local villager hidden on the other side of the clearing warning the boat of our presence called out. The boat spun around and hit full power as it vanished into the darkness. We didn’t move. There was no point trying to catch the local, he would be back in the village and gone in seconds. A little pissed off, I settled back down into the mud. Even though we didn’t apprehend the smugglers it made for an exciting night and a very memorable nineteenth birthday.
Anytime we came back to the base after long patrols one of the first things on my mind was getting mail. We had no access to mobile phones or internet and very limited access to a temperamental satellite phone. This made receiving letters and parcels from home very exciting and important for morale. The best packages I ever received were from my nanna. She would fill a box with random stuff from books and newspaper clippings, to little trinkets she had bought at the markets. She would also cook massive Christmas cakes, wrap them in aluminium foil and send those over as well. They were absolutely delicious and a big hit with the rest of the men in my unit. I really enjoyed sending handwritten letters back to her; it was a skill I kept up for years, until she passed away.
In the military there is a scenario referred to as getting a ‘Dear John letter’ which is a female breaking off a relationship via post while her man is away. This was a weekly occurrence in our company as husbands lost wives and men lost girlfriends. Being away for such long periods of time with minimal contact, only the hardiest of relationships would survive. I had a girlfriend before leaving Australia, let’s call her Karen for the sake of this book, and to my nineteen-year-old heart she was the one. I managed a phone call via the satellite phone to my best mate back home after I hadn’t heard from Karen for a few weeks and he told me he had seen her with someone else. I had joined the ranks of the Dear John family without receiving the mail.
Becoming a Dear John was hard but I don’t think it’s as hard as what happened to a co
uple of guys from my unit. One guy returned home to find that his wife had put a beautiful in-ground pool in the backyard of their home. She didn’t seem to realise it was a rental property. Another guy had the most brutal one of all, when he returned home to find an empty house with every single stick of furniture missing, with his wife deciding to leave forever. I think I got off lightly in the grand scheme of things, but with a nineteen-year-old heart I had plenty to think about while out in the jungle.
I had recently returned to base and was recovering from a long, green-faced patrol out in the thick bush and big mountains. My platoon was placed on QRF, which meant we were the Quick Reaction Force, in case something happened. It was only the day after we arrived back to base that something did happen. There was a report that the local police were in a firefight with the militia down near a river that ran parallel to the border. We grabbed our gear and loaded onto the trucks, with me and the machine gun taking the turret position at the top.
Racing along the road, every possible scenario of what we might encounter was going through my head. I was going over the rules of engagement in my mind, checking my ammo and preparing my nerves for what we might encounter. When we arrived at the area it was quiet and I started to worry that it might all be over before we had a chance to see some action. As we patrolled down to the border, scanning the bush for militia, I saw the police standing around in a group. I knew it was all over and I was disappointed. We secured the area and then waited for the information to get back to us about what had happened.
The story from the police was that they were patrolling along the border when a man threw a spear at them, injuring one of the police in the thigh. In retaliation they opened fire and killed the guy. Later investigations revealed that the man who was killed was a high-up militia figure who was guilty of taking part in the massacres two years before. The twist in the story was that the police officer who shot him had his entire family killed in the massacres by that very man. So eventually the truth came out: the police officer saw the man that killed his entire family and wasted him; he then covered it up, so he had one of the men from his patrol throw a spear at his leg. He was charged for the murder and the cover-up, but I’m fairly sure he is sleeping comfortably in jail for getting the revenge he wanted.