on the terror networks that operate covertly and overtly in much of our world. Islamic terrorism is certainly the most widely presented in the international media, but it is not the only form of terrorism we see and still have to work with.
Although this book talks about my experiences in Afghanistan in 1991, on occasion I break out and use a story or three from before and sometimes after that year to illustrate a point. I chose 1991 as I was still with the Australian Army and it was also the first year I was deployed on operational status outside of my country. It was an amazing year, though one that started a maze in my life of similar, and at times even more thrilling, adventures than those of 1991. Throughout the read you’ll see I have tried to break it down into one or two month periods and each chapter includes a mission inside Afghanistan though many other stories and times are also used within each chapter.
In some sequences and with some names and places, either my memory is a little strained or I have changed the names and details to protect the individual, or to again illustrate a point. Please bear with me as I share with you these adventures and activities we had over there in Afghanistan and the north-west of Pakistan, way back in the year of 1991.
Chapter 1
Answering the Call
(1990 - Jan 91)
“It reminds me of the time, when I was in the wilds of Afghanistan, we lost all our provisions and had to live for 60 days on nothing but food and water.” This phrase had been attributed to the great American comic actor and total drunkard, W. C. Fields. I read this gaff in 1989 whilst still with the commando regiment in the Australian Army and I admit it made me chuckle. At the time, I was visiting the army headquarters in Canberra and this had been used on a poster as part of the army’s anti-alcohol campaign. Never did it occur to me that this saying would stay with me and in fact materialise into a five-year period inside Afghanistan. However, in this tome, I will refer only to those events and stories that occur in the very first year, in 1991, whilst I was on active duty with the army. A year where my world was turned upside down and inside out. It was a time of great learning and understanding whilst developing a serious interpretation of what life in other ‘worlds’ really meant.
It was a year of new adventures, some near misses and many opportunities to err and to soar. It was the start of a life cycle that I would never have imagined and yet still impacts me daily as I continue to live and work in high-risk locations around the world. Although Afghanistan was the first of many adventures in some of the world’s most dangerous places, it remains in my memory for its simplicity, yet innate sophistication. I loved my time in this hardened and often misunderstood country.
My time in Afghanistan came about through a close friend, a certain Lieutenant-Colonel Bill van Ree. I met Bill several times in the army but he was somewhat elusive and, as I was 5–6 years his junior, we never really got too close in those early army days. Bill was a highly regarded and successful combat engineer officer from Melbourne. I knew this, as I once saw his regimental number and noted that it started with the number 3 denoting he was from Victoria.
In those days, I remember seeing in the army newspaper, all the engineer officers and soldiers who were being posted for six months to Pakistan for mine clearance. Bill was one of them. I also saw dozens of other officers being posted for six or 12 months to training establishments in the US, or to the UK, or on United Nations observer missions to the Middle East, southern Africa and everywhere else. I was exasperated, as I never seemed to be in line for anything like this, yet my performance was equal if not better than most, or so I thought. Then one day, as I was in my unit in Perth, I received a ‘minute’ that said hitherto the Military Secretary staff were coming to Perth and that all officers from my regiment were to attend for a personal briefing. Excellent, I thought, as I really needed to get an overseas posting. Sure, I’d been to Tonga, Fiji, New Zealand and Nepal, but never on operations and never to a serious conflict zone. I felt like I was training for football all through the week and yet never getting selected for a game on Saturdays.
Now in those days the Military Secretary’s office was responsible for the higher level management of officers. I figured that it was these staff who you could argue with to either get you an overseas post, or to stop you going overseas, which I never ever thought would be a criteria I would need. So, when it was my time to eventually meet the Military Secretary staff, I was primed. I had rehearsed my ploy and was going to go in ‘angry’ and to complain bitterly about being left alone in Australia where I thought I’d be the last one to turn off the lights, because everyone else had been posted overseas. Well, that was my plan: simple and doable. But to make it more convincing, I thought I’d slap myself on the face a few times before I met my interviewing officer and think of some horrible things that had happened to me in the past. This actor’s methodology, I thought, would be ideal, and to make it more desirable I’d actually seen the same ploy used on TV many times before.
“Major Membrey,” I remember being called, and I stood up, shook my head, slapped my face and marched directly into the small interview room. In front of me was a senior colonel whom I knew a little from times in the Corps Mess in Casula, NSW, several years ago. He was a good man but I knew, in this post with the Military-Secretary, he would be very bureaucratic, and it did indeed start that way. He asked me a number of minor questions and showed me graphs to illustrate where I was sitting compared to many other officers and, to be honest, I was surprised to see I was edging into the top 15%. This suited me well, as I thought it would give me more ammunition to aim at him during my upcoming ‘rant’. He spoke of the necessities required for promotion to lieutenant-colonel and the myriad of ‘ticks in the box’ I needed, and more. Then, after all this, together with a few more power point graphs, it was my time to tell him what I thought of all he had said. I took a breath and started in my ‘aggressor role’, spouting all kinds of facts and figures and names and ranks of those who had gone where, and why, and more. I continued into my artificial, but somewhat convincing rant and rave about overseas postings when suddenly he interrupted me and said, “Oh, and I’d like you to consider a posting to the Iran-Iraq border as a military observer, as they have had recent chemical gas attacks and I’d guess you’d be highly suited to that type of condition. What do you think?” I was gob smacked. Had my rant worked or was this coming anyway? I didn’t care. I gulped, looked at him blankly and said, “What do you mean?” The colonel stared at me for a few seconds as if I was a zombie and then said slowly and calmly, “I’m offering you a United Nations military observer post in Northern Iran. Do you want it, or not?”
“Yes, yes sir. Many thanks sir. When does it start sir? When would I leave? What would be my role?” I replied, flabbergasted. He told me some detail that I can’t remember now, but he did say it would all be sent to me by paperwork during the coming week. I grabbed the colonel’s hand and shook it roughly as he stared. I then stepped back and saluted like I was a young cadet, broke out into a broad grin and yelled out, “Thank you,” as I looked towards the heavens. I was excited, amazed, enraptured and hyper-ventilating by the time I left the interview room. And as I did, I saw him smile broadly and chuckle as he turned away.
Well, here I was, the new ‘MO to the UN’ as I liked to hear my new post being described. In the coming few months I was to travel to Canberra for briefings, to Sydney for refresher course training and back to Perth for administration. I was as ‘proud as punch’ and as excited as ‘a puppy with two tails’. Shortly after, I was presented with new hi-tech walking boots, a range of civilian style backpacks and other high quality equipment through the army logistics staff for my imminent trip to Iran. First, I was to go to the city of Shiraz and then over towards the Iraqi border. I realised that if chemical gas was being used, and the intelligence photos I saw proved it had been, I would need a few more masks to take with me to throw at the desperate mob trying to chase me to get mine, if an attack occurred. So I surreptitiously acquired five additional gas masks and managed to get almost anything else I wanted. This was great, and I was primed and ready to depart.
In my Army Unit, we had some
