David Simmons (Australian politician)

Transcription

On Slipper One, we were pretty much the eyes and ears of the Task Force. We had long range reconnaissance capabilities that some of the other Coalition partners didn't have. So that was our primary task. The first trip we did, I was in a free fall patrol, sort of free fall troops. So we specialised in parachuting in. And on that trip we didn't have parachutes so we lacked vehicles 'cause we had a mobility troop who had all the vehicles. So everything we did was on foot. Our job was to do long range reconnaissance... ... we'd do a three day walk up a huge mountain to get into position to watch some suspected Al-Qaeda stronghold or - or village that was a Taliban stronghold. I was a signaller so my pack was 48 kilos I remember on one of my first patrols. So pretty heavy weight to carry up sort of 45 degree side of a mountain. It was amazing sort of dramatic landscapes, contrast between rugged mountains with rocky areas, deserts and some green sort of strips in between. Up in those mountains you get a lot of goat herders that traverse the area and you'd think there'd be no-one around on the side of a mountain, but these goat herders pop up from anywhere. So all the time we were paranoid that a goat herder would - would come up to us. And we -- we even had goats eating our camouflage on top of our hide. So, yeah, it was fairly stressful 'cause we didn't know that the next goat herder wasn't the brother-in-law of the local Taliban or Al-Qaeda representative. So it was pretty nerve wrackin' being in a five man patrol three days from any - any sort of rescue. That was when Iraq was starting up so we're -- 2 Squadron were actually over there. And when we got pulled out we thought we would be redeploying and going straight into Iraq. And we all had a mind set, sort of, gritting our teeth, ready - ready to tell our wives and loved ones back home. But that's what we thought was going to happen, we were going to roll straight into Iraq. It seemed logical. But in the end - in the end 1 Squadron replaced us and were the first into Iraq. But, yeah, we - we thought Afghanistan would still go on and we were quite surprised when it - there was a halt to it for a while. I hadn't been to Kandahar or anywhere that far south in '02... ... When we went back it was - the focus was down south and that's where the stronghold of the Taliban was... ... that was the area that we were concentrated in and we ended up in Tarin Kowt which is in Uruzgan province and went to the base there What we'd do is we'd get dropped off by vehicles sort of at - at a point. And then we'd go on foot. And we were doing raids on - on compounds, going after the Taliban leadership at that stage. We were also doing long range reconnaissance in vehicles as well. We did one vehicle mounted patrol where we were out, I think, about four - four to six weeks. I can't remember but it was a long time. Probably six weeks. And we went around all the villages around our AO [Area of Operations]. And they'd be friendly 'cause they have a thing called -- I think it's called Pashtunwali which is - the Pashtun are the ethic group in that area. So they - they have this like a code of hospitality that they must provide hospitality even to their enemy. So we'd rock up to their village and we'd have the Aussie flag flying and they'd make - make us welcome and they'd give us - give us a feed, have this little picnic dinner with Naan bread and fresh tomatoes and - but the piece de resistance of the meal would be sheep's butt. And so they have these things over there called - we used to call 'em fat arse sheep. They have sheep that store their energy in their - in their buttocks, basically. But that's a great delicacy. So they used to - they used to serve this up to us. And it'd be like a quivering jelly of steamed sheep's fat. And when we first used to do these village visits, our captain would - would be introduced as the leader and so he'd have to eat the lion's share of the sheep's bum. And after a while, he was getting so crook with gastro, they used to nominate the leader for the day. So there might be -- the youngest digger might all of a sudden become the captain. And so we'd go into the village and he would get introduced as our - as the leader. And so he'd have to sit with the village elders and eat sheep's bum. So, yeah, they treated us well but we knew all the time that the moment we left, those - those guys are probably the ones having a pot shot at us. 'Cause the moment you leave their back door, Pashtunwali ends and, yeah, game's on again. The Australian army trains its soldier very well. Within special forces and SAS they -- we get selected 'cause, I guess, our calmness of mind in emergency I was a patrol commander in '08 Khas Uruzgan... ...was about 80 'k's away from Tarin Kowt. And we'd gone over there because about a month earlier we'd captured the head Taliban guy in Uruzgan province... ... his 2IC was stepping up into that position so he was - he became our next number one target. And we'd received a lot of information that he'd moved over to Khas Uruzgan way so we went over there searching for him... ... as soon as we got there basically, he'd popped up in another area We were then stuck in Khas Uruzgan because of problems with aircraft. We didn't have a return trip, a return aircraft for at least two or three days. we were at this US special forces base so while we were there we got our heads together with the - with the Americans which were from the 7th Special Forces Group, and we said, well, what can we do to help. We're here for a couple of days, can we - can we help you. Where's your sort of hot spots. And they said, we've got two valleys and we can't make any impression into these valleys at all... ... So we said, well, we'll - we'll help you. We'll at least have a go at 'em and see what we can come up with, make ourselves useful while we're here. So we hatched a plan to go into to the valley ourselves clandestinely and then have them come in overtly in their vehicles. And meanwhile we'd be in position to - in likely Taliban infiltration routes, ready to ambush them. We had half of our troop walked in over night, went up over the mountains and got into northern positions. And then my patrol, which is five men and another patrol from our troop, we went on the American vehicles. And there was five Humvee vehicles. And we drove up the valley in the early hours of the morning. They dropped us off. We - we kind of peeled off the back of the vehicles in a sort of a secluded spot and scurried up into the mountains and got ourselves in ambush positions. Meanwhile the Americans sort of postured around the - round the habitated [sic] area in the Green Zone. So we were all set up. And the enemy came later in the afternoon, they came to the north. And so the guys who walked over the mountains, they - they killed some enemy. Ambushed 'em. And my patrol spotted enemy but they had kids with 'em... ... so I didn't allow them to shoot. So we - we didn't have an engagement. So we sat it out. And then finally it was called off. Then the Americans had the problem that - that they were gonna try and get out the valley a different way but they couldn't do it. It was basically back through the valley the way they'd come which is a bit like running the gauntlet. And Americans had - I think it was ten Americans from the US Special Forces 7th Group. There was maybe half a dozen Afghans. And they way they were set up was the - out of the five vehicles, the lead vehicle and the rear vehicle had some Afghans in it. The - the middle three vehicles were crewed by Americans. So the drivers and the - the vehicle commander plus the guy on the gun. And then - so they were pretty light on if they did get attacked. So my patrol and another patrol, so five of my guys and six of the other patrol, we walked off the mountain to RV with the Americans to give them a bit of extra fire power and security for the trip out of there. There was also - on the American vehicles were two engineers as well from the Incident Response Regiment. One was a dog handler and it was an explosive detection dog called Sabi that had come along to help the Americans when they're driving around. And so we're feelin' a bit vulnerable as we're walking down the hill with packs on our backs. And it was really steep going to get down this hill so it wasn't as if we could run. But anyway, we met up with the Americans as we took off. I was on the second vehicle and I had my patrol distributed between the second vehicle and the third vehicle which was the centre vehicle. And then the other patrol was on the - the next two vehicles back. We had to go back to the west, 'cause the valley was east from Khas Uruzgan. And on one side it was the Green Zone which is sort of the habitated [sic] area. It's sort of a river valley where they grow crops and all their houses are. And then there was a ridge that ran - ran along. And we had to sort of go between - between this. And it was quite rough going, very rocky, But no sooner had we taken off than we started receiving fire and wasn't too long before we started getting mortared as well, so - from - from the Taliban that were in the Green Zone. So mortars were landing all amongst us. No-one got hit by the mortars but you could hear the shrapnel whizzing past your ears. an American was the first casualty. He got shot in the - through the forearm. He was on a gun and one of - actually my second in command jumped in and took his position. Treated him and took his position. Soon as we got attacked - so we had guys that were snipers and the only weapon that they had was a sniper rifle so they weren't much use on the vehicles. So they pushed off to the flanks to try and give us some support with sniper rifles. So, you know, the vehicles couldn't take off and leave them behind so it was fairly slow progress. As we went along, the fire intensified. It was coming from the Green Zone which was on our - our left, but it was also coming from the right, which was up in the mountains. Up on the ridge line. So we got fairly intense fire. And it basically just got stronger and stronger, then it dropped off a bit. And we thought, is that it. But then we'd go a little bit further and then it'd just pick up again. And we found out later that within the Green Zone - roads in the Green Zone that we couldn't see. They were - they were sort of doing leap frogs. So they were - they were hitting us from one point, then they were jumping in vehicles, moving up a few hundred metres and then hitting us from another spot. So we got a continual rolling ambush the whole way along. And it just got worse and worse, and more fire coming in, and more people getting wounded. And I've said before, it was like rain on the surface of water 'cause we had all the rounds around the car. I didn't get wounded till right near the end, before we got out of it. But it was very stressful. I - I had quite a few people out of my patrol were wounded. Ah, I had one guy that got shot through the chest and was sort of - was pretty critical. I was crouched next to an American and I was on the left hand side of the vehicle. And we were shooting into the Green Zone. And what we could see of the enemy was muzzle flashes. So we were crouched down, no real protection against fire, but at that stage, we were getting shot at from all directions so there wasn't really anywhere you could hide. So all you could do was really shoot back, so, yeah, I was on one knee shooting. And I was getting ricochets landing all around me, just hitting the ground all around me. And one of those ricochets landed right near me and went into my - in the side of my lower leg, in my calf. And I just felt just like a massive smash to my calf, and I knew what had happened. And I turned to him - and he was quite close to me - and I said, I said, "I just got shot". And he said, "God damn, so did I". And he'd got shot in the arm, so both of us were wounded. And we were still shooting. I was exhausted, just totally drained, but had enough adrenaline to keep me going. And I went to the rear of the vehicle, which was almost stationary at that point, and I spoke to my scout and my medic, who were - who were - who were at the rear with me. And I was saying, we had to get the lead vehicle going 'cause that was crewed by Afghans... ... we needed him to go to create the momentum to get the whole convoy going 'cause everything had sort of bogged down then and we were under tremendous fire at that point. And just as that was - that conversation was going on, a RPG landed between me and my scout, and basically landed at our feet but the blast went underneath the Humvee. And it threw us off - off our feet. And my weapon flew out of my hands. I remember the whole half - left hand side of my body was numb, particularly my arm. I couldn't feel my arm. And it was just thick dust everywhere so I couldn't see anything, and just that massive ringing in my ears. And I was scared to grab my arm because I - I thought my arm wouldn't be there 'cause I couldn't feel it at all. It was like I'd gone to sleep on my arm and it was dead. So I went - eventually I went like that and luckily it was there. And the dust cleared a bit and I got the feeling back in my hand and realised I still had my arm. So that was a good thing. But they were both wounded and they went off to get - about 150 metres up front to get that vehicle going I needed to tell the US captain, who was the commander of the vehicles, that - what was going on, that my guys were getting the lead vehicle going. I went round to the right hand side of the vehicle and there was two enemy up on - up on the ridge line which was quite close to us at that point. They were behind some rocks having a few shots at me so I was shooting at them. And just at that moment, my weapon just smashed into my face and it - yeah, just whacked me in the face. And I'd been shot in my actual weapon so the bullet hit my ejection port of my gun and - and - which is quite close to my head, about there, and disabled my weapon. I found out later that I also had a round that went through the back of my - a fabric flap at the back of my cap I was wearing as well. And then just a few seconds after that, I got shot in the - in the - well, it turned out in the side of my bum. But I didn't know where I'd been shot. I was - I was covered in blood anyway from - from getting the shrapnel from the RPG before. But I - I just fell on the ground. I'd been winded. But the round went in the side of my backside, through my pelvis, and lodged in my - in my right - in my left hip joint. Um, but, yeah, I wasn't aware of that. I just had this weird feeling in my stomach and lost all my breath. But I got up and then made my way to the -- to where the cap - the US captain was, opened - opened the door. Heaps of rounds hitting the car as I'm sort of dodging bullets as that's happening. And I told him what was going on. He had - he had a radio on either side of his face, in both - both hands, talkin' to two different people in sort of - not really panic mode but sort of action mode, for sure. And he was - he was concerned that everyone was on or near a vehicle, and he said, as soon as he was happy that they were vehicles, he'd start moving, as soon as he saw the lead vehicle going. So I assured him that everyone was on or near a vehicle so we could get going, and we had to get out of there. We couldn't just stop. We were just under too much fire. Then I closed the door and when I turned around, a burst of machine gun bullets hit the side of the car just behind where I was, basically. So there was no way in the world I could get round - walk around the car. It'd be suicide. So all I could think to do was get underneath the car. So I dropped on my back and shuffled under the car on my back with my weapon across my belly. Which - my weapon was useless at that stage anyway but I - I still had it with me. So I shuffled like a little crab under - underneath on my back, had a sort of moment of tranquillity while I tried to go through my mind as the commander what - what we were going to do. Working out worst case scenarios in my head. I went to the front of the vehicle with the intent of getting on the - on the bonnet. And then I saw that there was a gap between the bulbar and the front grill of the Humvee so I threw myself in there in a foetal position. The vehicle took off and while that was happening, the rear of the vehicle, which had already had an RPG burst, had another RPG airburst, so I was thankful I hadn't climbed in the back of the vehicle, but the poor guys in the back got fragged again. And one in particular was the US interpreter. And he was an Afghan guy that was attached to the US Special Forces. He copped a big hit from the RPG and was thrown off the vehicle and got hit badly in the head and damaged his eye. And so at that time, I'm in the front, the vehicle's taking off, he got thrown off the back. That's when Mark Donaldson who was - who was at - in the next vehicle back, he was - he was in that area, he spotted him and ran over and grabbed him and picked him up. We were just about to get to the final pass and if we got through that pass, we were kind in the - a safer area. It wasn't sort of the Taliban controlled area. So we weren't far away from that. We were within striking distance. But their rounds were hitting the bonnet. They were hitting near me. They were hitting the bulbar, so right near to where I was. And I thought it was only a matter of time before I get hit. I remember thinking that sort of thing. I've been hit in the body but I'm still okay. I think I'm alright. But if I get hit in the head, then I'm gone. Head or neck or through the chest. So. I thought what can I do. I didn't have a helmet on. I didn't really have any protection. Then I spotted a chain all around the bulbar so - a - quite a thick link chain. And I basically unravelled that and wrapped that round my head and buried my head in that while rounds were striking the bulbar around me. So that was my sort of raw, um, sort of human survival thing, I guess, in that situation. when I was in the front of the car, I was in my foetal position, my biggest fear was IEDs as well as incoming rounds. So we already had a strong suspicion there was something that would stop us making that final break through the pass. And it was a narrow pass, not much wider than a vehicle width with sort of rocks either side, then going up to a ridge line. And Hoadie did a bit of a dynamic movement and sort of went through it a bit sideways, on the side. So not to go straight down the middle of the path. And he made it through and then we all followed him in, you know, in his tracks so we all got through the pass. Under a huge amount of fire at that point. They had machine guns on us from every angle and - yeah, but we got through. Gradually the fire started dropping off and that's when I got really nervous. 'Cause I thought, it's all over, we're gonna get home. I bet I'll - I bet we'll hit an IED and then me in the - hiding in the front of a bulbar, it's not the best place to be when an IED goes off. I started worrying about myself as we got closer to the camp. Um, it's probably selfish as a commander worrying about yourself. You should be worrying about your men, but I think it's human nature when you're shot and wounded a couple of times. You starting thinking, what - what the hell's happened to me. Particularly I was worried about the one that was in my stomach somewhere. I didn't even know it was my hip or my bum or where I'd been shot, but I had this weird burning feeling all through my stomach and I thought - I imagined myself bleeding to death or something. I was wondering, is that - how do you know you're gonna die. Do you - do you suddenly get this terrible feeling or do you suddenly expire unexpectedly? I thought, am I just gonna turn off at any moment. We arrived back and all the casualty triage went really well. They -- they grabbed us and put us onto stretchers and a team of medics helped us they took me to Tarin Kowt and they - we were very lucky because they had a change over in surgical teams. And so the surgeons that worked on me and the other guys, they were top surgeons from Melbourne and Sydney that had come over. They were army - army and air force, navy reservists and top surgeons. And so we had a great team of people and very good care. It was Dutch nurses at the time that looked after me and, yeah, and the Aussie doctors were great. The doctors said to me it was kind of a miracle 'cause where my bullet went, it went in the side of my bum and it went through my - my bowels, basically, past my bladder and then lodged in my left hip. He said that if he tried to push a probe through -- through that hole and get it to end up where the bullet ended up without piercing my bowels, he couldn't do it. So somehow the bullet got through all my innards without rupturing anything. So I had a lot of trauma there from just the -- like cavitation they call it, which is sort of the energy where everything's sort of pushed apart when the bullet goes through the flesh. But it didn't actually rip my bowels apart so I - I came away relatively unscathed with that. So that was lucky. But they couldn't get the bullet out. They said it was safer to leave it in the position it was in. They said it would be a major operation to try and get it out from where it's embedded in the pelvis and it probably could cause more - or some nerve damage. So they've left it in there. But yeah, my recovery was ok. I still - I was shitting blood for 12 months afterwards though every time I went to the toilet there would be blood, just from various trauma in that area The one in my leg, that wasn't too bad. They - the bullet had broken up 'cause it was a ricochet. So they - it didn't go all the way through and they picked all the bits out and - it took a while for the - for the wounds to heal up. We'd all got fond of Sabi... ... when an RPG hit the back of the vehicle, it was the same time when I - I'd been injured and I was hobbling to the back of the vehicle and an RPG hit the - airburst landed above the vehicle, that's when Sabi broke loose. I think her lead was struck by shrapnel. And she ran off to the side. And I remember seeing her running around about 50 metres away from the vehicle, and there was just so many rounds hitting the ground, there was no way Sim Dog, the handler, could go get her. He was calling her but that sort of - that - all that noise and mayhem, the poor dog, it was panicking. And I think she was wounded slightly as well, so there was just no way we could get the dog back. And that was nice that after trying to find her for so - after the whole event, they looked for her for a couple of days but she never - she never turned up. They assumed she must have perished. But then it was 12 months later the US Special Forces did a bit of a sting operation and they managed to get her back and - so that was a - that was a great story. And gave us all a boost. Each person has their own story about what happened in the battle. You can only really talk about what you see through your eyes and what you experienced. And every part of the battle is different. So, yeah, everyone retelling the story would tell a different story. And people remember things differently and the stress of the day, all sorts of other - human emotions would have changed your memory and recollection. After that happened, I went to the training squadron at work. And that's something I'd done when I was a corporal and I went there as a troop sergeant. So I was running the SAS selection, or helping run the SAS selection, training the new guys in all the basic skills of a SAS soldier. So I really enjoyed that. So I had a good time to rest. I had time with my wife, ah, had a good couple of years at home, so that was good. And then inevitably I got posted back to an operational squadron again I was in a different role when I went back there. By that time I was a - an operations sergeant so I worked in the headquarters. And I was involved in the whole planning process. So I wasn't part of my job to deploy out in the field, so, I guess I had some trepidation about going back there but my primary job on that trip wasn't deploying outside the wire. It was assisting the young officers to - how we do business on the ground. We never really trusted 'em completely, the Afghans we worked with. We were always a bit nervous of them. We didn't have a lot of them embedded into SOTG back then. But then in the last couple - couple or few trips in the last year, it's been 50/50. So you have to - it kind of goes against what SAS is about. We operate in small groups and we're pretty surgical and everyone's highly trained. And then all of a sudden we have 50 percent of us are all Afghans which are basically trained, fairly undisciplined and it becomes quite difficult really. I think the guys did very well to make it work with that - with that sort of constraint on 'em. On that day when we had the ambush, a couple of them performed really well, but then I've seen some that have been atrocious... ... the trouble is they don't get - they don't get paid well, their pay is sporadic. Another thing is their logistics. So they might be as keen as mustard, the soldier on the ground, but when his weapon breaks or breaks down, they don't have someone to fix it. When his truck breaks down, they don't have someone to fix it. We worked out that some years I was away nine months of the year so when you - you couple the overseas operations with training trips over - all around Australia and overseas, yeah, it can be nine months of a year. So it's pretty hard. And with these operations, the people at home worry all the time. It's like even when I'm back in camp, I was back in camp, you know, just relaxing, my wife would worry at home because she didn't know that I wasn't in the gun fire at that time. So it's just constant stress. Not just your wife, your - you know, your other loved ones as well. Your parents and those sort of people. It was hard to do that, hard to get a routine for talking home, and hard to get the timing right. 'Cause a lot of times, because of the nature of the work I was doing, I was working odd hours. So when I had time off, it didn't necessary coincide which would be a good time to ring my wife. And often we had times when I rang and I got the message bank and my wife'd say, she just was opening the door, she just arrived back from the shops or something, she heard the phone ringing, then she heard me coming on the answering machine and by the time she got the key in the door and opened the door, I'd hung up. And also we have rules about - with OPSEC about what we can say on the phone as well. So you kinda had dis - disjointed conversations where your partner talks a lot about what's happening back home, and that's really nice to hear, but you can't really reciprocate. I'm not overly optimistic or a really believer that there's been a huge amount of progress there, not permanent progress. I saw changes around Tarin Kowt. So when we - when we first got there, it really was the wild west. There's been - you know, it was shoot outs in the street, basically, and you couldn't really go anywhere. So there's been improvements in that sense. Now they've got markets there, they've got people in the town, they've got courses going. The women - girls can go to school, there's lots of education is happening [sic]. Their military has progressed in leaps and bounds under the sort of Coalition training regimen. They've trained up engineers, specialists, infantry people, and they've got them to a good standard. I guess overall I'm concerned that - that everything won't be rosy once - once we leave there. I think that it'll be a pretty tough job for them to administer that whole country, particularly down the south. I think - I think they'll do very well in certain areas. They'll have strongholds which - where they'll maintain the sort of peace that they've got now, but in the further reaches, I think inevitably they'll have to come to some sort of agreement, some demarcation or something with the Taliban 'cause I don't' think they - they're not gonna win them over completely. We're given a job to do and we have to do our job. And it can be a distraction, I think, if you - if you get yourself wrapped up too much in whether it's a failing mission or whether we don't have public opinion. We're there to do our job and to do it well. I guess the impression of - that civilian - the public has about Afghanistan, looking back over Afghanistan, I think a lot of people don't realise the level of fighting that's been going on there. I think in the media it's been - they've seen a lot of peacekeeping roles. So, ah, building bridges and, you know, teaching - teaching the Afghan soldiers, the training role and all that. And that's been the big push of the - the general media coverage over the years. But coupled with that there's been some pretty intense fighting going on there, some of the fiercest fighting since the Vietnam war and a lot of it over - over the years. So I guess that's a - that's something the public should realise. It wasn't just a peacekeeping training role. It was an offensive role for a - for some parts of the Australian army over there. I feel fine. I - I know a lot of people have some psychological issues with everything but I don't think I do. I feel okay. I've seen some pretty traumatic things but I think I've got the capacity to put 'em in perspective and I -- I compartmentalise everything really. It's like that's - that was my life and I was in - almost like acting a role in that -- in that - in that SAS role and I can kind of segregate that from life back home. So I think that's how I do it somehow. I don't know, it doesn't really seem to affect me. And I can think - I can talk about it and think about - look at pictures from over there, videos and it doesn't have a massive emotional, psychological affect on me. Not - not at this stage anyway so hopefully it doesn't.