Should Clinton get the Nobel Peace Prize for Timor?

In 1998, a year before East Timor erupted, the far-sighted Chief of the Australian Army, Lieutentant General Frank Hickling, a combat engineer who saw action in Vietnam, went from unit to unit ordering his senior commanders that he wanted all full time and reserve soldiers to sharpen up their war fighting skills. He was concerned that the army’s combat troops had gone soft because of the focus on peacekeeping missions. It was his foresight that kept Australian soldiers, both regular and reservist, alive on the battlefield in Timor despite the cutbacks from the bureaucrats.

However, the militia refused give up its mission.

On June 14, 2001 a small Australian Army patrol of eight soldiers from 4 Section, 2 Platoon , Alpha Company, 4RAR, lead by Corporal Kevin “Bambi” Campbell, a former SASR trooper, was attacked by militia near the Indonesian border. Bambi’s patrol used the radio call-sign One-Two-Alpha.

Scott Sherwin, is now a family man and tree surgeon living outside Newcastle, New South Wales, and Pete, who suffers from Post Traumatic Syndrome Disorder (PTSD), survives on a military pension in Melbourne’s outer-eastern suburbs.

Both remained silent for years and had bottled up emotions but were now ready to re-examine that fateful day of June 14, 2001.

In the official 4RAR Battalion book on the East Timor mission, the incident was listed as occurring on June 1, 2001. But this was a printing error. The shootout occurred during Operation Predator (June 14-16, 2001), which was a search for militia along the border areas.

The Australian Army newspaper, on August 16, 2001, reported: “On the other hand, there have been several serious incidents. One, as recently as mid June, involved a contact with five armed men and a section from 4RAR.”

At 12.50pm, in a place known as AO Sparrow, One-Two-Alpha came under gunfire and grenade attack from a militia group consisting of five to eight men, believed to be Kopassus.

Pete, as a scout, was at the front of the patrol when the shooting erupted. Scott Sherwin, as the assault machine gunner, was at the rear and had to run forwards to support his comrades.

Pete initially saw a local man dressed in a white civilian shirt swinging a machete through the thick vegetation called lantana. It looked quite innocent. Seconds later his patrol was fired upon and everybody hit the ground.

“If the enemy were to fire back, I would be a visible target,” Scott recalled “So I let go of my fears of dying at the time, and just ran and fired.”

But it is this memory which keeps on replaying through Scott’s mind over the years and the thoughts of “what if the militia had fired directly upon him?”