RADIO PROCEDURE By Waz Ando, 6 RAR
One night in Timor, we had been at a particularly nasty riot at the roundabout near the airport. A couple of times the section was in danger of being overrun (there being 300 of them and 8 of us –14 cans of tear gas, F88s and F89s being the equalizer). QRF seemed to takes hours to get there.
We had a young gunner attached to us as a radio operator, and after it had all died down, the CSM came over to have a chat to him and me.
“Good job on the radio, son, You got the info through quick and clear,” said the CSM. “We got the QRF here as soon as we could.”
“Thanks, Sir. It was a bit hectic here for a while,” said the gunner. He followed with, “And, Sir, who was that fuckhead on the radio back at base? He’s a fucken tool.”
The CSM replied, “Ahh, that was ME.”
I did the best AJ fade-away ever seen, and left them to discuss the finer points of radio operation.
