TWENTY-FIVE years after Australian troops were first sent to Afghanistan, former Fremantle veteran Rob Cashman remembers a deployment that began with excitement and confidence but left h im questioning some of the assumptions surrounding Australia’s longest military campaign.

Mr Cashman was among the first Australian personnel deployed following the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks, serving with 1 Squadron SAS.

He was initially deployed as an Army cook but ended up working as an ammunition technician’s assistant and performing base perimeter security at Kandahar Airfield.

“When I deployed from Swanbourne, I was wondering what I would be doing in terms of my job role,” he said.

A senior warrant officer told him: “Cashie, you’re with me.”

Mr Cashman spent the deployment assisting with unexploded ordnance and other ammunition-related work – think Hurt Locker.

He also witnessed the early stages of Australia’s involvement in the detention and transfer of prisoners from Afghanistan.

Kandahar Airfield had a small prison which had previously been used by the Taliban, and Mr Cashman said Australian personnel provided escort parties when prisoners were transferred to aircraft bound for Guantanamo Bay.

David Hicks was among those brought through Kandahar, although Mr Cashman said he never met him.

It was only after returning home that Mr Cashman began to reassess some of what he had experienced.

He read Hicks’ book following his release and said it changed his perspective.

“I deployed when I was about 23 or 25,” Mr Cashman said.

“I was really hell-bent on getting to a war zone. I’d worked really hard to get to that point in my career and I’d been deployed with an elite unit. I was really proud of that.

“At that age, I don’t think my brain had developed enough to realise that there was more to the story.”

Mr Cashman said military training encouraged personnel to follow orders rather than question decisions being made at a higher level.

“You are conditioned to think and act a certain way, and there’s a reason for that,” he said.

“Soldiers, sailors and airmen defend our country and have to do whatever is possible to defend our values and our nation.”

He said that left little time for questioning the morality or decision-making behind a mission while personnel were serving.

“If someone’s yelling at you to go, you’ve got to go,” he said. 

“You don’t sit there and question what that’s about. That’s what you’re conditioned and trained to do.”

MR Cashman remains proud of the work carried out by Australian personnel in Afghanistan, but questions whether the broader objectives of the campaign were ultimately achieved.

“I think the intent of introducing democracy or creating some form of democracy within that region, and stabilising it, was great and honourable,” he said.

“But the proof is in the pudding … as to whether that actually resulted in any form of achievement.”

He said the subsequent return of Taliban rule and restrictions on women’s freedoms made it difficult to regard the long-term outcome as a success.

“I think the intent was there and the ability was there,” he said. 

“I don’t know if it was achieved.”

RSL WA says more than 35,000 Australians served in Afghanistan and the Middle East Area of Operations from 2001 in response to the September 11 attacks.

The organisation says Australian forces contributed to security operations, reconstruction, democratic governance, training local forces and humanitarian aid over more than two decades.

RSL WA chief executive Stephen Barton said the anniversary was an opportunity for those connected to the campaign to come together.

“We all carry memories of that place, the good and the bad,” Mr Barton said. “And we all brought a little dust home on our boots.”

For Mr Cashman, the consequences of the Afghanistan deployment have extended well beyond the battlefield.

He said he had experienced both physical and mental health consequences during and after his military service and had been dealing with those issues for about 25 years.

“I know a hell of a lot of other veterans also fight with that,” he said.

Mr Cashman later worked with Afghan families and men in immigration detention in WA, an experience that gave him a different perspective on the people he had encountered during his military service.

He said he met many “really amazing people”, particularly among Afghanistan’s Hazara community.

Freedoms

“It’s a shame that their freedoms aren’t there, if I’m honest,” he said.

Mr Cashman also remains critical of what he regards as a failure by some RSL sub-branches to embrace younger veterans.

A few years back he essentially ran the Fremantle branch when its president suffered major health complications and making it welcoming to a new generation of veterans helped bring it back from the brink of collapse.

He’s since had an early retirement to the canals of South Yunderup where he joined the local sub-branch but says he was disappointed with the response when he asked how they’d be celebrating the 25th anniversary – it was basically being ignored.

“They were taking directions from RSL Australia on what to do for the commemorations, and I think that’s really piss poor, to be honest.

“The sub-branches know that there are younger veterans out there who fought in those conflicts, not just Afghanistan but Iraq and other conflicts as well, and they have things to contribute. 

“The RSL also knows that there is a cohort of RSL sub-branches who do not step up to that plate and welcome younger veterans and they need to be the ones at the forefront of dealing with that.”

by STEVE GRANT

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Dusty memories