David McCammon
East Timorese locals watch the transition ceremony from INTERFET to UNTAET.
Lieutenant Colonel David McCammon attended Officer Cadet School of New Zealand in 1997, graduating to the Royal Australian Infantry Corps. In September 1999, David deployed as part of the multinational International Force East Timor (INTERFET).
When the border between East and West Timor was put in place, families were separated. David’s platoon became involved in displaced person reunion, creating opportunities for people to see their family on either side of the border in a controlled environment.
‘So basically we set up wire,’ David recalled. ‘People had to go through a checkpoint, and then they'd go into a holding area and the same would happen on the Indonesian side.
‘One day, all of a sudden, the crowd got really irritated and nervous. And you could feel it. You could feel the tension. The rumour going around was there were militia that had come into the crowd and were going to throw hand grenades.
‘And so the crowd started to get excited and overwhelmed. And then there was pushing and shoving and the crowd started to lose control. And so the Indonesian Army response was to fire warning shots. They fired a big burst of ammunition over the top of the heads of the crowd, which as you can probably imagine, doesn't generally settle people down.
‘And I dived into the ground and I remember looking up and the Commanding Officer, Simon Gould, was standing there cool as a cucumber, his hands out and just saying, "Indonesians, settle down, settle down, settle down." And I thought, "Well, that's probably what I should be doing." Then I got up, dusted myself off.
‘And the crowd – we couldn't control it – there were very few of us there. Simon Gould came up to me – because it was my platoon trying to control people through this – and said, “I think you need to cut the wire, Dave”. And the minute we cut the wire and gave that escape avenue to people, the tension left.
‘I learned two great lessons from Simon Gould that day when we were getting shot at that I took later on into subsequent deployments. You’ve got to remain calm, because everyone's looking to you for an example.’
For his service in East Timor, David was awarded a Commander Australian Theatre Commendation for outstanding leadership on operations. He went on to serve as peacekeeper in Kosovo with the British Army and was awarded the Distinguished Service Medal for leadership in action for his command of Australia's first Operational Mentor and Liaison Team in Afghanistan.
You can learn about David McCammon’s military career from his video interviews, available on our Anzac Portal.