By Marcus Uhe
Monday 25 April presents us all with an opportunity to reflect and pay our respects to those who have served to defend our country on the battlefield.
For Botanic Ridge Veteran Stuart Couch, catching up with fellow returned servicemen and women at the Dandenong RSL means more to him than his birthday.
The 48-year-old served two tours of Iraq between 2005 and 2007 in the Second Cavalry Regiment as an Australian Service Light Armoured Vehicle (ASLAV) driver, helped by his grounding as a truck driver for Kenworth Trucks.
He recalled the horror of watching the September 11 terrorist attacks in 2001, calling them a “gutless attack on innocent people” and concerned about the potential outbreak of another world war.
Along with his brother’s positive experiences in the defence force, it was his primary impetus to enlist.
“I figured that if there was evil in the world, I would rather fight them in their country, than fight them in mine,” Mr Couch said.
“That was my mindset. I would join the collation fight against terrorism, and I was prepared to go to whatever country the war took me to, whether that be Iraq or Afghanistan.”
He begun live recruit training in 2003 and found himself crossing the border into Iraq on his 31st birthday in 2005 for a six-month tour as part of the Al Muthanna Task Group, the first large combat operation for Australian forces in Iraq, in a mentoring taskforce and a reconstruction taskforce with the Japanese armed forces.
He described his initial deployment as a “whirlwind”, living on significant levels of adrenaline, learning the ins and outs of combat and the unanticipated methods used by the enemy, necessitating being switched on to any and every potential threat, from vehicles, to mobile phones, to civilians.
“In Iraq, everything on the side of the road is an improvised explosive device. You have to treat it that way.
“What they would rely on in this war was stealth and sneakiness, where they would hide a bomb or detonate a bomb and injure some innocent people, and we would respond to that.
“Then they put a secondary larger device, which we call a ‘come-on attack’. They detonate something, you come and react to it, they wait for the first responders to get out and they detonate another device.”
On his second stint in 2006-7, he was assigned an important task for an Australian VIP.
“I was the Australian ambassador’s driver in Baghdad in an armoured vehicle,” Mr Couch said.
“He had his normal, close personal protection team in armoured suburban trucks, and when he had to go outside the green zone into the Badlands of greater Baghdad, he went in the back of an ASLAV, that I drove.
“My role was to get the ambassador from point A to point B safely.”
Mr Couch summarised his time on the battlefield as “a very slow continuous patrol with small moments of genuine terror”.
One such occasion came in January 2007 while driving his vehicle on a routine mail run, when he came under fire from an insurgent brandishing an AK-47 assault rifle in the middle of road near an overpass.
As the lead call sign for the expedition, he was acting as his group’s eyes and ears at the front of the convoy, and found himself in a life-threatening situation.
Being behind the wheel, he made a radio call to his crew commander which saw his crew opening fire to protect him.
“As a driver, I couldn’t fire back at the guy who was shooting at me, but it doesn’t get much more personal than that.
“As I drove past, bullets were impacting off of this overpass, ricocheting backwards and forwards.
“I got on the radio and said ‘Victor 7 taking fire’. My crew commander started to engage targets because it was a complex attack.
“All I remember seeing was this dragon’s tongue of red tracer from this vehicle behind me engaging this guy who was engaging me and he just disappeared in this pile of dust.”
His tours of service coincided with significant life milestones, including the pregnancies and arrivals of two of his three daughters, interspersed with periods spent away.
He expressed gratitude to his wife, Belinda for her efforts in raising their children while he was serving, highlighting the contributions made by those away from the battlefield that supported and allowed those engaged in combat to give their all.
While no longer wearing the uniform, Mr Couch believes he is still serving his country as a committee member of the Dandenong-Cranbourne RSL, and helping fellow veterans deal with the personal and psychological fallout their time in combat as a lead volunteer for Young Veterans.
On the day itself ,he will be driving World War Two veterans in the Cranbourne March.
“Anzac Day to me is a day of celebrating the spirit of Anzac, celebrating the traditions of the legacy of the first ANZACs.
“I believe that I’m a custodian of those traditions and I hold them in high esteem.
“I will reflect on those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice on the day. I will remember my brothers in arms. I will reach out and I will have a beer or a phone call with most of my friends.
“It gives me a strong sense of identity and that link to the original ANZACs. I didn’t go through the hell that they went through but I feel a kinship with them.”
The Dandenong RSL dawn service will be held at 6am on Monday 25 April at the Pillars of Freedom in the Palm Plaza, with the March to take place at 10.30am from the corner of McCrae and Walker Streets to the cenopath.
In Cranbourne there will be a Dawn service at Greg Clydesdale Square at 6am followed by a March down High Street to Sladen Street later in the morning from 10.40am.
