April 2006 saw me in Kuwait for the fifth time in three years. Once again, the promise of “I’m never coming here again” appeared to have fallen by the wayside. The names changed, the faces changed, but the job and conditions remained the same. As a psychology officer in the Australian Army it was normal to deploy frequently because of the high operational tempo, but nevertheless the sense of déjà vu was overwhelming.

The Australian logistics base in Kuwait, known as the FLAA-K (force level logistic asset – Kuwait) was typically both the entry and exit point for most Australian military personnel deployed to the Middle East. During my deployments, I had watched the FLAA-K grow from a small unit located largely within a warehouse at the American dominated Camp Doha through to its transition to Ali Al Saleem Airbase, where many of the same buildings were quite literally picked up, transported and relocated to another patch of Kuwaiti desert.

For transients like myself, who frequently deployed for shorter durations, it was interesting to watch one particular building morph from a headquarters, to a gym and then to a lecture theatre. I always found it difficult to concentrate on some poor soul struggling to present the same emotionless briefing for the umpteenth time in exactly the same spot that I watched a group of diggers stage a bench press showdown only months earlier. This sense of unreality was not confined to the Australian occupied buildings, and I remain convinced that the prefab demountable American mess facility at Ali Al Saleem was also the very first mess I ate in at Camp Victory, Baghdad only a couple of years earlier. Only it too was also many kilometres away from where I remembered it being the last time I had visited this part of the world.

Like the buildings, the personnel in places like the FLAA-K also possessed a strange sense of familiarity for me. It was interesting to watch processes and procedures develop, change and then change back again as personnel rotated through deployments and corporate knowledge was once again lost. Someone else would then have the opportunity to invent the wheel – again.

That said, I never lost focus of the importance of my primary task, which was to administer group briefs and individual psychological screens for military personnel who were about to return to Australia after completing their deployments. As the son of a Vietnam veteran, I have always been acutely aware of the importance of a good homecoming and redeployment transition, so it was a privilege for me not only to provide a service which could hopefully have a positive impact on the soldiers that I came into contact with. In a way I also hoped that what I was doing could in some small way help to make up for the less than desirable experiences of some veterans who had not received the respect or support they had earned and deserved.

My typical deployment experiences, especially in the Middle East, had always been to move into a location, work like hell for a few days, travel to a new location and then repeat this process again, and again and again. I had quickly learned to accept and enjoy down time whenever the opportunity arose. Although this could sometimes frustrate other personnel who felt that it was important to always appear busy whilst deployed on operations, the reality was that the situation required a bit more maturity than simply working for the sake of work. History is fast proving that the Australian involvement in the Middle East has more in common with a marathon than a sprint.

This deployment in April 2006 was unique in that it was the first time in my career when the work literally dried up, so that managing boredom became the primary concern. This situation eventuated for two reasons. First, the RAAF had been experiencing problems with their aircraft which had been slowing the logistical movement of personnel – and therefore my anticipated workload went down. Secondly, after the death of Private Jake Kovco on 21st April, 2006 the whole machine appeared to have suddenly ground to a halt as available aircraft were re-tasked and planned troop rotations were placed on temporary hold. For myself, and my fellow soldiers in our force extraction team, this series of events quite literally left us with nothing to do. Although this situation lasted for just a couple of weeks, at the time it felt like an eternity.

At times, the frustration of not being able to do their jobs for a prolonged period got the better of some, and the group dynamic swung from larrikinism, so often associated with Australian soldiers overseas, to morale implosions that would not have been out of place in the Lord of the Flies. However, one of my most vivid recollections of this period was how the personnel within the FLAA-K began to unconsciously foster surrogate deployment experiences by watching a greater number of war films than might typically be expected. Gone were the escapist comedies and bootleg copies of the latest American cinema blockbusters, and in their place were the usual suspects: Platoon and Full Metal Jacket.

At first, this appeared to fill a need in many soldiers, but the situation soon became bitter sweet as individuals began to realise that the DVD images on their laptops could not be further from what they had expected war to be like and what their deployment had actually turned out to be. Then, just as the confusion and melancholy was reaching a crescendo one of the guys purchased some episodes of a new US television series called Over There. This was an interesting production, as it divided its time evenly between following the exploits of an American unit in Iraq through various scenarios – as would be expected in a war-based drama – but it also focussed on the soldiers’ families back home in the States, and it seemed that every single spouse was engaged in some kind of sordid affair.

As a soldier, watching Over There was a relief simply because it was interesting and I had never seen it before. However, as a psychologist, I had a bad feeling that the show could create more problems than it solved, and it was not long until my concerns were realised. The welfare facilities at the FLAA-K were always first class and it was possible to phone home to Australia every day as long as queues for the telephones were short. Ask any Australian soldier who has served overseas in the last few years, or their family and they will confirm the importance of these facilities, but thanks to Over There, what had been a blessing became a curse.

With notoriously thin partitions between the welfare phones, it was difficult not to overhear other people’s conversations. I suddenly became aware of a distinct change in the nature of these exchanges during this period. Instead of the usual, “How are you?” and “How are the kids?”, the level of paranoia and anxiety about what could be happening back home appeared to be reaching critical mass. More often statements I heard were things like, “Who’s this bastard you’re paying to cut the grass” and “I think it would be a great idea if my mother came from interstate to stay with you until I get home”.

After considering the adverse change in mood and the detrimental effect a show like Over There appeared to be having on morale, I discussed the situation with two of my fellow psychologists. They had made similar observations. We decided that we should advise commanders to either regulate or restrict soldiers from watching the series. We were just about to formally present our suggestion to the chain of command when a strange thing happened. Copies of the show began to disappear from around the base, and interestingly, no one complained.

Instinctively, the common sense and maturity of the Australian digger had once again reared its head. It was a relief to see that although the deployment may not have been quite the war that they trained for, at the end of the day, individuals were still more interested in living their own contemporary war experience than vicariously accumulating the experiences of others before them and their outdated illustration of what war was supposed to be.