Sidharta Books & Print

The author was born in 1948 and grew up in and around Army camps in Victoria and New South Wales. His final schooling was at Granville Boys High School where he was a member of the schools debating and basketball teams. He was also the Senior Under Officer in the schools Army Cadet unit.
On his 17th birthday he was enlisted into the Australian Regular Army and posted to 3rd Battalion the Royal Australian Regiment which was then based in Woodside, South Australia. A few months later (he can tell you the exact dates) he met is future wife, Margaret, on a blind date. They were married the following year only months before his deployment with the battalion for his first tour of duty in South Vietnam. During that tour, amongst other scraps, he was involved in the Tet Offensive 1968 and the Battle of Coral/Balmoral, the Battalion was later awarded the Unit Citation for Gallantry for this action.
In late 1969 he was invited to become a member of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam and he went on to serve in that unit as an adviser to South Vietnamese forces during 1970-71. He proudly wears the two citations, USA and South Vietnam, awarded to that unit.
He was sworn into the Australian Capital Territory Police on 11 September 1972 becoming a commissioned officer of the AFP in 1990." Early 1992 was his first deployment as a UN peacekeeper, this time Cyprus. In 1994 he was the contingent commander for the 2nd AFP contingent to the UN mission in Mozambique. 1999 saw him deployed as the UN Civilian Police commander in the district of Ermera, East Timor where the contingent was awarded the Australian Group Bravery Citation. In 2001 he was the senior peacekeeper, all facets, on Malaita Island as part of the International Peace Monitoring Team, Solomon Islands. In 2003 he returned to Cyprus this time as the AFP contingent commander and the commander for all UN police on that mission. From here he accepted an invite to spend a short period of time with the Department of Peace Keeping Operations, New York.