Page 122 - Australian Defence Magazine Sep-Oct 2022

122 LAND WARFARE RFSG
SEPTEMBER-OCTOBER 2022 | WWW.AUSTRALIANDEFENCE.COM.AU
“In every corner of that, you’ll find a patrolman or patrol- women from NORFORCE,” LTCOL Medlin said. “My own unit has squadron headquarter locations in Broome, Darwin, Nhulunbuy and Alice Springs. And I have forward operating bases on the Tiwi Islands, in Wadeye, Jabiru, Borroloola, Groote Eylandt, Katherine, Derby, Tennant Creek and Canara.”
A GLOBALLY UNIQUE CAPABILITY
Though the RFSG units are not identical, one thing they do share is a reliance on local knowledge to perform their reconnaissance and surveillance.
Indigenous soldiers make up roughly half of the force, many of whom are employed from local communities on a part-time (Reserve) basis or through the Regional Force Surveillance List. In remote communities across the North, many of the adults have either served within the Group or know someone in the community that has.
Because, uniquely, these personnel patrol the areas they come from, they are led by an intimate knowledge of the land, and have an instinctive ability for local bushcraft and survival, mostly without training.
ABOVE: Soldiers from the Regional Force Surveillance Units utilise a G-Wagon Surveillance & Reconnaissance vehicle during training in Alice Springs
LEFT: A Lance Corporal (right) briefs a Private from the North-West Mobile Force
Operating by stealth, the soldiers are experts at seeing without being seen as they patrol Australia’s remote areas for likely avenues of approach by an adversary; airfields, beach landing sites, water points, roads, and tracks in both the land and littoral environment.
Some speak as many as 17 languages and regularly act as interpreters on operations.
“It’s all passed down to us; the plants, the animals, where we live. We are classed as warriors, and we’ve always had a care of country,” a soldier explains in a promotional video for the RFSG, which offers a spectacular view over the vast bushlands, rocky outcrops, and red-dirt plains of Austra- lia’s northern regions.
“We see bush, it’s like walking in a library. Just like you read a book, we read the land.”
“We’re out there looking after our country, undertaking border protection work,” another soldier says. “We’ll see things that are out of place, and we’ll report on those.”
Serving in the force is a tradition often passed down inter-generationally, creating a profound sense of kinship within the Group, and with community. Many members have fathers and grandfathers who served in NORFORCE, or in the Nackeroos or NTSRU, and are proud knowing they are carrying on that family tradition.
“Once the green skin comes on, that’s it; we’re family for life,” a soldier says.
“Pride, confidence, self-esteem. You take that back home to your family, to the whole community. This is where our kinship comes into it. This is how we pass it down.”
Importantly, with such a large bulk of the force drawn
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