I came away from Vietnam with a Military Cross, one of Australia's highest honours, as reward for what we achieved there. But more valuable than that, I returned home with memories of a small slice of history: a time when ordinary Aussie blokes became extraordinary; when boys became men; when those I led became leaders themselves.
Like so many other Australians, I wear my medals on Anzac Day with pride, but perhaps the greatest honour I've ever had was to be chosen to lead the first Tunnel Rats – the men of 3 Field Troop.
I suppose we were the right men in the right place. But at the time it seemed nothing could have been further from the truth. On the other hand, there's nowhere I would rather have been ...
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I am from a military family – the Army was my history and my destiny. I was born in 1940 in India when my father was in the Indian Army. I guess when he gave me his name, Alexander Hugh, he also passed on a taste for life in uniform.
Dad had joined the British Army Engineers as a bugle boy when he was 15, then went back and forth between India and England until he finally returned to spend his last days of service under Indian colours. Dad was a fantastic sportsman representing the army in India in every major sport.
I don't remember my grandparents at all, but both my grandfathers were in the Army. My mother's father was a major in the British Army and Dad's father, Christopher Duncan MacGregor, was in the Corps of Engineers.
I wish I had known him because the family stories about him were fantastic. He served in India and under Kitchener in Omdurman and Khartoum. He was also very inventive and, as is so often the case with Army Engineers, made a considerable mark without any great credit.
Apparently, on one of Kitchener's operations they needed a moveable heavy gun, so he invented a mortar mounted on a trailer – the first of its kind in the world.
Another idea of his, back in 191418, was barrage balloons, big balloons full of hydrogen on the end of long ropes or wires. They were put up above cities in the First World War so that Zeppelins and lowflying planes would be blown up if they hit them. They were used even more in the Second World War, so much so that they are almost a symbol of London during the Battle of Britain.
He was also a very good shot with a rifle and was the champion shot of all India. One year, in the AllIndia combined services shoot, he was doing much better than anyone else on a very windy day. Two Navy officers came up behind Grandad and they could see him fiddling around with the rear sight of his Lee Enfield rifle.
They asked him what he was doing and he showed them the adjustable back sight he had made for himself. The homemade sight not only compensated for distance, but moved from side to side so he could adjust for the wind.
Before too long every 303 rifle in the British forces was fitted with this adjustable sight to aim off for wind – with the patent owned by the two naval officers.
My father rose through the ranks and reached Major by the time the war ended and India gained her independence. He wrote back to his brother Bob in England to ask what conditions were like there. The news was not good. Uncle Bob reported back that the UK hadn't much to offer at the time – and especially not for children – but Australia looked like the land of milk and honey and he strongly recommended that Dad should bring us here.
So, trading on his organisational experience, he took a job running the stores for International Canners in Ulverstone in Tasmania. He later moved on to a better job with Australian Pulp and Paper Mills in Burnie.
It must have been March, 1948, when we first set foot in Australia, because I had just turned eight. It was an exciting time for me and a challenging period for my father as this was his first ever civilian job. But it must have been a real culture shock for my Mum.
My mother, Beryl, was nine years younger than Dad so she can barely have been 30 when she arrived in Australia. But it wasn't just a change of country for her, it was a complete change of lifestyle. As an Army daughter then Army wife, she would have been used to a different kind of life to her contemporaries anyway. But having spent most of her married life in India, at a time when Army life represented the last remnants of the Raj, the change could not have been greater.
Living as an officer and a gentleman in India was a very, very privileged existence. We must have had four or five servants, including a cook, an ayah to look after the children, a gardener and a bearer who was in charge of all the others. So Mum's life in India was one of not having to do any work whatsoever, apart from looking after us. When we left India, my sister Margaret was 5 and my brother Chris was 3.
So when Mum arrived in this new country – in both senses of the phrase – if she knew how to sew it would only be because she'd been taught at school. If she knew how to cook it was still something she hadn't done for 10 years. In short, she went from being a rather pampered Memsahib to being a housewife with 3 kids, and with no friends to offer advice or support.
I can say all that with the benefit of hindsight, but at the time it was fine for us kids. And despite the dramatic changes in lifestyle, it was a loving household. Mum and Dad were always there when we needed them.
I went to school in Ulverstone and Devonport. I was a member of the Cadets at both schools and it was in my last year in Ulverstone that I won the award for being the Most Efficient Cadet. My name should still be on the honour board, the second one down. My prize was a .22 automatic rifle, which, apart from being my first military honour, was very useful for rabbits.
But despite the family history and my own penchant for soldiering, the idea of a military career was never pushed down my throat. My father encouraged education in general, and he realised I had an aptitude for building work. So, if my father didn't try to push me towards the Army, he definitely encouraged me in engineering.
It was only as a result of being in Cadets that I found out I was naturally good at that stuff. Then the local Regular Army Warrant Officer said that he'd like me to look at a film on Duntroon, the Royal Military College which was in Canberra. I was so impressed I applied to go there, went through the selection board and was told that I'd passed, subject to my matriculation exam results.
I studied flat out for my exams and, realising I only needed to pass three subjects out of the four, I concentrated on the easiest three (for me) and got them. A few weeks before my 17th birthday, I left Tasmania for the Royal Military College, Duntroon, in Canberra, to begin my life in the Army.
It was only much later that I discovered how pleased and proud Dad was that I had chosen a career in the Engineers. But he had made a point of not pushing me toward a military career because he wanted me to have as many choices as possible. He was the fairest man I have ever known.
Four years at Duntroon – learning to be a soldier as well as an engineer – was the equivalent of the first two years at university. Six of us passed our exams to go on to get engineering degrees at university and I remember thinking how much easier it was at Sydney University.
For a start, the discipline was comparatively nonexistent, and there were women. But the biggest thrill for me was realising that I wasn't a dummy. I had always been in a class with three really bright guys, who would leave the rest of us struggling in their wake. When we got to university I realised that, yes, they were a lot smarter than me, but I was a lot smarter than many of the other students too.
My self-esteem increased quite a bit as a result of passing my exams and realising that ultimately these other three, Rayner, Fisher and Gordon, were really bright. In fact, John Gordon was the top student at the University of New South Wales and Gary Rayner won the University Medal at Sydney.
I met my first wife Bev at the graduation ceremony at Duntroon, when she was there with another bloke. We met again at another party after that, and we started going out about six months later.
Bev was my first girlfriend. We didn't have much to do with girls while we were at Duntroon, and to be honest