just after the Falklands War
and I have to say yet again another exciting tour.
It was all real
and it was one of my most scariest moment
because this time it was on one of the shift.
The alert sirens went off.
If you don't know Mount Kent,
it's on top of a mountain.
There's nothing else other than a radar
and just a group of us doing the same job,
identifying the air picture
and sending it to the headquarters.
The alert siren went off.
It seemed that on the southern island
they'd detected fast patrol boats of Argentinians,
so that was my first experience
of actually arming myself up
with signing out my weapon
and live ammunition
and I was sent to a sanga, a gun post
and it was very, very dark, very night
and you stand in the sanga there
and you looking through
and the night plays tricks with you
and the thoughts that go through your mind
and I remember it clearly.
Bushes were moving
and I'm thinking that's in there,
the silhouettes of the bushes
and anything that's moving you think it's coming
and I was really scared.
I was on my own in a sanga,
still a young man thinking what am I gonna do
if it's an Argentinian?
Are you gonna shoot?
And all these thoughts that go through your mind
and then because there's a small lookout
you think is he gonna pop up his head?
And then what you gonna do?
So, that was the most frightening experience
of my time.
Luckily nothing happened
but I have to say frightening and daunting experience
knowing that I've got bullets in my weapon
and I could fire at any time
and I could kill somebody.