Australian Army Reserve
Howard served for 37 years as a member of the Australian Army Reserve. He has served in Legal Corps, the Royal Australian Corps of Military Police and has had a range of instructor postings and regimental postings. He has been a company commander in the military police. He served overseas in East Timor in 2002. More recently, he deployed domestically as part of the ADF’s Operation Covid-19 Assist.
Reservists off the bench and out in the field
Published in the Sydney Morning Herald, December 5th, 2005 by Malcolm Brown
Image caption: But what about me?… James Charlton runs towards his father, Captain David Charlton, as he lines up with Sergeant Michael Johnstone, far left, Julie Brogan, Major John Gallagher, Major Howard Bell, Commander Duncan Wallace, Squadron Leader John Smith and Major Paul Byleveld. They have all been awarded for their work overseas.
The sound of bombs exploding might have them wishing they were back in their civilian jobs, but for the reservists deployed in Iraq the passing fear always gave way to the buzz.
Squadron Leader John Smith, a border control officer with the Department of Immigration, served in Baghdad as an intelligence officer last year, and early this year. He heard the bombs.
So did Captain David Charlton, in civilian life as a sales manager, who was standing on a balcony in Baghdad’s Camp Victory in October last year when five bombs went off simultaneously.
Movement of materials and personnel into and out of Australian zones of operation in the Middle East - which he was administering - was a vital job given the complexity of today’s overseas deployments.
The service of some 220 Australian civilian volunteers in the reserve forces was recognised by the Chief of the Defence Force, Air Chief Marshal Angus Houston on Saturday. Speaking at Victoria Barracks at the start of the preparations for next year’s Reserve Forces Day, he said reservists were being called on to do far more.
Commander Duncan Wallace, 49, a psychiatrist in Wyong Hospital and consultant in psychiatry with the navy, worked from HMAS Kanimbla after and earthquake struck the Indonesian Island of Nias in March this year. He had to call on his general medical knowledge as his team provided life-saving surgery. The deaths of nine crew in a helicopter crash underlined the fact that no operation was free of danger.
Major Howard Bell swapped his job as a solicitor with WorkCover NSW to serve as a military policeman for the UN transitional authority in East Timor in 2002.
Others honoured included Major John Callagher, who works for Patrick Stevedoring at Botany. He served in East Timor in 2003 near a cousin, Julie Brogan, who worked as a nursing sister with a benevolent foundation.
The Crossed Swords, the Crown & Laurel Wreath, the Steady Influence Scarlet
Published in Pointsman, December 2001 by MAJ Howard Bell - Officer Commanding 2MP Coy
Recently, during the increase in operational tempo ADF-wide, there have been valuable opportunities to examine the battle mission of MP as manifested through garrison policing activity and battlefield support.
With recent world events unfolding as they have, one is able to discern a blurring which tends to occur when attempting to define military mission essential tasks on the one hand, and ordinary law enforcement work on the other. Government and political leaders, both in the East and in the West, have tended to use military and law enforcement terminology in the same sentences when commenting about the tragic events of 11 September and the US military tactics designed to result in Afganistan facilitating the delivery of terrorists to justice. Often this has been in the body of media reports reporting Government leaders declaring that one nation or another is at war with Afghanistan.
As military professionals often remind us, the concept of war is once, which is well defined. Although literary terms such as the “fog of war” must have special significance to those who have seen active service in a military campaign, such phrases do not rob the subject of its intrinsic characteristics. War comprises discrete phases. It proceeds according to certain principles. There is a Law of Armed Conflict, encoded in various documents and conventions, which have significance globally. Additionally, war involved the mobilisation and deployment of Defence Forces.
Formations plan defensive, offensive and related operations according to assessments of things that are likely to happen. They do this continuously, as it is their business to be in a state of readiness to engage and destroy or repel and enemy.
This short reflection on military business allows us to highlight some features of the specialist support, which MPs provide to commanders as they prepare their soldiers for battle. The RACMP Corps Badge is illustrative of some underlying features of what we do.
The Crossed Broad Swords: The Roman Symbol of Justice
The crossed broad swords symbolise justice, a natural element of any policing role and indeed a desired end-state of many military campaigns. They can also signify and remind us of the active problem solving roles which MP are able to have when commanders are preparing their formations to fight and in the actual dust of conflict. The MP section comprises capability bricks, which can help commanders achieve force enhancement. We are mobile. We have communication. We have soldiering skills that allow us to deploy with the commander’s troops.
In doing so, we facilitate deployment by being part of it. In the course of being deployed, we provide solutions to battlefield circulation problems, information exchange difficulties, civil liaison needs and other operational issues.
Our role, however, is already active before pre-deployment. We are operational within the garrison. Our area of operations can change quickly as can the boundaries of the modern battle space, which does not neatly fall into tidy definitions, neither discrete geographical regions nor static grid squares. Rather, as we have recently seen, the battle space can be the business centre, the busy heart of a modern humanity. It can be a military centre, but strategic planners must now see anywhere as a potential terrorist target.
MPs are adept at assisting in the planning process at all stages. It is done continuously. We consult constantly with our supported units, formation and brigades and adjust the garrison and other policing services we provide according to their ever-changing and evolving needs. We continuously collaborate with our own subject matter experts, in the delivery of such services as close personal protection, traffic control, vehicle search, PW handling, civil liaison and criminal investigation.
In performing our role, we are anticipating and offering solutions to problems faced by the planner, the tactician, the operational commander and the soldier. We are there for and with the troops, in order to assist in resolving their past, present and future or anticipated problems. In the garrison, as in the urban and field battle space, we facilitate pathways to just solutions and mission accomplishment.
Wearing the crossed broad swords on our scarlet berets, we quietly remind the military community that we are there with them and for them, as professional problem solvers.
Through our relentless pursuit of excellence in policing, we present a benchmark in the delivery world-class policing solutions.
The Crown and Laurel Wreath
The Crown and Laurel Wreath symbolise the continuance of British heraldry. There are those who denounce monarchical ties. There are some that see “royalist” terminology, such as that found in our name, as anachronistic. They are entitled to hold and articulate such views as they see fit.
There remains however at the heart of the symbol a solidness, a steadiness, an ever present strength which is found within RACMP as it grows, evolves and develops as a natural and integral element of force enhancement. As the concept of the Crown has evolved with the changing sociology of the times, so has MP business grown and developed in close consultation with its supported commanders, units and soldiers, to achieve Best Practice solutions to force enhancement problems.
Scarlet
One of the most unmistakable things in a military area is the presence of a uniformed MP. It goes beyond the brightly coloured headdress. That is the first thing that the service person or member of public sees. But it is not the end of it. The observers also see the turnout of the person beneath the scarlet. They see his or her carriage and the manner in which he or she goes about the business at hand. They see a professional. They see and feel a presence, which is instantly recognised: a source of information, a safe person, and a soldier who is also the holder of a special office.
To the service member, those bearing the scarlet with broad swords, crown and wreath, are fellow members of the community of arms. They are a steady reminder that the Army has, within its own ranks, a professional policing capability provided by trained soldiers. For the MP is just that. A soldier with specialised skills fully empowered and trained to perform the many roles and varied tasks of the MP.
Thus, the visual cues arising from MP presence is another way that the busy, goal oriented soldier can reflect upon the mission-essential qualities of successful combat forces. Foremost amongst these qualities are the focus, commitment and clearly directed energy, which come from having ownership of the task.
So the MP element provides at once, by soldierly presence and ancient symbols of special office and skill, a capability package comprising problem solving, the delivery of Best Practice and just solutions and a steady visual reminder of the force enhancement value of task ownership.