The COMMANDO THE LIFE AND DEATH OF CAMERON BAIRD, VC, MG

In mid-2007 Cam Baird and the men of Bravo Company were put on buses and taken to Sydney airport. With relaxed grooming protocols in effect, many of the guys were already growing the beards that are almost a prerequisite for special forces soldiers on deployment. Most were wearing Merrell Moab boots, commonly used place Armys - . Cam was an exception: he rarely wore anything that wasn’t Army-issue.

Although the commandos were supposed to be incognito at the airport, one only had to look at them to know, as Eddie Robertson says, they were “obviously not a footy team”. They boarded a ‘Strategic Airlines’ Airbus in Sydney, and, after a quick stopover at a base in the Indian Ocean, landed in the Middle East. They were ferried quickly from the airport to Camp Buehring, an American facility which one US Army public affairs officer described as being ‘like Las Vegas’. For a few days the men of Bravo Company watched movies and played video games in the huge ‘Morale, Welfare and Recreation’ hall, chowed down on the vast array of American fast food available