by Gary Ramage
AWARDS
2015 Walkley Press Photographer of the Year.
2015 Nikon-Walkley photo of the Year.
2014 News Corp Photograph of the Year finalist.
2012 Walkley Best Broadcast Camerawork.
2012/2013 AWM Official War Photographer.
2012 Walkley Slide Show winner.
2010 News Corp Photographer of the Year.
2009 Head On Portrait People’s Choice Award.
ACKNOWLEDGEMENTS
I’d like to acknowledge the men and women of the Australian Defence Force who took me under their wings and looked after me over the years; and the men and women of the US Army’s Dust-Off crews and the 3/6 US Marines who kept me alive in some adrenaline-pumping situations. For all the words of wisdom and guidance over the years I’d like to thank my photographer and journalist friends, peers and bosses. And a special mention to my bosses at the Network – a huge ‘thank you’ for all the great assignments.
My great mate Trevor Bailey, for his friendship and support through the good times and bad, and my dear mate Ian McPhedran for his loyalty, friendship and great sense of humour when the chips were down. Thanks to Dave and Cath Munro for their great friendship over many years. Terry Dex gave me the greatest gift – his knowledge – and Mal Lancaster fine-tuned me in the art of telling the story with great pictures. Barry Buckley always had my back and words of wisdom and Lisa Keen had faith in me to always bring home a result, and gave me a great nickname: ‘Petal’. Bruce Johnson was always looking out for me and being the big brother I never had; Lieutenant Colonel Rob Barnes (retired), gave me friendship and the opportunity to lead men, and Lieutenant Colonel John Weiland for giving me a start as a young army photographer. A big thanks to Giles Penfound for his true professionalism, friendship and the inspiration that he oozes on making photographs; his wife Nicola and his two lovely daughters, have always welcomed me into their home.
Hilary and James have given me great friendship over the years and Mark ‘Pup’ Elliott must be thanked for his friendship and guidance and for leading me astray on more than one occasion.
Thanks go out to Lieutenant Colonel Michael Harris, an absolute professional with a true vision, and a great bloke; the CDF Air Marshal Mark Binskin and the previous Chiefs – Angus Houston and David Hurley – who allowed me to embed with our diggers in Afghanistan; the Director of the Australian War Memorial, Dr Brendan Nelson, and all the staff, for their great support.
A big thank you to Stephanie Boyle and Alison Wishart for friendship and guidance, and to my two little sisters, Gerri and Nicola, for always being there when their big brother became unstuck. My friends have stuck by me through the good and bad times, through the sorrow and heartache, through the laughter and memorable events, and I thank them all.
Thank you to Catherine Milne, Nicola Robinson and Mark Abernethy and the entire team at HarperCollins for their guidance and patience. I can never thank them enough.
And finally, I must thank the woman I love more than life itself, my beautiful wife Alison. Without her encouragement, understanding, love, guidance and constant spelling corrections I would not be where I am now. She has tolerated my short notice assignments and endured the loneliness while I spent months away, covering the war in Afghanistan. No words can express my gratitude to her for sticking with me these past ten years.
Featuring the stunning images of award-winning photographer Gary Ramage, and the words of best-selling defence writer Ian McPhedran, this book is an emotional, graphic, very moving and comprehensive record of Australia’s war in Afghanistan. Australia’s War in Afghanistan is an extraordinary visual record which recognises and celebrates the significant contribution that Australian troops have made to the conflict in Afghanistan.
PHOTOS SECTION
PHOTO: GARY RAMAGE COLLECTION
Somalia, 1993. My first overseas conflict assignment with the Australian Army. While on patrol with the Aussie Military Police at Mogadishu Airport, we found an area where destroyed Somali Airforce jets had been dumped. (Photographer unknown.)
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE
Somalia, 1993. A young 1RAR digger holds a badly malnourished child in his arms during a visit to the orphanage in Baidoa.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Kosovo, 1999. A mass grave had been discovered in a small village outside of Pristina. A number of young men had been murdered. All the victims had been executed, shot in the head at close range. Here, the villagers have come out to identify their sons, husbands and grandsons.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
A body is loaded onto the back of a British Army truck. Most of us wore facemasks because the smell of death was overwhelming.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
This couple has just identified their son, who had been loaded into the truck. You can hardly see the woman – she has collapsed to the ground.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Kosovo, 1999. You can see the strain of living through a conflict on the face of this old lady sitting in the streets of Pristina with her worn-out shoes kicked off. Lots of people were out and about, trying to get their lives back together after the bombing campaign.
COURTESY BILL GUTHRIE
East Timor, 2001. I tried to emulate a photo Larry Burrows took in Vietnam, where he mounted a camera on the front of an M60 machine gun. I couldn’t mount anything, so the next best thing was to stand on the skids of a UH1H Iroquois helicopter, held on with a couple of straps, two carabinas and a bit of gaffer tape.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE
Here’s the shot. I used a Nikon with 16mm lens to catch this photo of the door gunner.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF DEFENCE
East Timor, 2001. This 5th Aviation Regiment Black Hawk was coming back from a flight at Balibo. I had someone directing the pilot on radio so he could keep the sun right behind him. Later on the boys made stubby holders and the Unit T-shirts out of this picture.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Iraq, 2003. This was Saddam Hussain’s Presidential Palace in Baghdad. The US Military was based in what was left of the palace.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
The guys we can see are Americans, relaxing, reading a book, enjoying the sunshine behind one of the bombed-out windows.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Canberra, 2007. PM John Howard pushes his glasses up his nose while sitting across the floor from Kevin Rudd, then opposition leader. This shot did not make me popular with the PM’s office.
PHOTO: GARY RAMAGE COLLECTION
Canberra, 2007. Press gallery photographers and network cameramen with Kevin Rudd at the Lodge, shortly after he became Prime Minister. He liked to horse around with the photographers – he was more careful with the journos.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Washington, 2011. When Julia Gillard addressed the US Congress it seemed to me like the first time she really rose to the occasion, realising she was the Prime Minister of Australia. After the speech, she was crowded by people wanting her to sign the program.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Sydney, 2013. During the 2013 election campaign, an old bloke, Nino Barbaro, kissed Tony Abbott on the head at the Sydney Markets. He told him to ‘fix this country up’. Abbott seemed a bit shocked, though his daughter Frances thought it was funny.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Cronulla, Sydney, 2005. In the middle of the afternoon the crowd turned angry. This young guy, shirt off, bad attitude and full of grog, is abusing the cop, trying to get a reaction. The cop is saying ‘Calm down, go away’ – he was doing a great job.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
During the riot a Honda Civic drove down the ‘wrong street’. An idiot came running in from left of frame and jumped up and down on it, trying to break the windshield.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Afghanistan, 2009. Look
ing past the rear-door gunner of a Chinook helicopter at the stunning view of Uruzgan Province. The pilot is banking hard right around the base of a mountain to avoid incoming fire from RPGs or small arms.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Afghanistan, 2009. A United States Army 155mm Howitzer carries out a firing mission in Logar Province.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2009. US Marine Lance Corporal Brendan Tucker and his detection dog Augie. We were holed up overnight in a compound, about 40 of us in a small space.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Afghanistan, 2009. Major Marc Dauphin at the Multinational Hospital, Kandahar Air Base, on ‘the day the Australians came’. His unit dealt with 17 casualties in one day.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan, 2010. The base commander’s radio signaller, Private Josh Hetherington from Delta Company, 6RAR at Patrol Base Razaq.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2010. Marines resting or sleeping in a compound. It was stinking hot, about 55 ° inside the mud-brick building – and no air-con. There was a lot of tossing and turning.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Helmand Province, Afghanistan, 2010. A Marine outside what they called Shady Village (it was full of shady characters). This little girl in a red dress hangs around while the Marine takes a sight picture on a suspected Taliban fighter.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Afghanistan, 2010. We’ve flown into a hot LZ to pick up a wounded Marine. The Marine’s mates are carrying him, and the flight medic is directing them to the Dust-Off helicopter.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
The flight medic and loadmaster are trying to save the Marine’s life, while flying 100 miles an hour, 30 metres off the ground in a bumpy, confined space.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
Once the patient is dropped at the triage centre the helicopter refuels. If it has transported an ‘angel’ (a death) then non-flight staff help the flight crew dismantle the helicopter interior so they can wash out the blood.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Early morning, Khod Valley, Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan 2011. The boys from Charlie Company 2RAR are off on a mop-up patrol in an area the American Special Forces went into the night before. They’d killed all the Taliban fighters – a lot of bodies were brought in that day.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Walking back to the vehicles we came across two old men who were watching over the remains of three alleged Taliban fighters, killed by Special Forces the night before.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
An engineer and dog looking for weapons caches and IED (improvised explosive device) components in a compound near Doan. They didn’t find anything – not in that one.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Walkley Photo of the Year 2015. A young man in the throes of an ice-induced medical emergency at a hospital in Perth. It has taken nine staff to restrain him for treatment.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
While still handcuffed, the young man was sent for a full body scan.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Iraq, January 2014. An RAAF FA 18 fighter jet on a refuelling run after a mission. Included in my 2015 Walkley portfolio.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE
London, 2014. The Tower of London moat was filled with 888,246 ceramic poppies, to commemorate the start of WWI. Every poppy represented a British fatality. Included in my 2015 Walkley portfolio.
PHOTO BY GARY RAMAGE; COURTESY NEWSPIX
Canberra, 2014. My photograph of Lance Corporal Shannon McAliney at a food drop in Somalia in 1993, held by his mother Liz Hanns. In his last official task in the job, then Chief of the Defence Force, General David Hurley, told Lance Corporal McAliney’s story in the Last Post Ceremony at the Australian War Memorial on 30 June 2014.
COURTESY CORPORAL JAKE SIMS
Iraq, 2016. Me in full gear in Taji, the tank graveyard at the military base, north-west of Baghdad – old tanks, old armour, old junk, all piled up, used for nothing. If you have a business in scrap metal there is money to be made here.
COPYRIGHT
The author and publisher would like to thank Will Stanley, Bill Guthrie and Corporal Jake Sims for the use of their photographs. All reasonable attempts have been made to contact the rights holders of photographs. If you have not been correctly attributed, please contact the publisher so that appropriate changes can be made to any reprint.
HarperCollinsPublishers
First published in Australia in 2016
by HarperCollinsPublishers Australia Pty Limited
ABN 36 009 913 517
harpercollins.com.au
Copyright © Gary Ramage 2016
The right of Gary Ramage to be identified as the author of this work has been asserted by him in accordance with the Copyright Amendment (Moral Rights) Act 2000.
This work is copyright. Apart from any use as permitted under the Copyright Act 1968, no part may be reproduced, copied, scanned, stored in a retrieval system, recorded, or transmitted, in any form or by any means, without the prior written permission of the publisher.
HarperCollinsPublishers
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ISBN: 978 1 4607 5135 0 (paperback)
ISBN: 978 1 4607 0604 6 (ebook)
National Library of Australia Cataloguing-in-Publication data:
Creator: Ramage, Gary, 1967- author.
The shot / Gary Ramage, Mark Abernethy.
Subjects: Ramage, Gary, 1967-
Photographers – Australia – Biography.
War photographers – Australia – Biography.
War photography – History.
Other Creators/Contributors:
Abernethy, Mark, 1964
779.9355092
Cover design by Hazel Lam, HarperCollins Design Studio
Cover image of Gary Ramage © Will Stanley
1 The Murdoch-owned newspaper company in Australia was called News Ltd until June 2013 when it was renamed News Corporation Australia.