Photo By Master Sgt. Opal Vaughn | Australian Col. (retired) Sandy MacGregor talks about being a "tunnel ferret" during a...... read more read more
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VICENZA, Italy- Australian Col. (retired) Sandy MacGregor visited with paratroopers of the 173rd Airborne Brigade here Aug. 1 to speak with them about the importance of resiliency as part of the brigade’s first-ever Bayonet Week.
MacGregor served in the Australian army’s Corp of Engineers deploying to Vietnam as a captain, commanding the 3 Field Troop Engineers from September 1965-1966 while working with 173rd Airborne Brigade.
Bayonet Week is a week-long event bringing together paratroopers from brigade based in both Grafenwoehr, Germany, and Vicenza for competitions, annual events and professional development opportunities. During his visit, MacGregor held sessions with both senior leaders and junior paratroopers across the brigade, and was the guest speaker at the brigade’s formal event.
During this time, MacGregor and his men was the first anti-communist Soldiers to explore the Cu Chi tunnels and reveal both their complexity and their operational importance as command and logistical nodes. Standard practice prior to his unit’s efforts had been to seal, blow up or otherwise attempt to render the tunnel systems unusable with smoke, tear gas and explosives before quickly moving on.
It was shortly after the death of three of his daughters in 1987 that MacGregor retired from the military and began reaching out to others and occasionally as a guest speaker.
“It was a miserable time for me,” said MacGregor in reference to the passing of his daughters. “I was numb, absolutely numb. But I was also angry and I wanted revenge.”
“If you push things down, then push things down and continue to push things down again. You’re refusing to face your problems. These things give you nightmares because you don’t want to talk about it.”
“The point is that the more you push these things down to your memory; there it will lie in the subconscious mind. So then it stays with you all the time. And these things were eating me up. But the thing that really helped my recovery process was the recognition of the problem,” said MacGregor.
“I believe that we can change. We have the power to overcome set backs and issues, each as individuals. We must take action and start talking about it.”
| Date Taken: | 08.01.2014 |
| Date Posted: | 08.18.2014 04:35 |
| Story ID: | 139617 |
| Location: | VICENZA, IT |
| Web Views: | 279 |
| Downloads: | 0 |
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