“I WOULDN’T label it a hero act or anything like that.”
A young Aussie Digger downplayed his bravery yesterday after he pulled an Afghan soldier from a truck loaded with ammunition that was “popping, exploding and shooting out bits and pieces”.
“I just got picked up and thrown back,” Private TJ Findlay, 21, said of the initial blast as the truck hit a bomb in Afghanistan’s Oruzgan province on Tuesday.
He then spotted the driver – an Afghan man with whom he had bonded while discussing their love for their children – trying to climb out of the truck window.
“I wouldn’t really label it a hero act or anything like that. You know that there’s another person and that the truck is on fire and you know there’s stuff in the back.
“He was falling in and out of consciousness. Next thing I know the ammunition in the back of the Ford Ranger started cooking off, popping, exploding and shooting out bits and pieces.”
Defence chiefs certainly hailed Pte Findlay a hero after he pulled the Afghan man to safety – saving his life and being wounded in the process.
His mother Hayley Ayers-Findlay said: “He saw a dad with two kids and he wasn’t going to leave a dad there. TJ always thinks of others.”
Wife Kira, at home in Brisbane with their children Isebella and Lachlan, said it was surreal when she heard her husband describe the attack, which left him with minor abrasions, a mild concussion and hearing issues.
“I’m very proud,” she said.
“It’s in his character. It doesn’t surprise me he went back and helped.”
A total of 224 Diggers have been wounded in Afghanistan, with another 32 killed, some by Afghan soldiers.
ADF chief David Hurley said the relationship with Afghan soldiers was “complex … not black and white”.
Defence Minister Stephen Smith said it was another example of the honourable way Australian soldiers conduct themselves.
“It is what you would regard as the classic and traditional type of effort that we see from an Australian service personnel – despite being injured by an explosion, thinking about others first,” he said.
Pte Findlay is expected to return to work next week after a few days rest.
“We had been encountering IEDs for the past three days,” he said.
“We had been finding every one of them. That one just caught us.”
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