CRAIG ORME OA CSC,
DSC Major General, retired
Major General Craig Orme [retired] saw the birth and death of Tarin Kowt in Afghanistan as a major Australian military base. In   September 2013, the Australian Defence Force sent him back to draw the curtains and turn off the lights. 
"My [specific] mission was to get us out [of Tarin Kowt]. The absence of issues [with the withdrawal] was not a reflection of an absence of risk and complexity."
A case in point was a visit to the base by families of fallen soldiers shortly before the end.
"We had people ranging in age from their seventies to quite young," he said. "The Taliban were still in town and TK was not a secure environment. We ... had a whole range of surveillance overhead. "These people were able to come almost within cooee of where their sons, husbands and brothers had been killed. The effects were profound for each of them."