General's son was hurt in Iraq
By Maria HawthorneMay 23, 2005
CIVILIAN clothes and a detachable name tag helped defence force chief General Peter Cosgrove keep one of the Australian army's most tightly guarded secrets - his son's deployment to Iraq.
Even when Private Philip Cosgrove, 25, was injured in a car bomb blast near the old Australian embassy in Baghdad, nobody outside the tightly-knit defence community knew that he was the son of Australia's most senior soldier.
Gen Cosgrove today outlined the remarkable lengths he went to to keep his son's service in Baghdad a secret, to protect Philip and the troops serving alongside him.
"I may have been overprotective but I just thought it was prudent under the circumstances that there should be no particular pressure on either my son or the other soldiers by having somebody with a well-known name as one of the young, private soldiers on the frontline in Baghdad," Gen Cosgrove told ABC radio.
When he saw Philip off at the airport on December 29 last year, he wore civilian clothes so as not to alert camera crews to his son's identity.
Philip even took his name tag off his uniform so the link with his father was not made.
"My wife and I attended just as private citizens, just a mum and dad. I wore civvies that day," Gen Cosgrove said.
"There was a little bit of media interest in the boys and girls who were going over but I snuck away when the media arrived and came back when they finished their coverage."
Gen Cosgrove said he prayed every day that his son was in Baghdad and was relieved when he returned home safely last Saturday.
Pte Cosgrove was one of several Australian soldiers injured in a car bomb blast but his name was kept out of the media.
"He received some minor injuries but they were not too bad. Others were more seriously injured than him, both in that incident and in others of that particular time frame so he was lucky," Gen Cosgrove said.
"But I knew fairly quickly and I was able to reassure his mum that he was fine."
Gen Cosgrove said he was in a strange situation as the father of a serviceman on active duty and the officer in charge of all servicemen and women.
"On the one sense for us, we knew how well trained our son and all his colleagues were. They are some of the best-trained soldiers ever to leave our shores. So that's uplifting and that gave us confidence," he said.
"On the other side, I suppose I knew on a daily, almost hour-by-hour basis, the sort of hazards our folk were facing. And that's different to what most parents have as knowledge and that probably made it a bit more difficult.
"So to some degree you had to put that on the backburner and simply do the job I'm expected to do which is to be responsible for all of our people and not get overly focused on my young son, love him though I do."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15378357-28793,00.html
By Maria HawthorneMay 23, 2005
CIVILIAN clothes and a detachable name tag helped defence force chief General Peter Cosgrove keep one of the Australian army's most tightly guarded secrets - his son's deployment to Iraq.
Even when Private Philip Cosgrove, 25, was injured in a car bomb blast near the old Australian embassy in Baghdad, nobody outside the tightly-knit defence community knew that he was the son of Australia's most senior soldier.
Gen Cosgrove today outlined the remarkable lengths he went to to keep his son's service in Baghdad a secret, to protect Philip and the troops serving alongside him.
"I may have been overprotective but I just thought it was prudent under the circumstances that there should be no particular pressure on either my son or the other soldiers by having somebody with a well-known name as one of the young, private soldiers on the frontline in Baghdad," Gen Cosgrove told ABC radio.
When he saw Philip off at the airport on December 29 last year, he wore civilian clothes so as not to alert camera crews to his son's identity.
Philip even took his name tag off his uniform so the link with his father was not made.
"My wife and I attended just as private citizens, just a mum and dad. I wore civvies that day," Gen Cosgrove said.
"There was a little bit of media interest in the boys and girls who were going over but I snuck away when the media arrived and came back when they finished their coverage."
Gen Cosgrove said he prayed every day that his son was in Baghdad and was relieved when he returned home safely last Saturday.
Pte Cosgrove was one of several Australian soldiers injured in a car bomb blast but his name was kept out of the media.
"He received some minor injuries but they were not too bad. Others were more seriously injured than him, both in that incident and in others of that particular time frame so he was lucky," Gen Cosgrove said.
"But I knew fairly quickly and I was able to reassure his mum that he was fine."
Gen Cosgrove said he was in a strange situation as the father of a serviceman on active duty and the officer in charge of all servicemen and women.
"On the one sense for us, we knew how well trained our son and all his colleagues were. They are some of the best-trained soldiers ever to leave our shores. So that's uplifting and that gave us confidence," he said.
"On the other side, I suppose I knew on a daily, almost hour-by-hour basis, the sort of hazards our folk were facing. And that's different to what most parents have as knowledge and that probably made it a bit more difficult.
"So to some degree you had to put that on the backburner and simply do the job I'm expected to do which is to be responsible for all of our people and not get overly focused on my young son, love him though I do."
http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,15378357-28793,00.html
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