Updated
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd and his wife Therese Rein have made a surprise visit to Australian troops in Afghanistan.
Mr Rudd visited the Australian base at Tarin Kot in southern Uruzgan province to thank troops for their service.
It was Mr Rudd's fifth visit to the base. His first came a just a week after he was elected prime minister in 2007.
Mr Rudd told the troops that it had been a hard, protracted war and that it was time for them to come home.
"Your mums and dads, your brothers and sisters, your wives and husbands and partners and your kids are all enormously proud of you," he said.
"It's time we brought you home.
"When the flag of Australia is brought down for the last time a few months from now, you will have been?a part of history."
Ms Rein became the first wife of an Australian prime minister to visit a war zone.
She said she was proud to meet some of the soldiers.
"I am really, really proud?to have been able to shake the?hands of some of these amazing?people," Ms Rein said.
Your mums and dads, your brothers and sisters, your wives and husbands and partners, and your kids are all enormously proud of you. It's time we brought you home.
Prime Minister Kevin Rudd
Some of the soldiers said they were excited by Mr Rudd's visit.
"I'm very honoured that he's actually taken the time out of his very busy schedule to come and do that for us, it's fantastic, 100 per cent support from Australia and he represents our country, everything we do, so [it] makes you a very proud Aussie," one said.
By the end of the year, 1,000 of the remaining 1,300 Australian troops will have returned home.
The other 300 will stay as advisers and trainers based in Kabul and Kandahar.
The Tarin Kot base will be gifted to the Afghan National Army.
Forty Australian soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since 2002.
Topics: defence-forces, defence-and-national-security, government-and-politics, federal-government, afghanistan, australia
First posted
nfl 2012 draft miami dolphins buffalo bills st louis rams ryan tannehill pittsburgh steelers seattle seahawks
No comments:
Post a Comment