Right at home in Timor-Leste
Aussie soldier’s background helps strengthen cultural ties

Family ties: Cpl John Carrascalao is proud to serve in Timor-Leste. Photo by Cpl Damian Shovell

By Cpl Damian Shovell

FOR one Australian soldier with the Defence Cooperation Program (DCP) in Timor-Leste, helping to train the fledgling nation’s army to defend its hard-won democracy marks a return to his homeland and adds a rightful chapter to a story that began in 1975.

As a four-year-old boy, Cpl John Miguel Carrascalao’s family abandoned their home and fled from East to West Timor during the Indonesian occupation to board a refugee boat bound for Portugal.

After a short time, his father Joao Viegas Carrascalao, older sister Sandra and mother Rosa, who is also the sister of Timor-Leste’s Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta, moved to Australia. After growing up in Liverpool on Sydney’s outskirts, Cpl Carrascalao decided to enlist in the Army.

“I decided to join in Year 12, but didn’t join until after I went to university and had kids,” he said.

The father of four is now a corporal medic posted to the DCP and said he often visited his uncle, Foreign Minister Jose Ramos Horta.

“I often drop in and say g’day when he’s home. He’s very proud of me being in the Australian Army,” he said.

Now on his second deployment to Timor-Leste after deploying with 5 MP Coy as the company medic and linguist in 2001, his talents are being further utilised in a similar role with the DCP.

“My role here is medic, interpreter and translator,” he said. “Having local knowledge and contacts helps get information and exchange ideas and cultural information – it just helps so much.”

It is obvious that Cpl Carrascalao has immense pride in his East Timorese heritage, and uncompromisingly considers himself both Australian and East Timorese.

“I have fantastic pride coming over as an Australian soldier and the East Timorese soldiers are amazed and really proud of me,” he said.

“They’re really proud that an East Timorese-born soldier is in the Australian Army and are amazed an East Timorese soldier is here as an adviser.

“Junior F-FTDL soldiers can approach me and speak in our own language and senior ranks can articulate specific ideas as well.”

His parents have now moved back to Timor-Leste and his sister has moved to the US and joined the Marines.

Cpl Carrascalao also has family on his father’s side in Timor-Leste who stayed during the Indonesian occupation. His uncle, Mario Carrascalao, was governor of Dili for 10 years, and another uncle was also an East Timorese parliamentarian.

“They are still respected, loved and protected members of the community,” he said.

“My uncle [the governor] reopened the borders to let journalists back in, and in 1982 as governor under Indonesian rule, he set up a secret meeting with Xanana Gusmao in the hills.”

Cpl Carrascalao isn’t the only member of his family in the ADF. Out of the seven soldiers of East Timorese descent in the Army, his nephew, Pte James Carrascalao, is a storeman at 10FSB in Townsville and his cousin, Pte Elisabeth Carrascalao, is a reservist cook at 23 Fd Regt, HQ Bty Sydney.