The Moment.

The Iroquois helicopter skids caressed the earth then settled amid the swirling dust.

The crewman signalled for us to jump out of both doors and run bent over beneath the throbbing blades to the ten o’clock and two o’clock positions like we’d practised back at the Base. The Iroquois lifted off and smacked us with its downdraft as it swept overhead and away.

I scanned the area. Nudged the cadet next to me. ‘This isn’t our rendezvous point.’ He nodded. ‘I reckon they’ve deliberately dropped us off at the wrong location,’ he said. We’d spent hours planning our mission legs on our maps. For nothing.

The Directing Staff crawled along the ground to where I sat, tightening my hat and checking my webbing.

‘You’re Section Commander for the first leg,’ he said. ‘Over to you.’

I looked down the line of faces looking back at me.

I waited for someone else to do something.

Nobody was going to. Because I was the Someone.

I was in charge.

Nothing would happen. Nobody would move. We would stay here until I said otherwise.

My stomach clenched.

Still nobody moved. The Directing Staff had crawled back to end of the loose line of cadets lying in the dirt, waiting to observe and assess what I did next. Waiting for me to do something. To literally lead.

I wonder if every person who’s talked about, or taught, or claimed, ‘Leadership’ can identify the moment when they felt - not theorised about - what it feels to Lead.

I wiped the dust off my watch.

It was 11am on Saturday January 24, 1981.