Rodney Cocks

Rodney Cocks graduated from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, studying law and commerce while undertaking full time and part time service in the Royal Australian Infantry. His military career took him on training to the UK and Europe on several occasions, South East Asia and on operations to East Timor as part of a UN peacekeeping force.

Cocks was on holiday in Kuta, Bali, at the time of the 2002 terror bombings. Despite being injured in the attacks, he helped the injured and dying and performed trauma first aid, for which he was awarded an Australian Conspicuous Service Medal and a UN Peacekeeping Force Commander’s Commendation.

In 2003 Cocks joined the United Nation’s de-mining team in Iraq. During his service in Baghdad he was injured when a suicide bomber struck the UN’s Headquarters. Once again, he came to the aid of those injured around him, performing trauma first aid and loading people for evacuation to hospitals.

Cocks was appointed to be the UN’s Senior Security Advisor in the former Taliban and al Qaeda stronghold of Kandahar in Southern Afghanistan in March 2004. By mid 2007 Cocks was redeployed as a security adviser to volatile areas in northern Sri Lanka, where the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers were engaged in a civil war.