Johnston, Amanda Alice (Lieutenant Colonel, b.1975)

Collection relating to the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO) service of Major (later Lieutenant Colonel) Amanda Alice Johnston, Lebanon, Israel, Cyprus, 2006.

Wallet 1 of 1 - Consists of identification cards and postcards related to Johnston's service with the UNTSO in 2006. The wallet includes Johnston's UNTSO identification card and UNTSO vehicle authorisation card, which allowed Johnston to drive a sedan, 4x4 jeep, or minibus of up to nine passengers. The collection also includes two postcards Johnston sent to her grandfather, Mel Johnston, during her deployment. In the first, dated 10 July 2006, Johnston writes that she is working along the "Blue Line" in southern Lebanon near the border with Israel and "living in a small city called Tyne on the Meditteranean [sic] Coast." She writes that the city is full of ancient ruins, and that her work now is quite different to that she was doing while posted to Tiberias, Israel. The second postcard, dated 19 August 2006, was written while Johnston was on two weeks leave. She writes that she has just spent a few days in Cyprus and is now catching up with some Australian friends in Jerusalem before she returns to work.

Following training at the Australian Defence Force Academy and Royal Military College, Duntroon, Johnston was commissioned into the Australian Army's Royal Australian Engineers in 1996. She served in a variety of engineer and instructor posts in her early career and was posted to East Timor with the United Nations. As a major, Johnston deployed to Israel, Lebanon and Syria as a United Nations Military Observer (UNMO) with the United Nations Truce Supervision Organization (UNTSO).

Johnston's subsequent career included command of the 6th Engineer Support Regiment, award of the Conspicuous Service Cross (CSC) in 2014, and two deployments to Afghanistan, in 2011 and 2019. On the first deployment, Johnston served with Headquarters International Stabilisation Force on the Afghan government's peace program to reintegrate former Taliban members back into civil society. Her subsequent deployment, as a colonel, was as commander Kabul Garrison Command Advisor Team Six, working closely with the Afghan military to ensure the security of the population and city of Kabul.