Rodney Cocks

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Rodney Cocks CSM (born 1976), Australian army officer and political candidate, was born in Melbourne and grew up in the eastern suburbs, attending Melbourne High School for his secondary education. After graduating from the Royal Military College, Duntroon, he studied 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 the UN peacekeeping force.

While on leave from the East Timor peacekeeping force, Cocks was holidaying in Kuta, Bali, at the time of the 2002 bombings that killed 202 people. Injured in the attacks, he helped the injured and dying and performed trauma first aid. He was later awarded an Australian Conspicuous Service Medal and a UN Peacekeeping Force Commander's Commendation for his actions.

In 2003 Cocks joined the United Nation's de-mining team in Iraq, which was responsible for the removal of millions of mines and unexploded munitions in the country and supporting the establishment of an Iraqi Government de-mining organisation. During his service in Baghdad he was injured when a suicide bomber struck the UN's Headquarters that killed dozens of people. Once again injured, he helped the injured from unstable and burning buildings, perform trauma first aid and load people for evacuation to hospitals; also being commended for his actions.

Cocks then joined the UN mission in Afghanistan in early 2004 as a security adviser responsible for UN staff, programs and assets in the former Taliban and Al Qaeda stronghold of Kandahar and southern Afghanistan. He has served there to support two democratic elections, a disarmament process, humanitarian relief programmes and reconstruction projects. He was in Kandahar for nearly three and a half years in the face of deterioration in the security situation which was underpinned by terrorism and the exponential increase in the opium trade.

In mid 2007 Cocks was redeployed as a security adviser to the volatile areas in northern Sri Lanka, where the government of Sri Lanka and the Tamil Tigers are fighting a civil war.

Cocks was named the Victorian Australian of the Year for 2005 for his humanitarian service in East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and for his actions following the Bali and Baghdad terrorist attacks. He has also been awarded an Australian Active Service Medal, an Australian Defence Medal, an Australian Humanitarian Overseas Service Medal for both Iraq and Afghanistan and the UN Medal for East Timor.

At the 2007 federal election, Cocks was the unsuccessful Australian Labor Party candidate for the federal seat of La Trobe.