Robert Lowry retired from the Australian Army as a lieutenant colonel in 1993 and has since worked and studied in the field of military politics and reform in Indonesia, East Timor and Fiji. He is the author of The Armed Forces of Indonesia (1996) and Fortress Fiji: Holding the Line in the Pacific War, 1939-45 (2006) and other contract research assignments, book chapters, and articles on a range of defence and security related matters. He is a graduate of the Australian Army Staff College, the Indonesian Army Command and Staff College, and has a BA (Asian Studies) and a Master of Defence Studies. As a second lieutenant he was also a member of the 102nd (Coral) Field Battery which supported Bennett’s infantry battalion during its tour of South Vietnam in 1968-69.