A retired brigadier in the Australian Defence Force has been made a Member of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday Honours.
Alison Creagh was honoured for her work in the military but also for her "significant service to veterans and their families, and to rowing".
She was also the driving force behind getting a memorial for Australian peace-keeping forces on Anzac Parade.
"It's really nice to be recognised. I'm really proud," she said.
"I'm very privileged and honoured that someone has taken the time to nominate me."
Brigadier Creagh was born in Canberra in the early 1960s when her father was on the academic staff of the Royal Military College at Duntroon. She attended Canberra Girls Grammar.
She then joined the military in 1985 and served for 30 years, ending with the rank of brigadier. She served on operations in Cambodia, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan.
She arrived in East Timor as a peacekeeper in 1999, and later remembered the drive from the airport, with signs of devastation everywhere.
"There was lots of smoke around and everything smelt burnt or like it was being burnt," she said.
"It felt like you were moving through a ghost town with tumble weeds almost: no people; burnt out buildings everywhere; a lot of destruction; and mounds of dirt in many places along the roadside, which people told me were graves of people who had been killed."
Her experience left a lasting impression.
"We spent a bit of time with the orphanages and one of my stark memories from there was looking at a wall of paintings that the kids had drawn," she said. "The graphic depiction of machetes, blood and fire told their story, and that really brings home to you what it was all about and why you're there."
Brigadier Creagh's first experience of peacekeeping was in Cambodia in 1993.
"I remember quite starkly being briefed about the people and the terrible Pol Pot regime and everything the Khmer Rouge had done and I recognised how important our role was in trying to set up the conditions to try and provide free and fair elections so the Cambodians would actually have a chance of some degree of peace."
The sight of victims of mines remained with her. "I remember walking through the markets and we saw a fellow who was playing music with no face, no legs and some fingers, so clearly a mine victim, but he was making money for his family," she said.
She was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in 1994 for her work in Cambodia.
Her experience prompted her to help establish the Australian Peacekeeping Memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra. It remains the focal point for commemorations of Australian involvement in peacekeeping.
In the military, she developed a passion for rowing, starting as a 40-year-old and learning to row at the Canberra Rowing Club.
Since then, she's competed in local, state and international regattas.
She established the Australian Defence Force Rowing Association in 2011.
Outside her Australian Defence Force roles, she has been on the board of organisations which support veterans as well as advising the University of New South Wales Defence Research Institute.
Brigadier Creagh's great-uncle was a signaller in the First World War.
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