As a lieutenant colonel, Dawson deployed to Mogadishu as Senior Staff Officer Plans on Headquarters United Nations Operation in Somalia II in October 1993. Dawson later remarked that "the United Nations probably had an impossible task there." He arrived in Somalia in the immediate aftermath of the Battle of Mogadishu, at which point the United Nations "force was basically in shock". He returned to Australia in May 1994 and, in recognition of his "conspicuous service" in Somalia, was awarded the Conspicuous Service Cross in the 1995 Australia Day Honours.