Ep. 254 Tom Brooks former SASR and Victoria Police Special Operations Group (SOG)

SPEAKER_00 2:01

It's time for the Zero Limits Podcast, hosted by Australian veterans. Chatting with high-charging humans with hectic stories from around the world, we'll give you the motivation to take on whatever life throws at you in the kick to complete any goal you set your mind to. Let's go.

SPEAKER_03 2:29

Alright. Zero Limits Listeners on today's Zermelous Podcast. I've made a journey down to Melbourne. Some would call it the crazy state. The machete bin state. It's just uh it's been madness down here since COVID. I think they're probably I don't know, COVID send them crazy. Absolutely, absolutely crazy. But I'm down here for a podcast. I was told about a few weeks ago to reach out to this guy. His name's Tom Brooks. Spent six years in the SASR. After that, gets out, spends another 25 years in the Victorian police. However, 20 years-ish of that in SOG. He got to the higher levels, which we'll definitely talk about, but a ton of jobs, absolutely ton of jobs. Now he's moved into more of an advisory training space, uh, getting people ready for selection and human performance. So it's going to be a really good podcast to find out more about SOG because I had uh Adam Smith on recently and we only got through his commando side and we didn't get into his SOG stuff. And everyone's like, Oh, they listen to the real deal Dono. Yeah. And they're like, mate, he's way better than Mark Donaldson. And he had some cracking stories, and people are like, get more SOG guys on. Obviously, here's Tom Brooks, mate. Tom, how are you?

SPEAKER_01 3:46

I'm good, Matt. I'm good. A little bit nervous, but uh I'm good. I'm good. I'm looking forward to having a chat. Be fun.

SPEAKER_03 3:52

No, I appreciate it, mate. Like again, like I know it's not easy coming onto uh essentially the world wide web and sharing your story because you know you're at that top level, especially you come from the SASR background, so very secretive. You move to the SOG world, secretive again, and uh mate, yeah, like I know it's gonna be daunting, but you've got stories to tell, wisdom to share.

SPEAKER_01 4:15

I I hope so, mate. I keep some people entertained, I hope. Um yeah, mate, it is um very different being uh out of the shadows a bit, I suppose, and coming on and talking about a little bit about what the SOG's like, and yeah, so how long have you been out uh since 2025? Yeah, so a bit over a year. How are you going? Good, good. Um I needed to get out and have a break and um we'll talk about the why later on, maybe, but um it was what I needed. I needed to move away and um have a break from you know I've been running on the treadmill pretty fast for a pretty long time, um, and it's given me a real opportunity to think about me and the family and all that stuff more clearly and see things a bit more clearly now. It's taken me a long time to figure it out. Um and like I sort of said, I've started a little um little business trying to help people get ready for most particularly SOG selection or you know, whatever state they're going for. I think the themes are pretty similar wherever you go, kind of thing. So um, and I've loved doing that, and when you're ready, I'll talk about that. But just there's a lot of good young people out there that still want to get after it and and and work in those in the teams, and we need them as I'm a I'm a community member now, and I look at it and go, we need those people to do those jobs and to do them well. It's you know, I might need them one day. You might need them one day. So yeah, yeah, I I'm yeah, it's been really good for me that side of it. So yeah.

SPEAKER_03 5:48

And you've obviously done a few selections, run a few.

SPEAKER_01 5:52

Uh a lot. Yeah. Yeah. Yep. So I've probably I did eight um as either the sergeant or the senior sergeant, uh, and I did two as a senior Connie at at the SOG as staff, and I was stupid enough to do SA selection and SOG selection, so I've done a few in all ways. So yeah, it's very different challenge stepping up the second time round. Um back then there was no free kick for the special forces dudes coming into the SOG. So yeah, it was um a much different psychological challenge and physical. I was 12 years older when I did my second selection. So and SOG selection was nothing to be be sneezed at. So yeah, yeah, it's uh and it's something I got really interested in as we're talking about this earlier this afternoon, about um how do we pick the right people and probably more how we train them, um, training them better so that when they get out and they're there's no waiting period, you know, it's not like the army where you can oftentimes structure, okay, you know, the new guys have come in, we're gonna do some build-up training and then go um at I think nearly all of the PTG or the police teams around Australia. Basically, you finish a course uh Friday and you could be out doing jobs Monday. Um on mine, uh my course, we actually did um a job before the course had finished.

SPEAKER_02 7:16

Oh shit, yeah, right.

SPEAKER_01 7:18

So look, we had I had a nothing roll, but it was exciting. It was the first one kind of thing. So um, but yeah, so there's no kind of it's hit the ground straight away. So I became really interested in how do we get them more ready than I was, uh, or my era was kind of thing, more ready to get get onto it straight away. And the tempo, operational tempo is just so high now that um guys need to be ready to go because it's not like you're gonna get months on end with no jobs to do.

SPEAKER_02 7:48

That's it. It just seems like Melbourne's getting busier. Victoria the State is just getting busier.

SPEAKER_01 7:53

Yeah, I absolutely it is. Like um uh when I first went to the SOG, rough figures, you know, we were doing 30 or 40 jobs every year. I I think they're now well over 200 a year. Um, and and as we're sort of talking before, that's considering we probab the SOG now, it's not we anymore, it's uh them, but the uh the SOG now are probably getting CERT, which is the tier two team, um, to to do jobs that maybe back in the day, some of them the SOG would have done because we just weren't as busy. But um, so that number could be a lot higher if we didn't have like the tier two team to take some of the jobs um that maybe historically we would have done. Um so yeah, it's it's busy um and it's not ch it's not gonna change. Um I I I could see a time in the future where the SOG will have to grow in size. Melbourne's growing, the population's getting bigger. I think soon Memb Melbourne, I think don't they predict Melbourne will overtake Sydney as the largest population city and um big cities have big big numbers in crime, you know. It's a percentage thing, so yeah, it's a lot. Yeah, right. Far out.

SPEAKER_03 9:03

Mate, now before we crack on with your SAS life, SASR life, and then into the SOG life, mate, let's talk about those younger days growing up, mate. Growing up, uh, where where'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_01 9:14

Uh Walker. So New South Wales. Um I I don't know, about 4,000 people in Walker or something, I think. Um real little town. Uh most of my family lived on farms or owned property, but I I lived in town, but I had the um, you know, uh a 70s upbringing of um being able to go out onto um family properties and shooting rifles as a young kid and shooting rabbits and foxes. And I used to go with the old man, he has a head of part-timer, he would um shoot foxes um after his normal day job, and he would sell the foxkins. That's how old I am, but he would sell the foxkins back to um tanneries and stuff like that. So um and fishing, trout fishing, um, that was kind of my uh childhood, I suppose. Um yeah, so it was I lived the country life, but I didn't live on a farm, I guess is what I'm trying to say. Um I uh I as a young fella um my I lost my old man when he I was seven. Um he was killed in a car accident. Uh and um I'll come full circle on that maybe later, but uh at the time, is it? I was seven years old, my brother was four at the time, and um clearly it had the obvious, you know, traumatic, it was unexpected, but you know, I I can clear as a day remember the day that it happened. I was at school, um, one of my aunties and someone else came to get me from school, and I'm thinking, how good's this? I'm gonna get it, I'm getting taken out of school until I found out the reason why. Um I I don't remember a lot of how that played out for me as a kid. I don't remember being, you know, sad all the time or having a real but it clearly I I think it has well obviously it had an effect on me as as I grew up, but I I don't I can't think back to then exactly what it was like in the days and weeks and months after it, if that makes sense.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

Yeah, yeah, kind of yeah.

SPEAKER_01 11:20

Um and it was like I said, it was unexpected, he was killed in a car accident. Um, and so therefore mum was left as a single mum for a few years there. Um but um other than that, I I um played footy. I'm a rugby league man, I loved it. Um I was only a little fella, but I had to go. Uh and like most kids played footy in the winter and cricket in the summertime from the generation of coming home when the the traffic light uh street lights come on or when you get hungry. Yeah, yeah, that's it. So um, yeah, then uh mum eventually remarried, uh, which was at the time it was hard a little a little bit. Um, yeah, another father figure, I guess, in in life. And the the fellow that mum married, he had three kids of his own that were a fair bit older than my brother and I.

SPEAKER_02 12:15

Yep.

SPEAKER_01 12:15

Um, so that was a bit bit tricky to kind of manage, and I was 10 or 11 at the time, so there was a bit going on for me um growing and hitting puberty and all that kind of stuff. So um, and we moved towns, then we moved to a little place called Gloucester, which is about an hour and a half from Malka, just a bit closer to the coast there.

SPEAKER_03 12:32

Plenty of coal sium gas out there.

SPEAKER_01 12:34

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, that wasn't none of that was there back then. So um, so he was a school teacher, um, the fellow that mum remarried, Bruce. Uh, I ended up having a great relationship with him. It was a bit rough going through school and and trying to figure that out. But as I got older, um I had a good relationship with him, to be honest. Played golf with him, drank beers with him, he became a mate. Um, and eventually I got mature enough to think, you know what, mum likes him, so I need to pull my head in, and you know, what's good for mum is is kind of the most important thing. So um uh yeah, so I moved to Gloucester for high school again, footy, cricket, uh that kind of thing. Uh but I always had kind of the the army was I wanted to join the army. I can't remember exactly the the date, time, and exact place, but um I always wanted to join the army. As I was saying to you before, I I can remember back in the day on Anzac Day, um the soldiers would march down through the town, little town, but there seemed to be a lot of veterans back there, but they would have been probably World War I um veterans back then. Yeah, for sure. You're awesome. You're definitely um but I I can I can remember the clink of their medals still to this day because they didn't have them mounted like most people have them now where they're they don't but they would just pin them on their shirt.

SPEAKER_03 13:58

They're still like that, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, we old blugs, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 14:01

Yeah, so and I and I don't know whether that was something that really got into my head about the army because dad, you know, um he was very young when he was killed and he he um wasn't in the army, it was Vietnam time, but he um uh wasn't able to go. Uh but had other relations that were in the in the army. Uh but I I think maybe it was that and a bit of the romance of it. I I love playing army as a kid and I had the plastic soldiers and um yeah, I I I was all about the army from a really young age and um yeah, yeah, it was uh that was the that was the dream, I suppose.

SPEAKER_03 14:39

And what what about your younger brother?

SPEAKER_01 14:41

What's he so he's four years younger than me, Bob. And uh he he joined the army a bit later. Oh he did, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. He's um just in the process now of getting out. Um he's been in that long. Yeah, he I can't remember exactly when he but he got out of the regs and did um uh he's been in the in the reserve for ages. Um so he did a diploma, he went to Timor with um with 5-7, so he followed me to the the uh buckets. So um, but uh yeah, so yeah, I uh um catch up with Bob still a fair bit. He lives in Adelaide now. Uh yeah, he followed. I don't know if he followed me or or the idea, but uh yeah, he um interestingly he uh initially got posted to three hour hour. Oh did he when it was the air uh I don't know if it's still the airborne we don't have anymore. Yeah, but uh when it was air airborne and um he hated parachuting. Oh did he hated it and eventually didn't jump and and went to um came across the road because back then three and five seven were both at Holsworthy, literally split down the middle by that road. So he went to five seven, um which was my um unit. So yeah, so that's um mum with two sons, both of them.

SPEAKER_03 15:55

Did you join up in 1987? When did your brother join up?

SPEAKER_01 15:58

I actually don't know. Obviously a couple of years. Before I left, yeah, yeah, yeah, because he was four years younger. Um and I reckon if I had to guess, I reckon ninety-one or ninety-two. So I was in Perth by then. Um so yeah, but I was away and he was kind of in Sydney and um didn't didn't really see a lot of him through a lot of that time.

SPEAKER_03 16:18

Yep, yep. And let's let's just quickly run through the you know, the process of joining the defence force again. This is nineteen eighty seven, there's no bloody internet. There's you know, it's quite a a primitive way of uh joining a defence force. You go to recruiting station, have a chat, yeah, and uh do all the paperwork, do your testing, and then off to Kapuka, mate. And again, we're looking again, 1987, political correctness, there's only two genders. It's quite, it's quite, yeah, you you m mess up down to Kapuka, they you know there's a butt stroke or two.

SPEAKER_01 16:48

Yeah, plenty of that. So interestingly, mate, I um initially I wanted to try to join the army and get an apprenticeship. Uh, because you could join the army, I don't know what the go is now, but at 16 back then you could join and uh if you were joining at going to the apprentice school. Um and I tried out for that and I did shit at did did shit at school. So like I didn't do well enough at school to be able to get in, so I had to wait till I was 17 to then I could enlist. Um yeah, and mum drove me down to Newcastle to the recruiting office. I don't remember the exact process so much, but um I was so mature the army was the first job I ever had. Like I I literally didn't have a milk run, uh yeah, I did chores and you know stuff like that at home. But the army was the first job I I had. I I couldn't get in it quick enough, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 17:36

So um did you even like before this, you didn't even know what the SASR were?

SPEAKER_01 17:41

No idea. Yeah, no idea. No idea. Just wanted to join the army and yeah, just wanted to join the army. Yep, yep. So uh and but believe it or not, and uh I I wanted to go to armoured corps, I wanted to be in tanks, I thought that's the army, that's cool. And then I got in and found out, no, no, that's that's not what I want to do, sort of thing. So, but mate, Kapuka was um like as an example, this is how young and immature I was. The night before I left to go to Kapuka, my stepdad Bruce, he had to show me how to like use a razor. Like I'd never had to have a shave before. Um, and uh there was a couple of blokes from my town uh that had joined the arm. They're like, Oh, you've got to shave every morning. I'm like, what if I don't need to shave? They're like, No, you've got to shave every morning. So we're we're in the thing going, yeah, you put the foam on like this.

SPEAKER_03 18:30

They teach it down there, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Yeah, yeah. Well, I didn't know that's all.

SPEAKER_03 18:35

So yeah, you're getting the the pre the pre-testing.

SPEAKER_01 18:37

So yeah, and uh yeah, on the bus, um down to Newcastle, um, down to Kapuka, uh on this adventure as a 17-year-old kid said, Body by the mum, and off I went. Um, and I I was all in on the army. I reflect on it and now, and Capuca, there was a lot of like really bad shit going on on upon reflection. But at the time while I was in it, I just accepted it, right? I was like, Oh, this is what the army is, this is how how you do things, you know. Once I started getting yelled at, and they're like, run over there and form up in three ranks. I'm like, if I knew what a rank was, I would you know, they just confuse you and all that stuff. So I I um I look back at it and uh our instructors were arseholes, they they really were. Like there was bastardization, um it was bullying, there was blokes getting blanket bashed, and I don't know if people know what what that is, but you know, the old underperformer, they'd get a few of the blokes from the the the recruits from the platoon together, the staff would get them down, they'd run into their room at night, put a blanket over them, just bash them. One night. I remember one night being laying in my room and uh a bit odd, people can't see, but there used to be four to a room, and there's a door kind of in the middle, and there was a wall that would divide the two beds, and I was laying in my and you could hear them when you knew when someone was going to get blanket bashed because you'd hear the blokes moving up and down the hallway, and they came into our room, and I'm laying in my bed going, Oh fuck, I hope it's not me. And they went um to the bloke who was on the other side of the wall, and he was an old I was 17, right? But I reckon he was probably 25, and I'm like, Oh, he was old. But um, and they give it to this bloke, and um the couple of days previous, we'd out on a platoon run, like running in formation, and he couldn't keep up. And we'd do the old right wheel, continue the wheel, go back around, and that the staff are like, All right, everyone punch him as he goes past, we'll we'll make him speed up. Anyway, then a couple of days later, and they eventually went to hospital. Poor dude had pneumonia, he nearly died. And he's just he couldn't run on this run, but they're like, Everyone, as you run past him, punch him, and everyone's like, and some were more enthusiastic than others, you know. People like me are just like, give him a little call, mate, let's kind of go. But it was just a a different time. Um, I remember one time I um there was something wrong with how I made my my bed. I don't know if the you know the counterpane wasn't the correct length or something, and we're on the second floor, and this corporal got my bed, folded it up, and put it out, threw it out the window, and I'm standing there for my room inspection, my bed's gone out the window, and I'm like, um, Corporal, permission to uh go and get my bed, and he's like, no, stay there, and yeah, we're gonna finish the room inspection or whatever it was, and you know, it was just uh different times. But I I I actually liked it. I I I accepted that for what it was, like, okay, this is what the army is, and and I guess looking back, you know, you're trying to turn boys into men because they're they're in the army and the army's there for a reason, kind of thing. So whilst I say there was some bastardization and and stuff, it's like we had to move from probably there a little bit the other way, but I don't know if we've gone maybe too far, who knows? But um, but yeah, Kapuka, I I actually liked it. I'm like, this is the army, this is it, this is what I what I wanted to do, kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 22:03

So sorry, you'd be getting all the the Vietnam Warriors as well, wouldn't you?

SPEAKER_01 22:09

Oh no, not there, no. Singo we got a few, yeah. But at Kapuka, I think we had one infantry uh like instructor, but our sergeant was like an artillery, an engineer, a tanky dude. I can't remember where the other fella was from. So um, no, not really, no. Um it wasn't till Singo where we got a little a little bit of that. Um but uh yeah, so then uh Kapuka finished. Um uh you put your selections in, and I'm like armored, and there was no spots for armored at all. It was all infantry or catering. I'm like, oh my god, I'm not going, I'm not going to catering. So uh put down for infantry, which you know, in hindsight was unreal. I I love going to Singo. Um uh it was great. It was what I thought it I guess for me the army and sing-o, infantry was what I kind of thought the army was. Like they're the soldiers who do the stuff kind of thing. So um, yeah, Singo was great. Um learnt heaps, got to shoot guns and rockets and machine guns and like army stuff as a um I'm still I think I was still 17 by the time I was at Singo. Um so I was living my dream, really. Uh yeah, I I can't complain about Singo at all. It was great. Um finished at Singo. Uh I wasn't um I wasn't a star, but I was okay. You know, I did okay at everything. I I didn't get back squatted or moved back or anything like that. Got a few punch on with the miners at the um at the I think every bloke has every burn through singos. Has been through that one. We got restricted to the base a couple of times for being in fights and stuff in town, but I was never any good at it. I was just one of the side players who was like, Oh my god, what's going on here? Because yeah, you know, I'm a 17-year-old kid and some of the other dudes are like 25. To me, they were old, you know. So um, but yeah, single was great, loved that. Um that finished. I actually I can't remember if we got if you remember to got a preference or not, which battalion you wanted to go to. I I got a feeling you did.

SPEAKER_03 24:23

Yeah. Yeah, I think you always have. Yeah, I'm pretty sure, yeah. Well, I did obviously 2000s.

SPEAKER_01 24:28

So yeah, somewhere in the so because I'd wanted to go to armoured, I was like, oh, there's an infantry battalion that's got armored 5'7, so I'm like, I'll go there. Which I was look, everything worked out in the end. Um ramps down, bamps down. Yeah, yeah.

unknown 24:45

Wow.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

But yeah, so I I went to Holzworthy to 5'7 when it was before they split up and it was the um mechanised um battalion. Um, and I continued the steep learning curve of growing up because when I got to the battalion, there was some um proper guys who'd been in the army a long time. Um, they were uh a bit rough and tumble, I suppose. And you know, you're talking about it was different. We're still back then was when we had to at on payday, you would march into the company sergeant major's office, and he would have like a a couple of armed dudes with SLRs, and he had all the pay, and you would march in and say, you know, and Private Brooks, whatever your registered number was, um, and he would give you your pay slip and you would open, and it actually had the physical cash inside the pay slip, and you would get it out and count it and you'd in front of him and you'd salute, or not even salute, he was it, um, but you'd say, Yep, pay correct, sir, and you'd walk out with your cash uh money. It was just a different time, you know. So um, but yeah, 5.7 was was good. Um, it wasn't so I got there, I'm like, oh, okay, 5.7 doesn't have a great reputation as an infantry um and not much is going on as well. No, no, well, no one was going anywhere back then, not at all. So um, but I got opportunities, you know. I did my my driver's course to drive the old M113s um and did the crew commander's course as well, and you know, which was cool. I I enjoyed that. I kind of got to well, it wasn't a tank, but yeah, it was an armoured vehicle kind of thing. So um, but that was that was good. Uh I'm just trying to think. Nothing super interesting really at the battalion, just battalion life trainer bush and gunner pucker a lot, um, which was a bit sad and cold and horrible. Uh, the army has a unique ability to find training venues, I think, that are just in cold or wet or horrible places to send their soldiers to. I don't know why they it must be in their um in their checklist of things when they're looking for to buy a new bit of land. Yeah, is it cold? So um, but yeah, pretty uneventful at 5'7, really. Uh made a lot of good mates there. Um, probably to be fair, a really heavy drinking culture. Like we're drinking a lot um out every night, um, cutting it up, coming into you know, King's Cross and the City and the Rocks and all that every every um every weekend, spending all weekend in there. And but you know, we I'd get up, PT bright and early the next morning, and you know, big night in the booze. And but that was the cult that was it was a heavy drinking culture, I I guess. Um and then um and then and then a mate uh who I'll call Shane because I've got an interesting story to tell about him, and I don't want to say his other name, but I want him to know I'm thinking of him. So he says to me, Um, oh mate, I'm going to this info night about SAS. Do you want to come? And I'm like, What's SAS? I had no idea. I had no idea, no. Um and he goes, Oh, it's that's special forces. I'm like, oh, okay. I'm I kind of sort of knew anyway. So we go up to this information night, and there was a couple of the guys there, and this is how how far back we all were still in greens. The army was all wearing greens back then, but um Perth were the first ones to get uh the OzCam, I think they got. So they had they had cams on. So we go up there, they got their Sandy Berets and Cams, and I'm like, man, who are these guys with camo uniforms? And they had they did a presentation. I don't even remember heaps about it, but I do remember they had it on the old overhead projector, so where it'd have the light and the arm, and they just put a transparent slide on and it would project up onto the wall. And uh walked out of that, and I'm like, How the fuck do I go there? I want to do that. So um back then they had a program you could um print out, I suppose, and and um no, they actually physically gave you a copy, I think, because there was no you couldn't fucking print it back then. So they actually handed out copies of a training program, and so I did that, and and probably the other thing I did at 5.7 was we did the um the Duke of Gloucester Cup. Uh and so that would have been in 1989, and we actually did really well. I think we came third or fourth, um, which was unheard of for 5.7. We were always last. Um, but we had a a really good group of people who um well um two of us later got into SASR. Um but we actually did really well, and it was great training for the for the Carter course. But that said, I had no idea what even what the selection was because you you can't watch it, it was long before the you know there was no information on it, yeah. And and 5-7, we only had there was one guy who had tried out um but uh but had failed. So the only he was the only person I could go and go, oh what what do you do? What what is it? And he kind of like I walk around each of your pack on, whatever. So um so yeah, I followed that program. Um turned up to go and on the morning to go to the uh get the plane to fly to Perth. So there's me and another guy um who was a um a craftsman and he was coming for selection. I didn't know the bloke, but he turns out a good mate of mine now. But my other mate, Shane, turns up, we're all in uniform, ready to get on the raffle, and he's in his civvies. And I'm like, mate, what are you fucking doing? And he's like, Oh, and I can't remember. I think it was his his girl, uh girlfriend, I think he was married. He goes, Oh, his girlfriend, whatever, and oh, she told me last night she's pregnant, I can't go. And I'm like, bullshit, mate, get in, come on, mate, we're going, we're going. He's like, nah, nah, I can't go. And like it was bingo time, you know, to for the driver to go. And it's kind of like I'm grabbing him, going, mate, get your stuff and get he's like, nah, nah, not coming. So off we drove me and this other bloke, um, off on the adventure to Perth. Um, and yeah, SAS selection. So as a 19-year-old, uh, and again, I was still a kid, mate. I look at photos of me from back then, uh and I look, I've spent a lot of time selecting and and evaluating people now, and I'm like, what the fuck did they see in 19-year-old me? Really? And uh someone took a chance on me, right? At some point, they're like, All right, this kid must be, you know, we'll give him a go. Kind of, I must have shown him something because I I was I was a I was a good soldier, right? I was good at my field craft and all that stuff. I I was good at it, but I wasn't amazing, and I found that out once I got onto selection with a bunch of dudes from one and two, four, and six and three, all the other infrastructure, and I was like, man, these guys are fucking actually really good. Um so but yeah, I got onto the Carter course, um, and I've actually skipped something that's really interesting. So me and this Shane fella, we were both in Delta Company, and uh he uh the CSM calls us in. Uh his name's Roger Warren, and uh he was a tough old bloke. He's a woe to tough as nails, his next golden gloves boxer. I'd seen him beat up a few of the boys who actually beat them up, take them over the close training area. One two men go in, one come back, and it was always Rog. Right. He was tough, but he was really fair. Like we got in a lot of trouble fighting in Liverpool and stuff, and he'd be like, you know, ring me if you get locked up by the MPs and stuff like that. He he was good, he was hard, but he was good. Anyway, he um I I felt like a few of a bunch of us had a really good relationship with him. Anyway, he calls us into his office. We were meant to leave that weekend, it was a Friday, I think, and he calls us in, me and this Shane fella. And uh I'm thinking this is gonna be the mate, you know, boys, get over there, you know, no one from 5-7's ever done this, you know, get after it. I'm really proud. You know, I that's what I think I'm gonna get. And we walk in, knock on the door, yeah, come in here, stand there, and we're standing there at attention. And I'm thinking, oh, you know, at some point he's gonna just relax, boys. I just want to talk to you. No, we're standing there at attention. And he goes, Um, so you two sees you two can't think that you want to go over the fucking chicken stranglers, do you? Which is a nickname for the unit. And um, and I'm like, Oh yeah, yes, sir. And he goes, Well, if you don't like it here so much, don't think you're fucking welcome back here when you fucking fail. Now get out. And I'm like, is there like a hidden camera? So we about turn, march out, um, and that was all he said to us, right? Um, and once selection started, A, I was terrified of the of the directing staff, like they were proper men. I was 19, mate, but they were proper men, like SAS soldiers, there was ex-Vietnam, um guys that had done multiple tours in Vietnam on the directing staff, and like I I was a boy amongst men, and I'm only a little fella as well, you know. And um, but I was I had this constant voice in my head going, I'm fucking terrified of old Rog back at the battalion as well. So I can't go back there. I might as well stay here with these guys, kind of thing. And interestingly, I when I went back, Rog wasn't there, he must have been on leave or something. And I'd love to have asked him, was it was it a deliberate thing that he'd be psychology type thing, or or was he just a mean old bastard, you know? And I I've you know he'd be old now. What am I? I'm 56 now, you know.

SPEAKER_03 34:19

Let's track him down.

SPEAKER_01 34:21

Well, yeah, Rog, if you're out there, I I'd love to know. Um he was a good someone will, yeah. But it was really powerful motivation for me, mate. And and I talk that when I'm mentoring people about your motivation, the motivation just not fucking quit. You need something that's really powerful. And for me, it was fucking fear, mate. I was terrified. And there was kind of a bit of I was a bit too embarrassed, I would have been too embarrassed to go, oh, I I want to quit. So I just I just kept going and going and going. And eventually I kind of um got to the end, you know. Like I remember after back then um they just brought in you couldn't withdraw in the first four days because what a lot of people apparently were doing was they would um apply for SAS, fly get the flight to Perth, because there was only one RAF flight a week going to Perth. Oh, so you get a few days off to go over there, they'd pull a pin and they'd have a week off in Perth, right? So they brought in this thing where you couldn't withdraw for the first four days.

SPEAKER_03 35:21

Only diggers would figure that out.

SPEAKER_01 35:23

Oh mate, the digger network, mate, they're pretty smart. Um but at day four, they would sit down. I remember sitting down with these a couple of these um a warrant officer and a sergeant who one of the sergeants ended up being a patrol commander in my troop when I when I was successful, and they're like, You haven't done the work here, your your shit, you know, give me the whole thing. And I'm sort of sitting there going, Oh man, oh no, I'm gonna have to go back and face Rog kind of thing. And then and I'm like, and they're like, Well, what are you gonna fucking do then? And I said, Oh, well, am I allowed to keep going, Sergeant? He's like, Well, you can if you want, but I'm telling you, you're not gonna and I'm like, Oh, well, if I can keep going, I will. Um, and and I did. And again, um uh Pete Whiteley was the guy. He's uh unfortunately died fairly recently, and he turns out he's a great dude, right? And I was in the troop with him and and uh I asked him about it later. He goes, Oh mate, everyone got that speech. It was just something that every everyone got the your shit just to see if you'll chuck it in, right? Um, but yeah, mate, the the Carter course was something else. It it was wild. It was really hard.

SPEAKER_03 36:27

And there was no time frame back then, was there? It was just uh they stopped it when they wanted to stop it pretty much.

SPEAKER_01 36:32

No, it was 21 days, I think. Yeah, but there was a period where they No, not that I remember. I know it felt pretty fucking long at different times.

SPEAKER_02 36:44

Yeah, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 36:45

But um, yeah, so we're up at the old Northam Army camp in Perth, and uh it was like I said, I was just along this crazy ride that I just was like, alright, I'll just hang on. And the crazy ride kind of kept going, and and um I just kept turning up and um I I felt like once things got hard, uh really hard, like uh they had a lucky dip, like the the Sterling Rangers, which there's all these phases. Um Sterling Rangers where you go out by yourself, happy wanderer, they call it, and you um I think they've changed it a bit now. I don't know if they go to the Sterlings anymore. I think they got in trouble because it's a national park, and but um you weren't allowed to walk on the roads and the bush was horrendous, but you had to get a certain number of peaks in four days. Like um the guns got six peaks, and like when I say get peaks, like you would get dropped off at your first by yourself, they'd kick you out of the uni mog and they'd give you your grid reference to your your first peak, and they weren't mountain peaks. And I remember getting off the out of the back of the unimog, the DS would come over and go, right, Brooks, here's your first checkpoint. Do you nav data sheet? Yep, did that, come back, and like, all right, you know where you're going. I'm like, yep. And way in the distance, my first checkpoint was 17 point something kilometers away. But I didn't need a mat and a compass, I was just looking in the distance. There's this mountain, and I would just and they were all you just crisscross all across the the um, and you weren't allowed to walk at night, but you're by yourself, so there was no one yelling at you, and it got a lot of people because they didn't like being by themselves, but I was like, how fucking good's this? You know, you you stopped whenever you you wanted, um, you could set your hoochie up, like you didn't have to do the tack tactical low hoochie. I had a big fucking tent up. I thought I was living like a king, mate. You know, I'd stop 40 minutes before it got dark, and I'd set up my hoochie, have dinner, get in bed, get 12 hours' sleep, get up the next morning and and go to the next checkpoint. Now I only got five, you know, like I said, the guns got got six. Um, but I remember getting to the top of one of the checkpoints and and um and it was getting late in the afternoon, and uh I was like, You got these DS that are living up there four days on top of these mountains, they're SA spikes, they probably didn't care. But I was uh I got this checkpoint and it was getting really late in the evening, and like they were proper mountains, like it's fucking steep. And uh I got my checkpoint and he goes, Here's your next one, did me a nav data sheet, did all the stuff, and he's like, So um, I can't remember what they called us. Fucking applicant or whatever it was, um, what are you gonna do? Are you gonna stay up here on the mountain with me tonight or are you gonna start making your way to the next fucking checkpoint? And I'm like, there is no fucking way I'm staying up here with him. So I started going down this mountain, and I it just got dark, and I'm on this like mountain that's like really steep, and it's dark, and I don't I cannot go on, and there was nowhere flat. So I basically just wedged myself in between two trees so I wouldn't roll down the hill and just slept there for the night like that until it got daylight the next morning. I'm like, should have stayed up there on the flat with the SAS bloke. But um, I love that part of it just out by myself, stomping around. It was hard. Um, but I had a pretty good strategy. I'm like, okay, I can get to here, all that kind of stuff. So I like that. And then you had a thing called um Lucky Dip, which is where they you go basically day and night, they give you you know stretcher carries and trailers with one wheel missing and all those kinds of things, and and that's where things got like proper really physically and and mentally hard. Um, and I actually don't remember thinking about quitting, or I was just like do the next thing, and and by then you were split up into syndicates, so the the little syndicate that we had um was good, like we had a good relationship with the group of guys, and we were working well, and um yeah, so um just toughed it out. And in the end, I there's I've got a photo somewhere of us all standing, someone snapped a photo of us all standing on the road, um, you know, at the end of it, and you're like, you don't know how you're gone, and they'll they read out a bunch of names. If your name gets read, go over there behind the shed. If your name doesn't get read, I can't remember what happened, go wherever it was, and you and you start you're hearing people's names get read out. And by the end of it, you've got a pretty good idea. Like, there's some dudes from the from the um some of the townsville battalions that I was just like, they're obviously gonna get picked, and you're starting to hear people's names who are getting told to go screw the good ones, and I'm like, Yeah, all right, I want my name to get read out, I want to go where they're where they're going, kind of thing. And uh fortunately enough, got my my name got read out, go over there, and I'm like, but you're still not sure. Um, then you get told that you've um been selected, and um it it's it's almost it's a massive relief, but I don't clearly kind of really remember it. Like it's because you're so fucking tired, mate. Like it's just you're just exhausted, and but you get told that that you're in, um, and uh yeah, and so the the SAS journey um began, mate. But uh like some of the PT sessions we did were wild. There's an old runway up at um Northern Army camp, like it's an old World War II Army camp, I think. Um some of the room inspection stuff was pretty funny too. But um we had a we had a PT session up there one day on the airfield and it was pretty hot. And I remember the Ambos were there, and they pulled out two body bags and laid them like on the ground. And the the corporal who they they used to call him Corporal Punishment, he'd be the one who administered all the punishments for any fuck-ups that he said done. And he's like, We're not fucking leaving here until those body bags are full. And I'll tell you what, by the end of that thing, I was like, I reckon these dudes are serious. I reckon they're not gonna keep going until there's a couple of us have dropped dead. Um, but yeah, it was just horrendous, like PT and and all that. But like I said, I I just I was young and I was just like, okay, this is it was just an adventure. Yeah, I'm yeah, yeah. And I don't know if compliant is the right word, but it was kind of like okay, I've got to do that, all right, I'll go do that. Like I I wasn't a combative. I w I wonder whether if I was a bit older, would I have been like, I fuck I'm I'm not fucking doing that, or this fuck this, this is stupid. But anyway, I I um I stuck it out and and got selected. So um, and yeah, my my adventure continued as a boy, really, among men. And um I I don't know if this is true, but I have people have told me who've been in the unit a long time that I was the youngest person to ever pass. Now, I don't know how he ever verified that, and I can't, but I have been told that, and it would be I would have to be in the running, I I think. Um, and again, at the time, you don't you don't know, but this is only the last few years. This like um told me about that. And then he goes, Oh, he said something, do you realize you're still the youngest ever? I'm like, I never asked him, how do you how do you know that? Like, I don't think they check the it's not like cricket stats where they go, he's there somewhere 19 and 234 days. I don't know, but uh I was young and I look back at it now and I'm really proud of myself. It was of course yeah, it was a lot, and uh no easy feat. Yeah, and I've always said if I wrote a book, I'd just caught too scared to quit. I'm not going back. Rog so if you're out there, Rog, or someone who knows, yeah, he'd be old now. Like I'm 56 now, you know, 19, he'd be in his 80s or 90s or something now, but I'd love to hear from him.

SPEAKER_03 44:06

Yeah, mate, yeah. So from there, obviously you move into your reinforcement cycle. How long is that cycle? You know, I've had a whole bunch of SAS uh guys on the podcast. I'm sure it's changed over the years. You know, we're going back in what this is 1990s, so 90, yeah, 90s, 90 in the morning. Yep.

SPEAKER_01 44:22

Um quite a bit different back then. Um, obviously it's pre-the Afghan war and all that. So um mine was fairly uh short. So we did the patrol course, which I I reckon was about 12 weeks up in um Kernbaloomba Dam up in North Queensland. I reckon is it near Tully somewhere? Um but anyway, North Queensland. Um and the patrol course was unreal, mate. Like we were going out on two-day nursery patrols with patrol commanders from Vietnam who are like legends in the unit, like Joe Van Droffler and a bunch of other dudes, and like they're legends around the around the the unit. And we'd go and do patrols, and then at night we'd sit down and they he'd light a little fire and they'd talk to you about stuff that had happened in Vietnam and just just talking stuff. And uh, like I said, I'm 19, mate, and I'm like, he's these guys who have been to war in Vietnam and they're telling all their stories about famous things that the SAS had done, and um, it was great, and I was learning heaps. I was sometimes I think you know, like I said, there was guys that I went through with that were, like I said, much better soldiers than me. But if you spend enough time with people who are really good, you start to learn and and you start to absorb some of their goodness, I think. So um, but yeah, so you know, it was I I was learning heaps, it was it was hard. The patrol course was hard, mate. Um, a lot of display. And walking really slow with heavy packs like jungle warfare because that was the back then it was all post-Vietnam jungle warfare was the was all the doctrine come from Vietnam. Yeah. Yeah, it's a lot different now because of Afghanistan and all that. But the jungle warfare was it. So really slow movement and patrolling and OPs and traditional, I guess, SAS kind of roles. So um so yeah, it was hard, it was wet all the time. And um, but yeah, it was great. I I learned heaps. Um, and you know, at any time I was kind of like, when's someone gonna come and go, all right, young fella? You know, you you've had your you kind of had your fun, you know, it's time to move on, but it didn't happen. So I did the patrol course, um, then went down to now I did the basic para course. Um again, I I didn't like parachuting, mate. I I just did, and I'm only a little dude, and you know, when I when I was looking at you today and you were talking about how you got injured parachute, I'm like, I used to watch the big guys come in and you'd like you'd watch them coming down, coming down, coming out, and just right at the last minute, I'd just look away because you don't want to see the big because you've got the same size parachute as I've got, and I would land fairly hard, but the big boppers would come in. So, but I just I just it really skipped, but I I I did it right, it's the old um pack mentality, I suppose. You're in the plane, you know, doing your thing. So, but um so I did the basic para course. I think I might have done a demolitions course, maybe, and then you get your you get your uh the beret presented to you by the CO and um and and then you you start like your um other kind of courses. So back then it was you either did a vehicle-mounted course, uh water operator course, or you did a military free-fall course. Which one of those three do you reckon I got?

SPEAKER_03 47:33

Oh, free-fall, yeah. So yeah. So bit different a static one, though.

SPEAKER_01 47:39

It is, but I was no good. I wasn't good at it. I I was a flying brick, right? I but anyway, so I I did the military free-fall course, pass it to an okay standard. Um I wasn't one of those guys who just loved skydiving, you know. There's guys in my troupe that were going out jumping on the weekends, and and they could fly in and and you know, do formations and stuff, and they'd be like, Brooksy, come and do this, and I'll be just like, this guy flying way over by myself because I couldn't. But I I kind of did okay. And um I I didn't again, I I didn't love that, but I love being with the guys who were doing it and all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 48:14

So um just back, you got your beret before all this.

SPEAKER_01 48:18

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 48:19

And mate, run me through that because you're so young. Now you've been award, you know, uh presented your beret for the SSR.

SPEAKER_04 48:26

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:27

The Tier 1 operational unit here in Australia, back then, definitely. You're still young, like you've gone from being a boy to becoming a man.

SPEAKER_01 48:36

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 48:36

Like I How are you feeling? Like, was it just like fuck yeah?

SPEAKER_01 48:40

Like I've But I think, mate, because I was the the guys I was doing it with had have had already become lifelong friends. So it was kind of it was almost like a footy team with the boys, yeah. And it was almost like a group achievement. I don't I've never really thought about this before. It's almost like it was a group achievement that you did individually. Does that make a little bit of sense? I've never kind of thought of it that way, but I mean you know, my mum uh and and my stepdad were there, you know, and vi they came over for the presentation and and all that kind of thing. And um what about your brother?

SPEAKER_03 49:13

He's he's joined 5-7 at the stage.

SPEAKER_01 49:15

I don't think he was over for the presentation. I don't think he'll kill me if he was. I'm sorry, Bob. Um, but no, I don't think he did come over, mate. No, and look, I I've always had a good relationship with my brother. I just maybe it was an army thing he couldn't get over or something. I don't know, maybe they wouldn't give him leave. Who knows? Um I don't know. It's like this kind of almost like this dream that was just happening, happening to this kid kind of thing. And and sometimes when I don't know, I've heard sporting people say um, you know, like young people that might win a grand final early in their career when they're young, and that then they might win one later on, and they're like, oh, that's what it means to get. I don't know whether there's something in that because I I just it happened young and I didn't really appreciate the significance of the thing at the time because to me it was just not being a smoke, but it was kind of normal. I was doing it with my mates, and I got a berry, and all my mates kind of got one, and you know, it it's um yeah, but it was like this massive adventure that I was on that with with all my mates, it was so good. And and we're sort of talking before, that's you know, the I love the work and I loved the army, and same with the police, but the people is what I love spending time with. So um, but yeah, so yeah, did did the courses, got to my troop, which was K Troop, and that's where I spent my whole time there. Um and it was there that I really started to learn about growing up and and soldiering and actually becoming pretty good at the the job of being an SAS trooper kind of thing. You know, you you you're in a very small to four-man patrol, so you know, you've got a sergeant as the patrol commander, a a senior corporal who's been around a long time within your team and one or two others, and and you're the brand new, and not only was I brand new, but I was not I was probably 20 by the time I was 20 by the time I got to the troop. Um, and like I said, there was a couple of guys in my troop that were on selection that I was terrified of of beating that. And uh, but you know, you get chatting up and they're like, okay, yeah, right, he's doing his job on selection and all that kind of thing. So um, but uh yeah, quite a few of my um back then the Rio cycle, like we all went into three squadron, um, and it's kind of how it worked. They had a rotating system, so the like your squadron would rotate through each role. So year one was like selection, getting new people. Year two, you would like the on-call um squadron to go like um Desert Storm was something that happened while I was which is Norman Swartz Golf's side. Yeah, 1991. Yeah, yeah. So that was I was on the on-call war roll squadron when that all took off.

SPEAKER_03 52:02

Um and just quickly, let's talk about that quick because nothing's been happening in the defence force, and then all of a sudden, Gulf War kicks off. Major war, yeah. Yep, and obviously you guys get stood to, and it's just like nothing. It's like a donkey with a carrot, nothing, yeah. And then obviously the Australian government's like, nah, we're not seeing it.

SPEAKER_01 52:20

Yeah, nah, nah. And that was actually hard, mate. It was I think in in the end, I'll talk about why I left, but I that was hard. And I was thinking about this on the train on the way in. How do you say to the public I I kind of wanted to go to a war? I I wanted to find out how I would go. I wanted to, I wanted to be tested, kind of thing. And now I've got a lot of mates who have actually been to war and hurt and other things. I'm like, oh, maybe I didn't want to go to war. Maybe I was a bit naive. I I don't know. It's a tricky one.

SPEAKER_03 52:51

They do, yeah. Crazy, crazy.

SPEAKER_01 52:52

You know the life. Yeah, yeah. So, but yeah, mate, I that was frustrating. It hurt, you know, we're ringing up, gone. Do you need us to come back? Because we're on leave. Do you want us to come back? And they're like, no, no, no. Um, so but yeah, so year two was that, and then the third year you'd go on to the counter-terrorism squadron, and probably back then that was like the the big focus of of of the unit, um, counter anti-counter terrorism. Um and the courses, so the CQB courses back then were like mini selection, mate. It was fucking hard every day on the line. The feedback was you know, lock on. It wasn't coaching, it was yelling, it was PT, it was um just brutal for four or five or six weeks, I can't remember now. Um it was proper hard. Um and because the CT capability, that's the unit was getting a lot of money because of raising and holding this because there was back then um uh two command or tag East didn't exist, but Perth held the counterterrorist responsible for the whole of Australia. So it was it was kind of the thing, you know, to be on the CT because there was no uh operational thing. So it was like that was where the money was and the training, and we'd had this brand new facility built in Perth. Um so yeah, and yeah, so and that's how the cycle just um continued. Then once you came off CT, you'd go into year one, you guys run selection, year two again, war rolls, green roll kind of stuff, and then CT again, and that's back then that's how the cycle kind of um continued. And um yeah, and mate, I I guess nothing super interesting. I do tell a stro a story about my parachuting prowess that's kind of funny, but it's not. But um I we had a a parachute um in Sherson on an exercise up in um like Northwest West Australia, northern Terry, somewhere up there in the middle of friggin' nowhere. It was a night jump. And um so it's a bit hard on a podcast, but um the idea is we had a five-man team, and as you as each person jumps out, you have a siloom stick on your boot and which you break. So when you're in free fall, the idea is the first person goes and you can if you're the last one out, you can see the siloom sticks of everyone kind of in a in a in a diagonal stack through the air. That's the how it's meant to work. So you have this massive your bat your pack on the front and obviously parachute on your back and your rifle. So anyway, I was a signaller too. I did a patrol SIG course. I I don't know whether they thought this will be funny. Well mate, the little fella do the SIG, so he's got to carry the radio on the batteries and stuff. But anyway, and um anyway, so I Scott, or the jumping equipment is all about aerodynamics, right? You're going 200 kilometres an hour towards the earth, roughly, I suppose. Anyway, as I go out, I kind of go out and you start to come out with your with your stomach towards the ground, and um my pack was kind of kind of moved a bit, and you get taught, you know, if it starts to spin, you kind of just correct it and you kind of fly a little bit or whatever. Anyway, so I start to spin a little bit, and I think, all right, I've got to I've got to fix this up. Bear in mind, it is pitch black, like there is not a town in sight, there is not a a light source anywhere other than on my silo on my boot, and there's a little one on my altimeter um that you had so you knew when, and this is before um now they have a thing called a AA AAD, I think, automatic activation device, and it and it fires at a certain barometric pressure, and it'll so if you get knocked out, your parachute will automatically open. This is before that. So, you know, I jump out, I start to do this spin, and I've actually seen a video of another bike doing it in daytime, and I start so I try to fix it. So I kind of you lower one arm and you know, and so but whatever I did didn't fix it, it made it worse. So I start spinning even faster, right? So I'm like start by now I'm doing um 360s heading towards the earth. It's pitch black at night, and everything I did just seemed to make things worse. So I was still faced towards the earth. I wasn't doing somersaults, I was just flat but laterally spinning. And anyone who's done this, they'll be like, yeah, I know what Brooksie's talking about. But everything I did, it seemed to go fast and it made it go faster and faster. In the end, I couldn't even turn my head to look at my altimeter to see how high I was. Um, and by now I'm like almost spinning that fast. I think I'm gonna freaking pass out. And there's rules, right? You're meant to check above you before you deploy your parachute because if you deploy and someone's straight up there, they hit you at 200 kilometres out. Not cool. Um and anyway, but I'm starting to spin, and there's all these other rules, and I'm and they're you're meant to dump at your certain height, but I can't even see this fucking thing as I'm spinning so fast. And in the end, I'm like, oh fuck, I've got to do something because I I'm like any second, how long have I been? Because you normally get about 40 seconds before you're meant to of free fall from 12,000 to 4,000. I think it's about 40 seconds of free fall you get, but I had no fucking idea how long I've been going. So anyway, I finally go, you know what, I've got to do something. So I get my hands up somehow. I'm I'm now starting to do all kinds of weird stuff because I'm bringing you got to bring your hands in to get to the to the ripcord, and I hit it and out it comes, and it's all twisted and shit, but it stopped me fucking spinning, and eventually I fixed it up and got the canopy out. And um, I can't remember how high I was, but I had plenty of time. It wasn't like catastrophic. But um there's I've actually got a photo um at home, I'll show you later on my phone of going out. Um, and I it's like the the second before the 40 most terrifying seconds of my fucking life as I'm like plummeting towards it, and it was just black. Like if you shut your eyes as hard as you can, that's how black it was while I was falling towards the earth. It was wild, mate. So, like I said, I wasn't good at parachuting and I didn't like it, but you know, um, and then it took me forever to find my patrol as well because I'd been separated and I was like, it was just a shit fight, mate. And I was pretty new, and my patrol commander was actually Dave, he was really good about it in the end. I finally found him, and it's like fucking hell, what else can what else can kind of go wrong? So um, but yeah, so I did the counter-terrorism team twice. It was great, but part of that is probably why I ended up in Victoria. So back then we used to um we used to uh go to each one of the capital cities for a national exercise, and you'd exercise with the like down here the Sog and your stuff. Well, I'll tell you all the main cities and you'd do an ex a major counter-terrorism exercise. And back then it was like taking an embassy or taking a plane. That was back then, that's what terrorism kind of was, you know. It wasn't like it is now where they're just trying to run over people with cars or what it was, you know, your traditional take hostages, make demands. Think of Princess Gate, yeah, when 22 SAS did that hit. It was that's how that was the main things we trained for. So um, and I remember we were down here for an exercise with the SOG, and um, we're doing this, can't remember what it was, but they all just packed up and fucked off because they had a real job, and where they're like the the elite SAS are standing there going, Oh, we'll keep doing an exercise. They fucked off, went on a job, shot a dude dead, and we're back the next day doing our doing this exercise with us. I'm like, who's fucking who's who here kind of thing? Obviously, that changed a lot in the early 2000s, but back then it was like, fuck, the boys have they're actually doing a lot of yeah, a lot of stuff. So um, yeah, mate. So yeah, um, but other than that, like life in the SAS was good for a young fella, mate, living in Perth.

SPEAKER_03 1:00:48

And it was just training, yeah. Just training, training, training.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:51

I away a lot because we do heaps of exercises and um But you're young, single. Yep, young and single, and um drinking with the boys. Yeah, and it was like footy trips all the time, really. You know, I lived in the barracks most of the time. Um, did get a house up in Scarborough there for a while with a few of the lads, and uh it was that was good fun. Um, but yeah, it was great. I I I loved it. Um and then I got to the point, if I'm skipping over some stuff here, but I got to the point 1996 where I was like, I'd been in the army like nine, nine years or so, and I I've it was the only job I ever had, and I saw like geez, do I want to be in the army my whole life or do I want to get out and go and do you know, go and try something else? Because like I said, I hadn't had another job. So I decided to snatch it and get out. Um I had one eye on joining the police, either in New South Wales up home or down here.

SPEAKER_03 1:01:51

Um just quick there was a whole bunch of carrots, obviously Somalia kicked off, Rwanda, a few of those things. So there's there's carrots dangling, but they just weren't sending.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:01

Yeah. Well, Somalia um we sent a small group, I think ten, um, over there to help with escorting people um like dynastries from the airport to the embassies and stuff like that. Um and ironically, um a lot of those movements they were doing it in M113s, and I was in the squadron then, and I'm like, surely the only five set I'm the only qualified dude. Um, but they sent more senior guys than than me. And to be fair, probably guys that were better solids than I was, I guess. But I was that that that disappointed me when I didn't get to go on that because they sent them away to learn how to drive them and stuff.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:36

I'm like, yeah, I mean yeah, kind of that's what I mean. Like that's probably part of the reason why you eventually get out just because you said you wanted to go to war, like 1991 pops up.

SPEAKER_01 1:02:48

Fuck man, like it was probably, yeah. That was the Bravo 20. Exactly right, yeah. I've heard a few people on your podcast talk about reading Bravo 2.0 and I think everyone has, yeah. And that that made them want to go to the SAS, and you know, we're we're sitting in Swanborne kind of thing, going, she's gonna be good to get over there amongst it.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:06

We are in the SAS and we're not doing it.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:08

We're not, yeah. So um, but yeah, so so I got out and then I had what I call a couple of gap years.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:15

Um what was the plan? So you so obviously you get out of the defence. What is your what is your solid plan? Is there a plan or are you just like it was a solid plan?

SPEAKER_01 1:03:22

No, I just um but I the wanted to join the police.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:27

No, blew it up.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:28

My kids might listen to this, mate. No, not not really. I I I pissed it all up the wall. Pissed it up the wall, most of it, yeah. Um you know, I wasn't super but but I look back at it though, mate, and go, you know what, that's made me who I am today, and and memories of getting on the boys, if you wanted to do a podcast on stories on getting on their piss on the piss with their mates, I could do that for you. But you know, the I still catch up with those guys now. We'll laugh about some of the stuff we used to do and all that was was awesome. But no, the police was though. Um but I felt like So it was on your radar, yeah, yeah, 100%. Yeah, um, it was just either in New South Wales or um down here because they were the two teams that back then I thought when we'd exercise with them were the ones that were the best kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:13

So sorry, you did uh when you're talking about the counter-terrorism stuff, so you were working with SOG and the tactical team up in Queensland or New South Wales. Yeah, yeah, we'd done exercise with all of them, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:25

Northern Territory, all the states. Yep. Um we'd done exercise with all of them and it was just a more of a vibe thing, I I suppose. Um so yeah, and then yes, I got out of the army. Um I dagged around. I had a few shit jobs. I worked with a mate who was um he had a strata maintenance business, and he we're just mowing lawns, and it was all around the eastern suburbs of Sydney in summer, and we'd go to the pub and have cannaries for lunch and beers, and I loved it, mate. It was fucking grouse, it was good fun. Um Wayne was a ripping fella, um, he's an ex-copper in New South Wales Copper, and um it was just good fun. And I I did that part-time for a while and but dagged around and then um I thought, alright, I'll I've I've had enough now. I've I've been mucking around for two years, so I applied. So I go back a little bit. So my best mate from school, he basically joined the army when I sorry, he joined the police in New South Wales when I joined uh the army. Um and I was sitting down with him one night, funnily enough, having a few beers, and I was talking about, you know, I think I'm gonna join the coppers. And back then, I don't know if it's still the same now, but I think back then you had to pay your own way in New South Wales to go to the as a recruit. I I think like it was like paid, yeah. And anyway, but they just had a thing called the Wood Royal Commission, it was all about corruption and stuff like that. And um Laurie said to me, he goes, mate, don't join up here, the job's fucked.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:56

Um New South Wales, yeah, yep, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:58

And um, and I was like, oh well, what would I know? So I'm like, all right, well I'll join the police down in Victoria. So um got online, had the internet by then, um got online, did the application to to do the stuff down here. Most of the stuff I could do remotely. Um I did have to come down here for an aptitude test, I think, and and something else.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:21

Sorry, when you did that two years of fluffing around, that was up in New South Wales, was it? Yeah, went home.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:25

Mum mum lives.

SPEAKER_03 1:06:26

Back in Gloucester.

SPEAKER_01 1:06:27

Yeah. Yep. Yeah, just dagging her. I played a lot of golf. I improved, I improved a bit. Um actually, uh, an interesting thing happened to me as I was telling you before, I decided I'd go back to playing rugby league. Um and and first practice game back, went the tackler dude, fell over, dislocated my shoulder, and it had a an interesting effect on me later on, that first one, because it had it had loosened it, I guess. Um, so yeah, then an interesting thing happened later on. But yeah, the the foot. So I'd played a few rugby league games at Gloucester. I was like, this is fun. I loved it, and I loved tackling, I loved the physical part of rugby. I was only a little fella, but I was an annoying little halfback, and um I wasn't super fast or him, but I was tough. I like tackling, and me and my mate Laurie, he was the 5'8, and we just loved tackling dudes, big fellas like you. We'd go, Yeah, come on, big fella, let's go. Um, but yeah, so um, but yeah, and like I said, yeah, so applied to join the police down here. Um I don't remember the process being super long like it was what it was. I was like, I was in no hurry.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:32

Um this is about nineteen ninety nine. Yep. So at this stage too, ninety nine, this is where INEFET kicks off for the defence force.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:07:42

So are you seeing all this as well and thinking, Fuck, maybe Yeah, maybe well the the

SPEAKER_01 1:07:48

Main thing kicked off was Timor in ninety nine, but I was in the academy. I remember when they showed the I remember sitting in the the common room thing at the police academy. Um they showed the Australian C 130s landing in Timor and I was like fuck Okay. Yeah Have I done the right thing here kind of thing so but by the time it really got going I was in the in the SOG and and that kind of thing so um but yeah went to the uh the police academy it was fine like compared to Kapuka the police academy was was easy totally different yeah it was easy and it was nowhere near as PC as it probably is now like there was still a bit of yelling and a bit of um bit of business going on but it it wasn't super hard um studying for law exams I actually found hard um I wasn't super great at school I I didn't I was the classic didn't apply myself spend less time trying to be the class clown kind of every guest I've had on the podcast yeah pretty much I actually think there's something in that hundred percent it is when you're selecting people and you know there's unicorns out there that did brilliantly at school and end up in the rough and tumble world of that but there's something in it the the the the the ra ra muckabout kind of kids that could have gone either way um but yeah so the academy in that part of it was kind of hard I had to work pretty hard to be able to pass the law exams um but yeah it was fine um again made good real good mates in the academy um real good and how long was the academy back then 20 weeks I think yeah 20 weeks um and did you get any placements out to stations uh yeah I went to St Kilda police station um how'd you go again coming from a tier one organization where it's just running and gunning you know to the best of your ability moving down to you know I guess the cop level the GD level it's it's it's it's a you know it's it is a slower pace and obviously more of a civilian pace in a way yeah it was it was actually good I I was just like okay I've got to learn this kind of it was I I had to learn how to be a be a policeman kind of thing so there are some similarities I guess in the two roles but I had to learn stuff how how does how does this all work and that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 1:10:14

It's like another adventure for you.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:15

Yeah another little adventure for Brooksy turned out to be 25 years 50 years later. But yeah so um yeah so I I had a placement in St Kilda for a week but back then it was like sit in the watch house and you know don't fuck up answer the phone kind of didn't do much really um but then I finished the academy um you do a whole graduation parade and all that kind of do some drill which is kind of funny with civvies which is it's kind of cops trying to be yeah civvies trying to do drill it was pretty funny but then we didn't do too bad. But then I got sent to Springvale um which is a eastern suburb suburb of Melbourne um and unknowingly to me because I I didn't know Melbourne at all so I drove down to Melbourne I had an ex-army mate who lived down here on Friday had the weekend at his house on the piss and Monday I went into the academy and I had nowhere to live like I was like oh well when I get my station I'll make mates and I'll share house with someone or so that was the plan that was my plan I told you adventure so I got sent to Springvale um and at that time Springvale was a really high street drug trade heroin back then and basically in Melbourne broadly speaking if you were buying heroin this is pre before ice became the pain in the ass that it is today but you either bought it on the street at Springvale uh there was Russell Street in the city here and there was a bit of it in foot scray in the arcade there but that's where people went to buy drugs on the street and literally um in Springvale on Springvale Road um drug dealers would like stand on the side of the road and druggies heroin addicts would like just pull over and they'd run up to the car you chase them give them the give them the heroin swap the money and they just drive off um like it like they it was like um like prostitutes standing along along the street like it was so as a young fella working there like there was people were stealing cars to get there they were doing burgs on houses around there to get they'd steal a video recorder or something and take it down to cash inverters get 50 bucks for it and go and buy a a a deal of heroin and and and so the the level of crime there the street crime it was like cops and robbers mate it it was it was what I thought policing police kind of was and it was and it was wild it was really wild and and it was I'd never seen an illegal apart from marijuana I'd never seen heroin before in my life you know and I'm like you know I'd I was 20 oh what was I 29 I'd never seen heroin before I'd never I'd just never been in that kind of circle you know and now here I am like you know there's blokes holding like they used to put the little deals of heroin in like a a water balloon and tie it off and they'd hold they'd put them in their mouth under their tongue and they'd just walk the streets with it stuck in their um in their mouth and um some of the boys would just they'd know they're drug dealers and they'd they just walk past you and yeah you'd search them and they just have a like a hide and chewy you know under your under your tongue. And um some of the boys they used to call it the Springvale choke I'm out now it doesn't matter but they would just walk up to some of these drug dealers and just grab them by the throat and hold them because they would just swallow it if if they thought they were on you were under them they would just swallow whatever drugs they had in them and and then to get it out they just take go around the corner and put their fingers down their throat and spew it back up and they'd get it back. So a lot of boys used to grab them by the throat stop them from swallowing just hold them down and they'd be like they'd get them down on the ground so they couldn't they couldn't swallow and um first time I saw that I'm like right okay that's what we're doing around here is it but it was great mate it was um it it was a massive eye opener to me you know I grew up in little country towns um now I was in a I I'd lived in Sydney obviously but growing up I I'd little country towns and now here I was like punching on with drug dealers and it was fucking unreal mate and yeah I guess you come from that that you know that military background the SSR but it's just training training training training yeah exactly you know the fictitious enemy out there and now you're in the cop's knee actually dealing with somewhat the enemy yeah with with the police when you first get in does anyone know your background um no no not really but people ask you talk and and they they find out but it wasn't super well known then either yeah um because nothing's going on again yeah nothing yeah so people be like oh what's the SAS like for for for different reasons now I suppose everyone knows what it is but back then no I was just another another dude but I I um to be honest mate I when I got to um Springvale it was a a lot of really senior mainly guys working there um and they were uh how do I put it they were very um insular and tight and worked well together and I I actually got a pretty good ride because I was brand new but I was an exSA dude so I actually to be fair I did get a a bit of credibility kind of um for that but it was so good mate police pursuits back then when you could actually chase people um even foot pursuits chat like one night it's a it's a nothing story but one night we were on night shift and um there's these we drive down past this um uh closed bottolo and uh there's these two shit bags hanging around the bottolo and I don't know if you're old enough do you remember the the the um cougar bourbon um advertising campaign where they they had that woman on there and it was like three five cougars thanks or something like that. Yeah yeah yeah yeah yeah business so these dudes were um trying to nick a uh sign off the wall of that a picture of this woman off the wall we're on night shift nothing to do anyway we loop back around come around and they've spotted us anyway these two dudes take off so I'm not driving the car I'm the passenger in the Divi van I'm the young fella so out I get right and I'm in I'm chasing this bloke like he's he's trying to steal a fucking a poster off the wall but I'm like I'm fucking gonna get him so I chased him down this down the road down through this thing I chased him for probably half a K. Like he was pretty good. And anyway eventually I caught him in this um caught him in this lane way tucking him to the ground give him a bit of fucking don't run away from me kind of thing as you did back then I get the handcuffs on him and get up to me offside yeah come down here I've got this bloke and anyway I'm sitting there talking to him and he goes oh man you're the first cop that's ever fucking caught me he goes I've run from the cops heaps I've never come up before he goes you're fucking fast but I I love that part of it mate it was so good it was heaps of fun um and and there was a good camaraderie right we we worked with a busy police station um but we didn't get snowed down with like heavy domestic violence things um it tires up a lot of copper's time now whereas back then you know if if a bloke and his a a bloke and his missus were fighting we'd turn up there and go hey cut it out or we'll come back here and smack you around the head or something and he'd be like yeah okay no reason we'd leave it's like and that was it or hey mate have you got can you go and stay at someone's house like if you've got a mate's place you can go and stay at go and do that and we'd just go onto the next on to the next job kind of thing but now and look it had to change because people women were being fucking murdered by men you know so in domestic violence a lot so we had to it had to change I get it but geez it's it takes up a lot of policing time now yeah um which you know it it it makes it hard because when you you want to get and patrol around and catch dudes trying to steal the poster off the wall and chase them and catch them kind of thing so um yeah it made it it was a good it was a really good time just a good introductory to the police it was I would go back so in your first two years as a policeman back then every six months you had to go back to the academy for a week and you would I don't know you'd do some courses in fucking whatever and people would come and talk to you or whatever and I'd tell stories about stuff I was doing at Springvale and my squad mates like are you in the same fucking police force as us like there's a heap of stuff that's not safe for um for for the world wide web but um I was like oh okay I'm actually on a good good thing here kind of thing so yeah I'm trying to think of some other I can tell you the first time I ever got my gun out yeah yeah actually let's do that first time you've arrested someone first time you get a gun out obviously your first arrest has got to be a good one oh mate it's actually embarrassing so the first guy I arrested so they have a thing called a sus loiter suspect loiter right um and so I'm brand new on the van um working with a senior constable and we get suspect loiter at the car park um behind the Noble Park shops which is in the Springvale like response area um a mailbook description seen looking into cars so we're like fuck we'll go down there and get him so we drive down there drive down into the car park look around bang there's old mate fits the description jump out run over there grab him smash him against the car um tip his pockets out and he'd he'd but he'd stolen I think he had four stolen cigarette lighters a handful of change out of a couple of cars he had a screwdriver that he was using to um uh get into some of the locks and they used to back then carry um uh a bunch of keys because the old Fords and holdings if you a lot of times with the keys any almost any key would start any cars where he had a bunch of them in his pocket as well so I got him for um uh theft so stealing like a handful of coins and a couple of lighters and going equipped to steal or some shit like that which is because he had the keys it was like an item that to break in so that that was that was my first fucking some forward like just trying to get a few bucks to go and get another a score of hell in the four but what about uh trauma related again I've had multiple cops on the on the podcast and we talk about that first time experiencing trauma again coming from defense you're just in the training scenario yeah actually just actually before we start on this June 12th 1996 yeah black hawk crash now I'm sure there's a lot of your mates that were probably involved in this mate can we just quickly talk on that yeah so I had I was out when by the time that had that it happened um so I was on that exercise the year before and it's funny um we were living a wild um life especially on CT CT was like proper like pushing it really close to the edge of like doing dangerous shit and and we did it like fast roping at night like helicopter assaults where you're looking across at the helicopter in the middle of the night and the boy we're fucking close like you can see the blokes in the heli and it's pitch black back then we didn't have much night vision wasn't as a rel a prevalent as it is now and we had a number of times where you're like the the pilots would veer off and you're like well fuck that was close and we're like how good's this kind of thing without knowing what would happen um that year uh on June 12th. So um but yeah I was on that same exercise the year before and then when when the uh it happened uh it was just like fuck um a a few of the well so one of the guys on there that was killed was on my reinfor on my Carter course um and a few of the other boys I they I was a living inny so you know they were living like literally across the hall from me and just good young fellas that just and it it's funny the first time uh I was on the counterterrorist team uh five aviation were the the helicopter squadron and they own back then and I I might get this wrong right so um you know if there's any lawyers out there don't hang me or nothing but back in the my first time because it was very new that they'd got uh black hawks and they'd got night vision and they could only fly under night vision in formation when they were training with the SAS so they couldn't do any um of their own build-up training before we got there for an exercise so basically we would get there and do a bunch of other shit because we were there to train with them they could go off and do it so but there was only um certain pilots and I don't know if it was a how it was set up but there was only certain pilots that would would do it and mate they were fucking good like they were really good pilots like some of the shit they were doing you're like like flying in on ships and they're you're behind the um in between like where the where the the captain kind of what's that called the boat mum uh the big part of ship where the the captain of the ship sits and and like the the container ships yeah the bridge yeah and we were like fly in there and in between the containers on the ship and the bridge and they're just hovering there like steady as we're out and it's like man they're fucking pretty good and then in between that ones that was 92 I think and 95 I think then they brought in that it was they had to expand out more pilots had to get qualified and and be able to enhance the capability which meant the guys we had were doing had been doing it a lot and were really good but then by 95 it was like some of the guys were a bit newer didn't have as much experience and and experience you got to get it doing the thing right you can't learn it in a book or nothing. But it was very obvious to me as the the user of the taxi service that the the pilots weren't some of them weren't as good as the pilots the first time and I'm not saying that's why the other thing uh the crash happened but and the same guys you can't do it forever but I I noticed there was it was like oh fuck that was close but we were young and full of and we're like fuck yeah how good's this kind of thing so and yeah mate when the Black Hawk happened went back for some of the funerals and um yeah it was hard it it was shit like when you're really young men who were good mates and just like fuck how how it was so wasteful to die in training you know it's like fuck. 18 personnel 15 SASR and uh three from the fifth uh aviation regime yeah yeah yeah crazy mate uh anyway back to uh yeah back to you know experience your first bit of trauma oh dead body or in the police yeah so I um so I was working night shift I was fairly new and I was working the the Divi van with a uh a woman who had just returned from from Matt Leave and um she was a senior Connie I've been in the job a while anyway we get a job that um a shot fired um in the street possible suicide right so we go down to where this um thing is and this bloke meets us in the street and goes oh I don't I don't know what's happened um um I think old mate might be in the car might have shot himself and the bloke who met us in the street he's a pretty rough looking fella and he'd been on the piss you know it was night shift so it was after midnight anyway there was a car parked sort of um on the uh nature strip down down the road a little bit and the back passenger door was open and the boot of the car was open so I get out the old maglight um torch you know the one like about four D cell fucking batteries in it was a 10 inch thing the the improvised baton and um anyway so I I go down to the the um go down make one and the where the car was like there was street lights in the street but there was the streetlight right near it was not working it was just dark like the car you can see the car there but it was just dark in the street so anyway I get the torch and I go down there and on the ground at the back of the car there's a couple of um uh rifle bullets and there's a couple of shotgun shells in a bag at the back I'm like oh yeah anyway and the back back passenger door is open so I stick my head in the back passenger door with a mag light torch and turn the torch on and the bloke in the car had shot himself in the head with shotgun but he was sitting um like laying across the back seat so if you imagine he's laying in the back seat with his kind of head against the driver's the driver's um back window and he's got the shotgun and been able to get his finger down far enough to fire it and it's it was yeah it was horrendous what it did to this bloke's um what it did to his head and there was teeth and brains and and just it was like fucking hell it was like I was like okay right anyway so I kind of come back I'm like all right I'm pretty sure he's fucking dead not the first time I've said that in my career and um anyway I I I sort of come back out and I'm like oh that was a lot and the I can't remember her name this senior Connie anyway she comes out and she's like oh what do you got and like uh the bike shot himself in the car we need to get detectives down in she's like oh I'm I'm just gonna have a look I'm like it's up to you but I I I wouldn't it's not good she's like no no I want to have a look and she's kind of mid-sensen as she turns her torch on and she's like oh my fucking god she's like reeling away it was horrendous so it's it's horrible but this is the cop kind of not humor but stuff that happens so I the bloke had come down who was talking so the the guy who'd shot himself his his jaw was kind of peeled away but you can see he had a a long kind of goady you know like a old goady beard that kind of two or three inches long um the bloke who had rung us I go over to him said oh look do you know the bloke in there and he's like oh yeah that's so and so and I said oh mate how did you how did you know he'd shot himself he goes oh look we're inside having a few beers and he goes I thought I heard he'd been around this bloke and he's a bit troubled and he goes oh I thought I'd heard something and he so in the dark right this bloke he's having a dart and he goes down into the car and he thinks that this bloke is asleep like across the backseat of the car and he goes to grab him by his goatey beard and give him a bit of wriggle wriggle to wake him up but the where the goate beard should have been was like off to the side so he has just basically put his hand into this bloke's I don't know whatever's behind your jaw like just into his head in the dark I was like oh dude you fucking fall past it so anyway we get the um we get the probably good thing you'd had a few beers old mate and uh so no we get the detectives down there and uh they're like nothing suspicious you know it's pretty fucking obvious and and uh we're hanging around like oh what do we do now and um anyway the detectives uh are like um uh Brooksy you're an ex army dude can you get the gun out they've taken their photos done whatever the shit they had to do and they're like oh can you get the gun and clear it I'm like okay so I'm trying to get into the car so his hands are still on the gun right And I'm in the car trying to get this and make sure the fucking thing doesn't go off again because it was a uh under and over shotgun. So I'm like, so I get the gun out, out of his hands and out onto the street, and without even kind of thinking, right? So I'm out on the footpath now, and um I I break the gun open, right? And there's two shells in, I get them over and they take a photo, and the top shell, whatever, which I can't remember top or bottom, one of them had been, oh mate, had two in there. Not gonna need two, buddy. So anyway, they um so they take the photo of the two shot rounds and um they go, all right, take, and we take the rounds out. And just out of habit, I go to look down the um, I go to look, you know, click the to clear it, and I kind of can't see down it. And I'm kind of I just do that. I I kind of just shake the the shoddy a little bit, and there's this massive chunks of blood and shit just come out of both barrels onto the ground onto the footpath, all over me fucking boots and shit. I'm standing there going, This is fucked. I look over at the two detectives, they're looking at me and laughing, going, you fucking poor bastard. Like, oh, I can close it up. And yeah, so that was um that was an i interesting uh experience for a a young a young fella.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:05

Um yeah it's it's wild how you talk about it because you know there's gonna be people out there going, Oh, he's he's laughing. And but this is the this is the life of a cop because it's it's not the first time.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:18

Nah.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:18

And it it wasn't the last time. You know what I mean?

SPEAKER_01 1:31:20

There's I can tell you heaps of them.

SPEAKER_03 1:31:22

That's what I mean. Like it's just and that's how you survive in the job, though.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:25

That's you kind of do, mate. The old dark humour does kind of get you by, and I think if you if you get too heavily down into it and let it it can put a bit of too much weight on you. So I think you've got to kind of um and you know, those that have have walked in those shoes kind of understand it, and those that don't won't, I suppose. And um, but yeah, I'll I'll tell you another story which I've told both my kids, so this one isn't as bad, but as a cautionary tile tale to any young, mainly blokes out there, but anyone who wants to drive around their car without their seatbelt on. So another night shift, I did we had two car accidents that were fatals, um, separate, a couple of nights apart. Both car accidents, only two people in the car. Both car accidents, one person wasn't wearing their seatbelt, and both those car accidents, the people who weren't wearing their seatbelt were dead, and the um and the person wearing their seatbelt walked away without it with with literally without a scratch on them. So we seat belt. It was wild, mate. Like just it some people are in the cops, you just like they have their shit magnets. I don't know if you've heard that term before. They're just I I wasn't one of those, I wasn't really a shit magnet.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:38

Yeah, um we was one. Well, yeah, well, yeah.

unknown 1:32:42

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:32:43

Yeah, there's just there's coppers out there, they're just shit magnets. And my best mate I was telling you about who joined the cops, he's a shit magnet. He's arrested more dudes off duty than anybody else I know. He just comes across stuff and I don't know. Um, what else? Um, oh, the first time I got my gun, my gunner, yeah, yeah, the hardcore SAS guy, um, on night shift again. Um, car load of young fellas just cutting laps around Springvale. We um pull in behind them, pull them over, they pull over. There's four four people in the car, and um I jump out, walking around. I wasn't driving again. I'll go up to the passenger side, and here's this young bloke sitting in the front seat of the car, mass two massive big carving knives, one in each hand. He's just sitting there, he wouldn't do anything. He's a younger fella, uh, an Islander fella. He's just sitting there with these two massive fucking knives in his hands, right? And I I kind of walk up the old mag light torch again, boop, point on, and here's these two, these fucking things are like proper carving knives. He's just sitting there. So I'll go, right, you'll get me gun out. I'm like, fucking police, drop the knives, uh drop the knives, put them on the ground, put them out. The senior conning I'm working, he's like, what the fuck is going on here? And that was the first, and he was fine. They they'd been using them to do something. He they weren't doing anything bad, but yeah, that's the first time I um in the cops, anyway, that ever got me gun out on this young fellow who's just I don't know what the fuck he was doing, but they were doing something with rope and they were gonna tow something somewhere or something. So he'd been doing it, and and I don't know whether he just froze when the cops are there, but so they weren't even doing anything bad. No, no, no, no. So anyway, I'll fucking holster up and like, all right, you boys have a good night. They're like, yep, and off they go. Today he'd probably complain and he'd be rich. Yeah, right, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:27

So the first time you pull your gun is yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:30

But um, oh mate, there's so many stories from Springbale was good fun, mate. It was fucking really fun. Like you said, cops and robbers, cops and robbers, yeah, pursuits and fights and yeah, it was good, it was good fun.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:41

Now, where does the SOG come on your radar? Because you you know, you move into the SOG life 2002, but just quickly, obviously 2001, September 11 happens.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:52

Yep.

SPEAKER_03 1:34:52

Mate, SAS within a month or two, there, you know, there's I'm sure there's a few blokes you'd know that it went over and uh got to do the job. So surely at that stage when 9-11 kicks off, you're like, fuck.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:05

I was mate. This can't be happening. Yeah, that that that stung a bit. Yeah, um, and and I actually did have uh because I know a f uh uh a couple of people who did get back in um when that happened. And I I did kind of think about it, made a couple of phone calls and thought about it, and then I was like, you know what, I'm I'm kind of I was training to get into the SOG, so I was I'd um started to pull my head in a bit, and I was like, you know what, I've kind of made my made my kind of life here and it's you know, so I I didn't, but yeah, the lure was there.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:39

I was like, oh maybe I maybe I should, but but like I said, I just oh well because you're guaranteed a trip or two or three, yeah, or four, yeah, yeah, or five or six, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:51

But yeah, it made it was it was a lure, but um like I said, I was you already started the process and I was having fun, yeah. I was loving being in the police, it was great. So something new. Um and the SOG was kind of on the radar. That was sort of the plan was to go to go to the SOG when I um got there. Um we have a bit of a different scheme now within the SOG for ex-Special Forces dudes. We have a bit better direct entry kind of thing. Um, but back then it was um buttering up for selection again, so I had to get fit. Um as I said, I'd dislocated my shoulder playing footy, which wasn't ideal. Um, but I was fine, I was good, I was fit, um, applied, uh, did selection. Uh it was hard, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:32

How long is that selection?

SPEAKER_01 1:36:35

Back then, I reckon ours was like 13 days or something. I was only looking it up not long before I got out, and I was trying to go back and find the syllabus and find out exactly. But I think it was about 13 days or something like that, and it was tough, mate. It was um uh I was 32 by then, so 12 years older from my first selection. Um, but I didn't have Roger Warren to motivate me. Yeah, but again, I I talk about the motivator a lot, and I had I'm an ex essaist dude. There's no fucking way I can quit. There's no way I can quit. Um so and again though, mate, it was I was in there with a real good bunch of fellas, um, and then oh, I think it was two or three days before the end, we're up at a place called Wallaby Creek, which is um Mount Disappointment National Park north of Melbourne here, and we used to have this old obstacle course up there built and had the old 12-foot wall that the army, you know, the unarmy 12-foot wall. I was like, yeah, I've got this fucking no worries. Anyway, we'd been doing a bit and we're tired. And and I ran down to do the jump up and grab the wall, ran down, as my mates always remind me, why didn't you just go over it? Why'd you try and run through the wall? But I just ran up, put my hands up to grab the top of the wall, hit the wall, out it came. My shoulder was dislocated again. And anyone who's dislocated their shoulder, it's fucking painful. And again, I was stuck where I couldn't move it from like up high. And we're like three hours from Melbourne, and they're like, Oh, we may not be able to get the helicopter into the air ambulance to come and get you, might have put you in the cart, no pain relief, nothing. I'm just sitting there going, and I'm thinking, fuck, it's done, I'm done now. Um, but anyway, flew me back to the Alfred, they put my shoulder back in, and um uh the senior sergeant who I was talking to you about before, while she was like back then, you know, he made a call. Like, I didn't finish the whole of the of the selection, but um him and um Langers, who was the sergeant, were both like, um, hey, get yourself right, we'll put you on the training course, no worries. So I and that was really important to me, mate, later as a senior sergeant and a sergeant, looking at people and trying to just be um, you know, I feel like someone took a saw something in me as a young 19-year-old, and then again, someone gave me an opportunity, you know, they they bent the rules a a little bit, yeah. You didn't finish, but you know, we'll we'll we'll make an adjustment for you. So I tried to keep that mindset when I was in those positions to go, you know, is there is that what are the other circumstances here and is there other ways? Yeah, yeah, because at the end of the day, um every SAS dude, every special ops, whoever you want to pick, at some point someone took a chance on that person, everyone. I don't care who who you want to pick, but no selection process is perfect. You're all kind of taking a bit of a guess, and it's like, well, we're gonna have it, we're gonna give this guy an opportunity. And what you do with that opportunity is a whole different thing, but that there's very few that stand on selection and they're like, yep, 100% we're picking this dude. So I was always being grateful to those two guys for giving me that um opportunity and and bending the rules a little bit um for me. Um because here I am 25 years later in the cops, and um fucking the best time ever, mate. It was great.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:53

Yeah, so you do this the selection course. How many blokes are starting the selection course? How many finish?

SPEAKER_01 1:39:58

I I I reckon ours was fairly big. I I reckon we might have had 70. Oh shit. Maybe 70. Yeah, right. Um, and six, I think, of us. Six finish in the end. Yeah. Um, and that's reasonably steady numbers for for the SOG on applications versus it does vary sometimes from year to year, but that's pretty steady. Um so you do the selection, then we back then it was a 12-week training course where you do uh reinforcement cycle. Yeah, like yeah, Rio cycle for the for the army. Yeah, so you do all the weapons, CQB, all the arrest tactics.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:35

Um how did you find all that coming from the SAS and I guess the patrol phase and CQB?

SPEAKER_01 1:40:43

Yeah, yeah, some of it, yeah, it was fine. Um there was just the nuances of doing things a little bit different and and all that. But I was well uh I had a good head start on the other guys who were coming from driving the Divi van to try to learn all that stuff, and and and it is uh on reflection, you you think about when uh soldiers go on the selection for SF, whether it be commandos or SAS, and most of them have got a pretty good handle on soldiering and they're being soldiers and there's not that huge jump learning curve, yeah. But when you when you go from a boat or a girl driving around the Divi van to trying to teach them CQB, handle, you know, uh rifle rifles and pistols and learn all the stuff, it it's it's a lot to take on. It's a lot to take on. And in 12 weeks, you know, um we do a pretty good job of getting them at a really good fucking standard. So um, but yeah, it's a pretty steep learning curve. And back then it was old school learning again, you know, you fuck up, you know, it's push-ups and running and burpees and stuff with the gas mask on and all that kind of stuff. So um it wasn't a um it was it was a hard, hard environment back then. Um which I uh later on when I got into a position where I could I thought I could adjust it a bit and try and improve. Um I I did that. Um but at the time, yeah, it was tough. And even being an XSAS dude, the the the courses were hard, mate. And um you just had to do the ke keep your head down, keep working. And you know, there there was things that were hard where I'd done so much of shooting paps a certain way. Like, for example, back when I um was on the SOG intake, we used to have 45s that had a decocking lever on it. Um and I'd never shot a gun with a decocking lever on it. And um do you reckon I could fucking teach myself? Because I would just go put my gun away and I'd be like, Mr. Brooks, what what state is your weapon in? I'd fucking get it out, decock it, put it back in. But it was because I was so used to had done it so much doing it the other way that it took me so long to unlearn that way and relearn the the new way. Um so that kind of stuff was was hard. Um, but it was good. And like I said, great bunch of fellows on me on my SOG um course that you know still good mates with them um all bar one today because one of them has left us, but um as in KB. Yeah, yeah. But uh mate, it was great. And um, you know, similar thing. We'd get a few case studies from jobs that SOG had done, and um, you know, they'd done a lot of um uh been quite a few shootings um through the late 80s, early 90s. There was a fair bit um going on. Um so there was a lot of a lot of story. Well, the gangland war came later, but um yes, there's a lot of good stories to hear from they would get some uh some of the guys back in and tell us about jobs they'd been on, and I really valued that. And I when I got the opportunity, I loved getting people come back in and talk about jobs, big jobs that we'd done, just to teach people the history, and I think that's important in the unit, like to know the history and you get the old people back, the old people, the old fellas back in to and they love it, mate. People the the oldies love going back in and telling their worries and um and and as a new guy I I loved hearing it too, it was great.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:24

So um, yeah, so uh yeah, what happens is from here, so you finish your 12-week uh 12-week uh reinforcement software quotations there, and you move into the teams. How does how does it work?

SPEAKER_01 1:44:39

Um different to the army in a lot of ways, I suppose. So uh each of the states is a little bit different, but the SOG specifically, you go into the into the teams, and basically, like I said, um we we did a job before our training course had finished. Um uh uh it was a uh it was a clan lab um out in uh eastern suburbs in the hills there somewhere. And um I think four days we sat out at the police station. Back then, people played cards when you're sitting around the Holden area. It was cool. Um and we just went and got like dinners and stuff for everyone while they were waiting for this dude to drug jobs are notorious for um they don't seem to get the op order, so they they seem to drag on or never goes to plan. It's a going joke that drug jobs just never go to plan because druggies don't get the op order right, they don't do the right thing. But yeah, so we had four nights sitting out there with the guys while we we hadn't yet had our graduation thing, but we were on a real job and yeah, we all got put in positions on cutoffs and not the cool bit to go inside and do the raid kind of thing. But still it was uh it was a real job before um we'd actually, you know, actually graduated. So um it was cool. You got to you got to see okay, what they're teaching us is actually how the whole thing works. The academy was very different to that for the police. It was like um all that shit you saw in the academy, don't fucking that's this is how you really fucking do it out here kind of thing. Whereas the SOG was much more, hey, what you got shown there was how you how you actually do it. So um, yeah, that was cool. But then once you get into the into the team, um it was a very different era back then, and the the welcoming of the FNGs or the new guys was pretty uh could be pretty harsh. But again, I I I was lucky I got a pretty good ride because of my um background.

SPEAKER_03 1:46:34

But some of the other guys just explain what FNG is for the new guy.

SPEAKER_01 1:46:42

Um but yeah, like some of the like there were there was uh a dying culture of like the old guys wouldn't even talk to you. Like they actually wouldn't talk to you. I'm not I'm not saying like um they just wouldn't fucking talk to you because you were below them kind of thing, and that was the the culture of the of the place for a while. Uh it was starting to die out by the time our um course got there, but there was still some dudes who who that's how they were treated, so that's how they treated, and you know, there's a whole yeah, you can get pretty deep if you want, but how how you know you have that cultural stuff of how how you do things around here, but um it's funny, like people said to me, Oh, I must have been brutal when you got into your troop in the SAS or whatever. I'm like, nah, was good, like the sergeant was good, he was trying to, he was teaching me, they all wanted me to be good, and we kind of had this, well, you're the fucking new guy, you better figure it out kind of attitude for a while. And um over time that slowly kind of changed and and and we moved into the out of the dark ages kind of thing. But you know, that was the workplace at the time, and and and they were playing for real. Um, you know, we weren't just training all the time, it was real jobs, real consequences, you know, all that kind of thing. So um, and again, though, you get into a workplace and you're like, okay, this is this is what you gotta this is what you gotta deal with. It's very different now. Um, and I my personal opinion is for for the better. Um, but back then everyone was trying to do their best anyway. Uh uh there was very few people who actually just been genuine arseholes. There was a few of those, but most of the people were genuinely trying to you know do their best. So, but yeah, you get onto the team and you could be on a job, you could graduate Friday, be on a job Monday doing something.

SPEAKER_03 1:48:32

So how how would that work out for you? Like when was your when was your first real call out?

SPEAKER_01 1:48:40

Um, you know what, mate? I've actually I knew you asked this question, and I actually can't remember. I remember the first one that we did. I can even tell you the operation name, um, but uh that clan lab one. But I I don't really remember my first one because that was probably my first one, I I I guess. Yeah. But back then it was um a lot of training. We trained a lot, um, and it was um very high. Uh the sergeants like rode the new guys hard. It was, you know, out there on the line, um, shooting, doing the standard shoot, making sure that you're up to speed. And you know, if you didn't, you'd get taken off call and stuff like that. Like it was um it was strict, and there wasn't heaps of jobs back then. Um, I think I don't know if I said to you before, but probably 30 or 40.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:30

Yeah, 34. Now to a year what 300?

SPEAKER_01 1:49:33

I think it's getting towards 300. It's it's crazy now. Um, but we were smaller back then too, though. The unit was smaller over the years, it's kind of grown.

SPEAKER_03 1:49:41

Where was it? Obviously, not where it is now.

SPEAKER_01 1:49:44

Physically located, um, yeah, down sort of down near Docklands. Yeah. Um, I know not um down on the arrow there. Yep. Um in an old office there. Uh uh, but prior to mine, they used to be in Russell Street, um, but then they moved down to the new one where the headquarters was. So um but uh yeah, so yeah, you you're kind of straight into it. And um I don't really remember many of the first jobs because obviously nothing much kind of exciting really kind of really happened, but the training was hard, which was good, you know. Um we're probably the SOG balance in training versus operations current day is probably not ideal. It's it's too operational a little bit. I was worried about that. We need the boys need some time to train and make sure that we stay good at the stuff. Um uh but the the the bad guys are out there that have got to be arrested, kind of thing. So you can't go, hang on, we're just not gonna do anything for a couple of weeks, and we're gonna um and we don't have another team we can kind of rotate in, sort of thing. So um, but um, yeah, so my first bit of time at the SOG, um, the probably the main things that were happening then, there were two main things. Um there was a job called Operation Pendennis. Um, Pendennis was probably and in Sydney, the Sydney um component of it was Operation Neath, I think. And it was arguably Australia's first actual CT uh counter-terrorist operation. There was the Hilton Hotel bombing, which was a terrorist attack. But this was, to my knowledge, the first, like, okay, there's a terrorist kind of cell operating in Australia and they were planning stuff. So um Penn Dennis was really interesting because it was like, is terrorism really kind of a thing here in Australia? kind of thing. So um, but the main guy of that, uh, he their general plan was to try and do something at the MCG, um, like on a grand foot. final day or or something like that. Um and it's public knowledge now, so I'm not giving away any trade secrets, but um Vic Pole managed to get an undercover operative into their um into their cell, I guess you'd call it. So we did heaps of jobs where he was going a meeting with them and um doing all the thing and we'd be in cars round the corner in case they made him or something like that, ready to do an emergency action on the house. So it was a lot of a lot of sitting around but it was like you you were on on all the time. It's like fucking hell this is like for real. If they find out this dude's a cop he's fucked um so I was only looking at some video uh a thing on uh the internet the other day and when it eventually resolved and they arrested him the um it made the CBS news in America um that's how big a news it was when they broke up this cell like in Sydney they were a bit more advanced the cell in Sydney um but down here um part of the undercover guy's thing was that he was uh he could uh he knew how to use explosives so and there's footage of this so I'm not um giving any trade secrets away but we um we set up cameras and that up in the bush because um I was a sniper so we had hides set up and where he was going to do this demonstration of capability to this bloke to go hey I can do this what do you want to do and they'll I I'm no detective mate but they were very close yeah there's like an entrapment thing like where you can't be too suggestive as the undercover can't or something like that. But anyway so um we set up all the old um handicam cameras hidden in the bush snipers hidden in the bush they he took him up there set off the this explosive charge the dude runs down on footage and you can see it on the internet the footage it's around yeah he's in the big long white robe thing as he runs down and they run back up and take off but investigators were really worried that uh maybe they'd made him and he he whilst um he was up in the bush it was a perfect time to knock him so that's why we had snipers covering covering him while he was um doing this demonstration so um yeah it was like the first and and and unfortunately we didn't get to arrest him they the detective just knocked on his door and and arrested him but he got he's only just got out the main dude he got 23 years or something and he's just got out yeah because they were trying to keep him in prison. Yeah I think they yeah they'd yeah and apparently look I I don't know but apparently he was quite influential influen influencing young kids and sending them down that not so good um path so now he's out doing the same thing. Well yeah I hope not maybe he's learned his lesson who knows but I doubt it no but um so that was that was good and that went for a long time and then you know the the big thing that was going on through that time was the Melbourne gangland war which was um I I looked it up the other day I think something like it was something 50 something murders like would part during that time um you know there's the main ones that people have become I guess famous I suppose there's something like 50 murders for the gangland war and um it was a a a a wild time to be um at the SOG because you know you'd you'd see on the nightly news oh um there's been a shooting murder at this or that or the other you'd get in the next morning like right our boys here's our target we're going to get this bloke because we know they'd done it they turned a lot of them over really quickly the Piranha Task Force once they got going they they were um figuring out what was going on um so it was a really interesting time because um a lot of the briefings you'd get you started to understand like the real Melbourne underworld um you know people are fascinated by it now like there's the the crime buffs and all that and um I I can't remember who was who and you know who did this and who did that but um it it was just like it seemed like constant someone would get murdered and we'd go and arrest someone for murder and um yeah it was just constant for years literally years um arrest them blokes for murders and um yeah you know arrested Carl Williams a couple of times um it was different back then and I say back then before in my first tint at the SOG so it was 2002 to 2009 most of the the crooks back then they kind of knew the game if the SOG turned up they didn't fuck around like they were like yeah all right the SOG here you know we're not gonna we're not gonna play up we're just gonna we'll take our lick and you know we'll we'll fight it in court kind of thing that changed in my later on in my career um but yeah so back then most of those arrests were pretty um it was dynamic but very rarely did they take us on in any real meaningful way they're kind of old school crooks old school arm robbers and they knew old school cops too yeah old school cops yeah yeah less body worn cameras yeah pesky things um but yeah mate it was um it was uh unreal like uh the the fellow who I'll give it a test so there was a a couple of guys were hired I my this is world according to Brooksy but my belief is towards the end of the underworld war the the hitmen in in air quotes the good ones were most of them were dead and they were just hiring whoever they could get to kind try and do shit and we had a job to um these two guys had conspired they were going to murder a fellow called Mario Condelo and um he lived in a house in like somewhere nice somewhere like Kew or something like that and anyway these two bozos um they had information that this Mario Candelo walked his dog every morning and they were being paid by someone to um murder him and they lived out in the eastern suburbs somewhere and investigators by now were onto these dudes and we had good information what they were doing and all through investigative stuff that they do. Anyway after about three days of false answers one of them was a Raven heroine junkie and old mate would turn up to get him to come and do the murder and he'd be like flaked out because he'd been on the heroin all night or some shit and they'd be like oh then one day they went in and they didn't have enough fuel in the stolen car and shit like this. So though yeah the the elite hitmen of of Melbourne were these two blokes anyway eventually they got their shit together they get down into the their spot and they're parked near his um near his um where they thought he was and this bike actually wasn't there he was somewhere else and um we're sitting there ready to ready to go waiting for him to give us the overt act to we're like okay yep they've done enough now and um some random bloke walking his fucking dog right starts walking down the street these two fucking bozos are like that is that him that's him let's go we'll get him when he comes back so they get out of their car they walk down they stand out in front of the the cemetery and commander like holy fuck we need to do something because these blokes are about to murder some bloke out walking his dog so yeah these two bozos stand out in front of the um on the street loaded guns both of them had guns um waiting for this bloke who they thought was this other fella to come back and we've driven up jumped out of the cars surprise boys both of them pissed themselves it's embarrassing um but yeah they both had loaded guns on them they were ready to fucking do this bloke and it's like fucking this close to murdering some poor dude just walking his walking his dog mate you know and it's like fucking yeah it's um yeah most of the gangland arrests we did were pretty kind of uneventful because like I said they were old school crooks who didn't didn't act up um too much really but the can't fight against the police you're gonna lose like well you lose eventually you're gonna we'll get you eventually we'll get you eventually yeah how's that going Desi? Yeah he came second he came second and third yeah um but yeah look it it was a it was a really interesting time to be at the SOG because just the the stuff that was going on and the maneuvering and who was who and and and I often talk to some of my army mates about it and and the weird thing is it's like in your in the place where you live and this is something I'd never really thought of a couple of boys are saying you know the the SAS command whoever you want the army go somewhere else and do it. Overseas whatever and then come back here and they're like well that's over there now but ours is you know in your backyard it's here yeah um so it's it's very um yeah very very kind of um very very different uh but obviously outside of the gang lay gang gangland wars during that stage you got how the jobs come up sieges and just random whatever yeah he he all all the time and back then it was before we had um our cert our critical incident team so any bloke in his house with a knife we would get called out to go and the SOG would go and and and do it um but I I I never I never really had anyone too crazy at the sieges. Sieges were often really interesting kind of yeah crazy people that have off tap and I never really landed a really um a really crazy kind of a guy really um at a siege kind of thing. They always just ended peacefully in a way yeah yeah yeah yeah um but so an interesting job we had um uh so we were working on a job with a fellow who was wanted for a murder um he'd him and his girlfriend had murdered the girlfriend's ex boyfriend I think um cut his body up with a power saw um in a bathroom um and anyway so he was um he um he was on the run he knew the he was supposed to be reporting on bail we would have thought um and so he knew the cops he knew he was hot and he was in a house in out in sunshine and uh we knew he was there they were following him and um there was a bit of back was it was a halfway house so um heaps of druggies were going in there buying and leaving anyway the cops are grabbing him the investigators are grabbing these people coming out and they're like they're like oh is this bloke in there like yeah he's fucking in there he's got a shotgun sitting on his lap he's fucking he won't he goes everywhere with the gun blah blah blah blah blah anyway there was a bit of toing and froing as to whether we go in there and try and kick the door in and go and arrest him and you know back then four centuries were probably a bit more common um kick the door in and go get him in the end we um waited he left um and we followed him in a car he had two other people in the car and um it was peak hour in Melbourne it's fucking hard having a convoy of cars following someone trying to keep together catch up get into a spot where you can arrest him we didn't know if the two people in the car were like hostages or what they were in the front seat he was laying down in the back seat um and eventually he went to um uh to he took a park in uh Bank Street in Port Port Melbourne South Melbourne whatever it is and we're like all right we're gonna take him here um so we drive up do a vehicle intercept I was in the third car by the time I got out of the car the shooting had already started and it's the first time I'd been at a a a shooting right and as I get out I'm looking at the car and I think he's shooting at us because the boys are shooting into the car and they're going in the back windscreen of the car and as the bullets are going through the windscreen they're like smashing out but to me I'd never seen it before and I thought he's in the car shooting out at us so I had um this first time I'd I had tunnel vision like a like a it was like I was looking down this massive tube to the back seat of the car um I'd auditory exclusion like it was unsuppressed guns back then we were old school um and the whole thing and um and I before I knew it I had my gun off safe had an M4 gun off safe finger on the trigger had the um EOTEC site on the back window where I knew he was um but I couldn't see in the window it shattered um you know it kind of shatters but it doesn't fall in it was like all yeah shit like safety glass but it wasn't but the laminates were holding it together so I couldn't see in and um I'm like what the fuck is got going on here um and finally like the shoot the shooting stops and the team leader in my car he's fucking good dude he gets out he's acting sergeant and he says to me um I remember him saying boys watch your crossfires watch your crossfires right and the moment he said that it was like everything for me came back to normal I'm like tunnel vision went away I'm like okay I took my finger off fucking trigger put my gun back on safe it was like just those couple of words under that stress and pressure was enough to snap me out of it and I was like right what do we got to do now and then got back into what we had to do and um yeah he he didn't survive um that dude um the two people in the front didn't get hit which is fucking amazing because one I think four guys shot him so he sat up in the backseat of the car with a shotgun um something about back seats the cars and me but um he sat up with a shotgun and pointed it at um one of the boys who's aiming straight at him and he's just he's seen it the bloke in the one of the other cars has seen they've all they've all started shooting at the same time seen the same thing um and it was wild so once we got him out he had these um he because he had the gun like pointing it at the person and what the bloke who was shooting at him was just shooting at him and his what he could see he had these bullet wounds like down his arms where the bullets had kind of gone into his arms if that makes sense. Yeah and tracked down yeah yeah and um but yeah like you know we get him out do first aid on him and all that kind of thing and um he was um got the ambos down and all that but they got there and they're like no he's um he's dead and and that was the first SOG shooting I think for oh a long time like years years and years and years um probably five or six years and um ironically mate that um that uh so I I got the gun I I was standing like like it's an exhibit so the gun's laying on the ground I'm I'm guarding the gun kind of thing till so I'm standing there for ages before the detectives come and take it away and um by now it's this massive fucking crime scene and um I'm I I'm walking back up to the car and stupid me we had balaclava and that on and I've taken my balaclava off and walking back up to the car because there's no one for fucking miles. Next day front page of the newspaper photo on me face on yeah yeah I'll show you a photo on my phone I've got a I've actually got the newspaper at home um of Stupid Me who was dumb enough to take his fucking balaclava. I didn't take it off just pulled it down and I was walking back home but some dude like a with a long range camera's gone front page of the fucking paper. It's like fuck how does that go getting back to the office it's more the because we have protected identities and and we're trying to you know be low key and all that and fuck it I was like hey can we speak the paper like we've kind of can we say to him hey don't fucking put our faces in because you at least blur us out or something but boss like nah fucking bad luck stupid I'm like all right awesome that's a cut so yeah fuck um I'm trying to think what else happened as a senior Connie what other interesting ones I had and this is all that period between 2002 2009 yeah because when does cert get established about sort of 2007 or eight or something like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:49

And what was a reason for that? Because as we know now it's quite a good concept.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:53

Yeah um it was around dealing with those lower level kind of um jobs because um and having that a more uh a more highly trained on the road response so we were a call out so you know we'd be at home if you're on call we'd be at home and they'd ring us and go hey we need you to come and do this and um I remember driving to um we used to drive our own fucking cars mate so I'd have my own car um and only the sergeants had cars back then so if there was a job like in Marabin which is a fair way from my place I'd get him the little Toyota seeker and drive it like a fucking police car crashing red lights it'd be an absolute fucking idiot and um just to get to these jobs we'd stand around a holiday of four hours anyway but we drive our own cars and you know you live or would you meet your guns out there? Yeah yeah so the the the the sergeants would have the the kit and the guns in their car um it's a lot different now it's much better but yeah so you'd yeah you'd have your gun on you so you'd take your you'd have your service pistol just your pistol yeah um but that's all all you would have um and basically everyone just converge on it and um yeah yeah um I had another time where I nearly um uh fairly close to shooting a fella was at at a siege I reckon it was like Boxing Day or Christmas day or or something like that and um this fella had gone to his mum and dad's place having some mental health problems um local the they'd gone got on the piss um and he'd been threatening them with an old um uh some sort of old German sniper rifle thing he had and he's threatening them with it so they've rang the somehow the family on the old um the actual phone no mobile or there was probably was mobiles back then but anyway the we've turned up had a siege with this bloke and um I was on um down the side of the kind of the house on the perimeter and we had this old um remember the old uh Land Rovers that um in Northern Ireland the the British used to have they used to drive around that's that was before we got bearcats that's what we had anyway so um the bear cat this guy lived at the bottom of a court and the bear cat was up the top of the court and we had a couple of snipers across the road like and and I was like on um like what tactical people would call the green side but the left side of the house as you look at it with another bloke. And anyway just going on for a while he'd come out a couple of times with the gun and but just kind of no big deal kind of he wasn't firing shots and it was a big old fucking sniper rifle was a huge phone and he's like walking around with it and he's on the the old cordless phone from inside and anyway they're negotiating with this fucking bloke and and uh he he eventually cracks the shits and he walks out into the bowl of the court and he's basically standing so the bear the armored car's at the top of the street the court and he's standing out in the middle of the bowl of the of the court we had a police dog before we had our own a police dog there as well and he's in the middle of the court with this big old sniper rifle like pointed towards the sky and the old cordless phone talking to the negotiator on the other on the phone and he's and I'm I'm standing there I'm probably 20 or 30 metres away and I'm like all right I'm if he fucks around I've I've got this bloke and then I'm standing there going what am I going to do if he points that thing at the the old armored vehicle we had and I'm starting to think back to my training going fuck what's the capability of that fucking what kind of rifle is that if he shoots the armored car will that go through the windscreen? Are the boys safe in that armored car? If can I can I shoot him or or not and I'm having all this it's like this is a bad time to be having these these um I don't really know fortunately he never did it but I was like oh fuck maybe I should know the capability of that thing and and um it probably would have gone fucking through it because it has been shot before with a 223 and it went through it. So it's but anyway so he he's um and eventually he smashed the the phone down on the on the ground he's like fucking that's right and smashes the phone and um they've let the police dog go and the poor police dog's been there for fucking hours right and as the dog goes he gives a little roof kind of a bark and the bloke turns around and because the dog it would have been awesome if he didn't bark because it it was attack coming at him from behind and he's kind of turned around and as he's turned around he started to lower the gun and there's we're all around in the court and that and I'm like well fuck I might have to shoot this bloke and then the dog got on him he did not want to know about it after that he's like put the gun away he's like this fucking dog off me they're fucking good the old dogs even back then so but yeah it was um yeah just another uh just another call out yeah yeah just another another call out and you know weird things you think about oh how well how strong's the armour on that fucking armored vehicle we had kind of thing so yeah um yeah so at this stage 2009 this is where you move obviously cert's been established you're you've been in the job nine years now nine years as a cop making your way up uh in the rank structure you get promoted to sergeant 2009 yeah but from here you go to cert yeah so mate to be honest I'd been at SOG for SOG for seven years and I'd become the the senior Connie that thought he knew fucking better than the bosses and you know I we should be doing this and should be doing that and um and I I wasn't jaded but I I kind of thought I knew better and I I was behaving like a bit of a fuckwit kind of and um I thought you know what it's time for me to leave um a mate of mine was at it wasn't called Cert back then it was a force response unit I think they changed their name soon after I I can't remember exactly but he goes mate come over get us put in for sergeant spot over here it's good you can run the training wing you know they need some people to help them train up and all that so I'm like yeah all right sounds good so I applied got a sergeant spot Um and went into the training wing at CERT for two years when it was very early days. I was running the cert courses, trying to get people in to build it up. It's funny how they raised it. They kind of basically grabbed what was the force response unit, which is basically kind of more of a public order. That was their main sort of one of their main functions was public order. And they basically got all them and said, Right, you're you're going to do cert stuff now. It wasn't called cert back then, but we're going to make you the tier two tactical unit with no vetting process or anything. They just kind of put them all in it and said, Right, you're doing that. So um, so I went over there around about sort of that time was going. So we're trying to upskill them without overstepping back to the SOG. And it was an awkward kind of time because um, you know, they were taking jobs, inverted commas, off the SOG, and that was overtime and extra money and stuff. So there was, it wasn't um a super friendly relationship in the early days. Uh, but mate, I I actually really enjoyed Cert. Um, I was a sergeant there, so two years in the training wing, and then I went out and just started working out on Cert. And back then, I had full autonomy. I was going wherever I wanted, patrolling around, doing whatever I wanted, going to jobs, um, and heaps of mental most of the work at Cert was dealing with people having just bad days. They're they're not bad people, they're just they're they're a bit mad. You know, they're they're mad, not bad. It was a bit of a going kind of joke, but it was a bit of a shit to call them mad because they're not. They're just people having bad fucking days, you know, they're suicidal, um, all that kind of stuff. And it's a very different um operating environment. Uh, you know, at the SOG, they're bad, most of them. They're just fucking bad people. But at CERT, they're just people, a lot of them were just having bad days that would got pretty serious mental health issues, and um, it it was um it was challenging because we had a lot of sieges because you you'd rock up and they just didn't want to come out, and they would some of the stuff they would talk about they thought the government was following them. You know, you talk about people, the tin foil hat wearers. Well, I've met heaps of those, and there's heaps of them out there, but the the things that they think that the government or is happening to them, and it's just like, dude, you come on, man, we need to, we need really need to get you some some help. And a lot of them were just off their medication, and and you're just trying to, yeah, you're trying to avoid hurting them, and you just definitely certainly don't want to fucking shoot any of those kind of people. Like, you know, you're trying to encourage them to give up. And uh it was good. Uh we had had the negotiators embedded in cert, um, so I really got to work well, understand them well how the negotiators work and how you could use them to your advantage. You know, you the negotiators could make make the crooks angry or try and calm them down if they, you know, um challenge them. I've heard them challenge them to fights. You want to fucking fight? All right, come out here. Look, here I am, and then we'd jump them when they'd come out or whatever, but you know, but those some of the negotiators were actually really clever and really good at their craft, and and cert still have that negotiator capability, and it's improved so much. They're fucking brilliant at what they do. They're really clear. There's a lot of a lot of um science to it now about your psychology and learning how people operate and how the brain works and how to convince them to surrender, and it's actually really cool. Um, and it was good having them in there in the car with me because I'd drive around and you'd you could you learnt how to use them well. Um I had a um at a job one night with um this fellow who was a having mental health problems, he's off his meds, and um he just fucking wouldn't come out. He just would not. I'm like, fucking hell. Anyway, he um the it gets to I don't know how it gets to this point, but well, I s we the negotiator say to him, look, he no, he says, Um, if the inspector will come down here in writing and give me a letter in writing that you just won't hurt me, um, I'll come out and give up. And I'm like, all right. So I fucking ring up the local inspector, because he's not at the scene. I go, Oh, um boss, I need a hand. Can you come down and fucking blah blah? I'll go, make sure you got your the inspector business hat where you can see all the stuff and you're in uniform. He's like, Yeah, yeah, yeah. So anyway, he comes down. So I cook up this plan, right? That the inspector will go down because he was in a house with probably a pretty long driver. It's like 15, 20 metres, so we could protect him pretty easy. And um, we give him uh uh an envelope, um, and he we go, right, mate, the the inspector's here, come to the front. He was on a balcony, he was above us. I'm like, come out the front so you can see him, yeah, you can see him here with us. He's like yelling out, fucking look at where he's got a knife. He's like, Yeah, fucking, yeah, put it in there. You got the letter? And we're like, yeah, yeah, we got the letter, we got the letter. So anyway, we go, the inspector goes forward, puts the letter in the in the mailbox, and off he goes. And I had this cunning plan that I had one of the boys was just the other side of this mailbox, the other side of the fence with a taser, right? I'm like, as soon as this bloke gets to here, just he was a big fella and the fence was only fairly small. I'm like, just stand up, bang, let him have it, because he had a knife still, let him have it, and we'll we'll the rest team will move in, we'll get him. Like, good fucking plan, Brooksy. This will work fucking awesome. So anyway, the inspector does his bit, and you know, a bit more backwards and forwards, backwards forwards, and finally he's like, Yeah, all right. And he's coming down, he's like, you know, looking behind the trees and down the side. I'm like, oh fuck, hope he doesn't see my guy. Anyway, he fucking comes down, gets the mailbox, old mate, jumps up with the taser, goes pff, and misses.

SPEAKER_00 2:19:20

Oh no.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:22

This bloke, this bloke fucking runs back up inside, and we were there for another fucking at least two or three hours. We'd lost all trust with him. He's fucking run back inside, going you fucking lying bastard. So it fucking it didn't work out the way I'd hoped. But it was a I thought it was a cool plan, but it just the execution just missed it a little bit. And but you know, it's um it's funny when we first got tasers, everyone's like, they're the miracle cure, we'll never shoot anyone again. It's like there's so many variables with the taser that just missing you you might miss, or it's hit hits a belt, you know, hit one in the body and one in the belt. So it just doesn't work. But um mate, there's heaps of stuff at Cert. It was an interesting time. I got heaps of opportunities. Um, I did some upgrading, uh, like um doing the job one rank up. Um, but it it was it was good. I I I like Cert. It was good fun.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:13

And what was your plan from there? Because you spend what four or five years yeah, four years there.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:18

I I kind of had I kind of was like, I don't think I'll go back to the SOG. Oh, didn't I? No, I was sort of like, you know what? I I've moved on and all that kind of thing. And then um a mate of mine got the inspector's job back at the SOG and got chatting to him, and he's like, mate, why don't you come back, be team leader, best job in the I'm like, oh and the lure the SOG is a seductive mistress, mate. So um I was like, um, yeah, all right, I'm in. So I applied for a a job.

SPEAKER_03 2:20:47

Um and you're married at this stage, kids already.

SPEAKER_01 2:20:50

No, both kids, but I was married, so I married the boss in uh married Louise in 2008, um, but didn't have kids yet, no. Um uh yeah, so but yeah, so was married, back to the SOG, applied, had to apply for a spot as a sergeant team leader, um, and went back and in that four-year um kind of bracket out, things had gone from pretty steady, I suppose, operationally, to fucking wild. Nuts, nuts, yeah. I've actually got an article that I um took a photo of years ago, and it was about the ambos, and they were talking about the ice epidemic in um in Victoria, and it was like based on admissions to hospital from ice, and I think it was like I might get the years wrong, I've got a photo of it, I think somewhere, but um it was like 2008-9, there was like a hundred people admitted to hospital with ice um that that had overdosed or taken too much ice, and then the following year it was like a thousand and one thousand two hundred people and uh world according to Brooksy, but I believe that is what really kicked off um the SOG's workload um because ice was just a whole new game. Give me a give me your old heroin junkie um that's just chasing the next hit of heroin over someone who's yeah addicted to ice any fucking day, mate. It's the the difference. If we could just go back to just heroin, you know, it was horrible at the time and a lot of people were dying from overdose fuck, mate. Yeah, dudes become fucking strong on ice. Yeah, yeah, and they don't give a fuck. Yeah, they'll do anything to get away their their ability to risk assess or consequence, they just don't fucking care. And um, but it became a a wild time.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:45

Wonder if that's um reflecting around Australia as well. It'd be it'd be interesting to see. I might speak to some TOU guys or cert guys up in Queensland to see, or even just police in general. If because obviously you said, you know, you when you first get into SOG, you're only doing 30, 40 jobs a year. Now they're doing 300, you know, you're starting to ramp up. 2040 and get back in this, yeah. You're probably doing 70, 80 jobs a year, 90 jobs a year.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:12

Yeah, it was well in the hundreds by then. There you go. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:23:15

And socially, I suppose we're changes uh as an Australian as well. We're starting to political correctness is coming in, everyone's starting to whinge and whine about things and post-war Afghans finished.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:28

There's uh post-war things happening, and yeah, yeah, I don't know, mate, but there's something in the fucking water that kicked things off because it it was um uh and going back to the SOG, mate, a team leader at the SOG, fucking best job in Victoria Police. There'll be other people that'll argue their point, but I'll I'll argue to the cows come out. It was fucking great, mate.

SPEAKER_03 2:23:48

You and how many bugs do you got under you?

SPEAKER_01 2:23:50

Um on your on-call team. Um I'll be not say exactly how many, but but um you know, you've got a team, more than 10 um guys that you're managing. You but we don't work in set teams, it's like just a big rotating roster, and these guys are on team, and uh there's pros and cons for working in set teams and all that. And I was always a I was trying I wanted to do that, I wanted to set up teams, but I never won that.

SPEAKER_03 2:24:15

Because that's how you come from the SS.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:16

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, but uh yeah, but it it was it has its advantages though, because you get to know everybody, you get to work with everyone, and and all that kind of thing. And and if you're on a shit team, you're not there for long, kind of thing. So um, but yeah, so back to the SOG, and uh it was so good, mate. It was um it was busy operationally. Um, I was the the sniper sergeant, so I um had the sniper guys, which we did the the marksman stuff, and we kind of did all the plain clothes um roles as well as they were needed, which was cool, and that was a developing kind of thing. Um, we'd gone from you know um pretty obvious fucking plain clothes, so we're getting much better at it. We're allowed to grow some hair and and actually start to look a bit like not like cops just trying to dress up like normal people, which you still do. Yeah, yeah. I don't know. You look some of the boys today, you wouldn't pick them. No, no, but um it was really good. Um and and through that time, mate, it was um it was great. Had some really good jobs that I'm really fucking proud of.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:31

This is where the CT world starts to spin up and we're talking the you know, the Endeavour Hills I had uh the officer on uh Matt Lambert on to speak about that. Obviously, he's yeah, good fella.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:44

I've actually um we were we were out at Nari Warren working on another CT job and he was there as um he was still in a job then and I was chatting to him and he's like I'm like you're the fucking guy. And mate, it's a great it's a horrible story, but it's a great story of survival by him to get the job done. He's a really good fella.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:05

Yeah, yeah. Oh yeah, 100%, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:07

Good fella to chat to.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:08

So but that's like I said, that counter-terrorism side started spinning out. It was huge, mate. Federation Square, the 2016 plot.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:15

Yep, mate, there was heaps of them.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:17

Um do you feel like that changed over again? We go back first few years in SOG, it wasn't so much counter-terrorism as more domestic issues, gangland stuff, and then yeah, it did. It just feels like now it's just more and more and more Islamic terrorists.

SPEAKER_01 2:26:33

All you soldiers went went to went to Iraq and Afghanistan and and and it it probably it did, it brought us. You know, we did we did our we did our bit and that's that's what it is, and that's fine. I'm not criticizing anybody, um, but it it that was the probably the effect it had back here. For sure people for sure. You know, we were we were stopping people from leaving. So like, well fuck well I'll do try and do something here, but um yeah, mate, the um, you know, some of the CT ones, um Uprising was uh one where the guy wanted to um on Anzac Day on Anzac Day he wanted to um steal a policeman's gun, run over a policeman, steal his gun, and shoot up Anzac Day. Um and um he was an associate of the fella that stabbed the um Oh was he police and thing yeah um they they were they were mates um mate we we did security shifts on him for fucking months like basically going because at any time you know there's some poor copper directing traffic somewhere and he he had surveillance on him and us security teams on him and basically our our I don't know what you call it your deployment kind of thing is um over at ACT to do something, move in and fucking stop the threat. And we were following him for fucking ages. Um and fortunately he never did anything, but you know, one night at a survey, and I'm pretty sure this is you can see the photos if you look it up, but he had a sharia, is that what it's called? Sharia Shah. What's the flag? The black shahada. Yeah, so he had that flag, and he there was a motorbike policeman fueling up his motorbike, and he's pulled over on the road and got out, and a mate's taking a photo of him. So you can see the policeman in the back, and he's holding the flag up, and this motorbike um policeman is there, none the wise are just fueling up his motorbike, and so you know, surveillance are like, yep, he's um he's getting a fucking flag out of the car, and we're like, oh fuck, where it's this has got to be it. And you know, the the fortunately the motorbike cop got finished getting his fuel and fucking left and he left and but he was going to shopping centres and we're like fucking hell, is this it? Um, but yeah, then eventually um it got to the point where we did um the raids on his him and a few of his associates' houses and um they were all you know the the old four o'clock in the morning kick the door in kind of raids, and I didn't do his house, but um the house I did, um we had one dude lock himself in the garage, like just random shit. Um one of the the parents in the house um grabbed one of the boys' guns. He's coming up the stairs, the dad, he was just like angry that we were in there, which is probably fair enough, but he's grabbed one of the boys' guns and the dude's gun he grabbed is bigger than you are. It's like that was probably not a good, probably not a good move. Um, but there was a lot of complaints and they sued Vic Pole out of that. Um, and a few of them got paid out for different things. Of course they did.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:29

Yeah, so you know, um and just on that like political, we talk politically as well. Over the years, you know, Victoria's changed politically pretty pretty bad. Yes left as I mean. Were you getting a lot of pushback from government state government in regards to scenarios like that where they're you know paying out terrorists?

SPEAKER_01 2:29:51

No, no, no, not really. Like that was no, it didn't affect us how we did our job. We might have had our own opinions about you know on a personal level, but um me personally, I always felt like um police command would do what they to protect you guys they could. Um and I I was always like provided we're acting in good, we're doing the best we can and we're not doing stupid stuff. And you know, over the years there's we've done some stupid stuff, but provided we're we're working within the we've got the bumpers up, you know, and the the cars staying within the bumpers kind of thing, we're all right. So no, I know I never felt anything like that. Um and probably most of the people that the SOG arrest uh, if they get found guilty, they're pretty you know, it's murder, arm robbery, extortion, kidnapping, stuff like that.

SPEAKER_03 2:30:41

So like you said before, you're dealing with bad people already.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:43

Yeah, and it's uh at the at the upper end of what's going on. So um, and to be fair to the courts, even though when we were chatting early, we're having a bit of a go at them, but on the CT stuff, they've actually smacked anyone who's been convicted pretty hard. So which which is which is good. So um, but yeah, there's rising. So then we had uh Wereby Plaza. Oh the real deal so the real deal told us about this one, yeah. So um Wereby Plaza was uh another job where I learnt heaps. Um so this fellow was just loose, he was on ice, had a gun. I think he shot at the police at least once, if not twice, like just driving down the road and firing shots at a police car, kind of driving past. And um anyway, we were down there to try and arrest this bloke, and he's wanted for some other shit as well. Um, and he was just running rampant down Weraby kind of way, and um he'd already shot at the police once, so it was the there was this um normally we'd like to just it's like an ambush, right? If you think of military terms, we're trying to lay an ambush time and time and position of our choosing to arrest him, but this time we kind of couldn't. It was like we've got to get this dude anyway. So he's driving around like a lunatic and he goes into this shopping centre, Wereby Plaza, and he parks in like a uh uh not an underground car park, but a car park, a multi-level car park, but he's on the bottom level, um, and he gets out of the car and goes in to the to the um to the shopping centre. And um so we're scrambling, trying to um get into position. Blokes are trying to get changed into playing clothes, the the the undercover playing clothes kind of thing to try and get into position where we can grab this bloke maybe when he's inside the shopping centre or at least when he comes out or something like that. And so you got blokes like sprinting from car to car, and it was peak out. I reckon it was about four o'clock in the afternoon. There was fucking people everywhere. You know, we're trying to be reasonably covert in our actions and movements to get towards him, but anyway, we finally um get reasonably close enough, and old mate, as luck would have it, comes out, gets into the car, he's the driver, and we decide to do a vehicle intercept. So he's parked, um, he's reversed into a park in normal shopping centre. He's got a car either side of him, and behind him, there's cars behind him in the next row of parks, if that makes sense. And then there's kind of another driveway which becomes important later on. Dono probably explained it better than me, but as we've as the first car has pulled in front of him to block him out, as we're like, man, there's a car behind him, he can't he can't go anywhere. So the first car, I think it might have been two pull in in front of him. The boys are calling on him, police don't move. He chucks it in reverse. I reckon he was driving like a fucking Mazda 3 or something, like a poxy little fucking car. He bangs it in reverse and floors it and hits the car behind him and pushes that car. There's no one in this car, pushes it out of its space into the next kind of aisleway, if you want to call it that, all the way across and smashes into another park car that's on the other side. So now he's kind of he's he's not free, but he's like full wheel spinning. Austin Powers trying to get out of this thing, and the boys are trying to manoeuvre cars to move in to block him in. And uh he's I was in plain clothes, so I said I was the sniper, so we had a an kind of unmarked vehicle, and we were meant to kind of be uh if he got out and run, kind of thing, we were in playing clothes, didn't have heavy armor and shit, even though I was old and slow, but um anyway. But he's coming to this aisle, so I'm now we're like fuck there, he is, and he's trying to get out. So I say to the bloke, this was I'm I'm in the car with him like fucking eat him, mate. So he just fucking guns that we smash into him, and it didn't stop him, mate. He was still in this poxy little car. He's like pushing cars out of the way, and I'm like, just keep pressure on him, you know, don't give him space. Um, and finally we got enough cars there to to block him in. Um, he had a gun jammed down the um in between like the where where the handbrake would be and his seat. He had the the gun was like right there, and the boys are having to climb on bonnets of cars. There's footage of it, I don't know if you I don't know if you've seen it, but there's footage of the boys standing on bonnets of cars because normally it's a no-no, but once we got him jammed up, but we we couldn't get him out. Like we were physically. I remember dragging this girl out of the um back seat, and she had to wind a window. I'm like, wind your fucking window down and like just dragged her out like through the back because it was so jammed up. But the and it was fine, we eventually got him, and he just he just wouldn't have it. He was he'd been tasered, he'd been we'd sprayed him, he just was doing everything he can. He he just we resisted every minute of The way and he was a fairly big fella, but we're trying to drag him like through the car window and out so we could get the handcuffs on and arrest him. And he was just holding on to shit. And blokes are trying to get in the car and get him out. And the really shocking part for me about that job was you know how I said he reverse and hit the car and pushed the car across. Yeah. Well, there was a bloke with his young kid. Oh shit. Um putting his young child into the car that he reversed into. So once it all kind of calmed down, I sort of went around the side of the sergeant. So I'm kind of trying to write, we've got to put the team leader's hat on. What do we got here? I look down and there's a pram, a baby pram that's smashed and squashed in between, still there, between two cars. And there's a fella standing kind of at the front of that car, like with eyes like dinner plates. I'm like, mate, please tell me your fucking kid's not in that pram. Like I get goosebumps now, like thinking about it, because I'm standing right there, and I couldn't see blood or anything like that. So I'm like, I'm I think we're pretty right here. And he's like, no, no, my baby's in the he just put it in the base. So he'd literally got the baby out, just put it in the baby seat, and this fuck with in this tiny little car reversed back and smashed into it as like fuck like 10 seconds earlier, and he'd probably kill that fucking kid. How do you hell? And you know, you you you think you know we we accept risk um to ourselves a little bit without being stupid, but we'll accept a certain amount of risk. But the public, you know, that would have been catastrophic um for us as a not only as a work unit, but personally, like you're on that job and you're fucking responsible for that. So it was a real one of those real, okay, fuck that really well, actually it did go bad, and we got real fucking lucky. Um, you know, it was his actions and you know does that change a few things? Yes and no, you're just more aware. Like, who would think that car you could exactly yeah, like and he had no run-up, like you know, they're parked close together, like you know, but he it like just um so yeah, it was um yeah, I know Dono spoke about it, but I think a lot of blokes on that job was like, right, okay, we you sometimes you get a little reminder, hey, um could we have let him go? But he he was a violent dude and he was doing bad, she's shooting at the cops, you know. So you kind of go, we kind of did have to do something, and um, and you know, we we got away with it, but fuck, it just goes to show, you know, like that's it, it's just not far from um an absolute fucking disaster. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:20

Um actually for the listener out there, episode 200, Shane Donaldson, the real deal. Yeah, he's a good man, Donald. I'll listen to that podcast because it is just a crack of the reason why they call him the real deal. Yeah, and the the email that was sent to the boss.

SPEAKER_01 2:38:35

Yeah, I'm the real deal, Donaldson. Yeah. He's a he's a good fella, Donno. He's going right too now, which is good. So yeah, yeah. Um, but yeah, that was Wereby Plaza. Um, what other interesting ones that I have?

SPEAKER_03 2:38:48

Um there's tons, I'm sure there's tons. Like in your career, you said, how many record how many jobs do you reckon you've you've done?

SPEAKER_01 2:38:56

I I I was trying to figure it out, and I was like, okay, so if if we're doing a couple of hundred a year, is one a week reasonable when you take in, you've got nine weeks' leave. And I'm like, oh, one a week might be right, maybe, maybe that's overs, but you know, you've been there 20 years, one a week, that's a thousand um a thousand jobs, you know, it's um it's a lot. Um probably as a sergeant castle home, so the um that was the Federation Square where they plan to do an attack at Fed Square on Christmas Eve. I like Christmas, but um and that's another weird, um a really satisfying job for me because uh the threat was real fucking real on that one. Like uh they were fucking serious. Um and I went from boiled lollies to chocolates on that job very fucking quickly. So the job would come up fairly quickly. Um normally CT ones, there's a fair bit of kind of lead-in, like investigators get on to them however they do. Yeah, but this one was pretty quick. I reckon only a week, and we were arresting these dudes. And the plan was to do coordinated arrests while uh all the targets were at home. And we'd gone to the um police station, everyone was briefed. We had um dudes from AFP come down, we had New South Wales guys, I think, and we might have been at a couple of Queensland fellas, I can't remember. But on those big ones, like Rising was the same, we'd get some guys down from other because we just didn't have enough people to do all the all the jobs. So um my the the target that I was assigned, um, he was like the number three or four kind of guy in the in the in the priority of what they were kind of doing, and which is cool. I still had a you know, I had a plan, we're doing all this stuff. Anyway, so we're briefed up, all ready to go, and my guy leaves home in his car, and they're like, okay, well, we'll see where he goes. He drives to um uh someone's I can't remember which order this happens, but he drives, for example, to the number two guy's house, picks him up, and off they go driving together. So now there's the number my number three guy and the number two guy.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:10

So now you've been upgraded.

SPEAKER_01 2:41:11

So I've got a little upgrade. So then the boss goes, right, Brooksy, you take your crew out and see if we can grab him. Once you get him, then we'll do the other ones. I'm like, yep, sweet. So I get on the road, out I go. He goes to the number one dude's house and picks him up. So there's the one, two, and three car together. And now I'm like, all right, I'm fucking really in the game here.

SPEAKER_03 2:41:31

Jackpot.

SPEAKER_01 2:41:31

Yeah. And um, so they're up in the northern suburbs, Craigyburn, for no Melbourne, and they're they're driving around. And there's like some fucking pressure on, mate. There's there's like 200 detectives waiting to execute search warrants and arrest people, and there's the chief commissioners watching in the police operations centre, like live feed of everything, which I found out later on. There's a whole bunch, like it's a massive fucking machine. And uh, here's Brooksy with his. I think I had five SOG blokes in my team, and the rest were AFP guys that I'd never worked with before in my life, which is pretty cool. Just when you're just doing a cordon and call, you know, surround the house, call a dude out, pretty easy. But now it's like either a street arrest or try some sort of vehicle um interdiction, right? So I'm thinking, oh fuck, I'm under a bit of fucking pressure here, and it's peak hour. So we start, they're driving around and they start sort of making their way around. And the boss rings me and goes, Um, we knew the target was Federation Square, but we didn't know how advanced their planning was or what they actually had. Um we didn't know they got caught. Well, they the cops really got on them because they bought a bunch of um uh like uh things for a nail gun. You buy the um little charge things for a nail gun. They bought some ridiculous number of them, and some fucking genius, some legend at Bunnings has rung the cops and gone, hey, this is weird. These um dudes have come in and bought all these like a ridiculous number. Like maybe maybe a tradie might buy I don't know, a hundred or something. They bought like two thousand, and good honour, she's followed them out, got the registration of their car. Yeah, yeah, this is all common knowledge. Yeah, good honour. What a legend. Bunnings. Um and it just conf but we didn't know how far well was this more stuff they'd got to make pipe bums because they were talking about making them, they had machetes and shit, they'd been trying to buy guns, we knew that. And uh anyway, so I'm like, I don't know what's in the car. There's three of them in the car. Um they're driving along watching beheading videos as they're driving around in their car, um, and they start driving sort of across the east eastern suburbs of Melbourne, and the boss rings me and goes, Brooksy, under no circumstances are they to get anywhere near the CBD of Melbourne. And I'm like, is it is that like the green light? We just fucking take them out, or he's like, no, but they are not to get anywhere near Federation Square. The moment they turn and head towards the city, um, you've got to stop them. There is no you can't they that can't happen. And that is pretty fucking rare, right? The bosses are fucking worried, and I'm like, and we're trying to get through peak hour traffic and also remain somewhat covert so they don't know we're fucking following them, right? So I'm trying to remain cool, fucking experienced team leader. And I had the two guys I had in there in the car with me, fucking rippers, they're both, I can't know, I'd love to name, but they know who they are. They were doing a fucking awesome job. Um, because the other AFP dude I had, he was bit out of his league. He's like, fucking, what's going on in here? Um, so anyway, we we followed him for ages. I just couldn't get an opportunity to to kind of get him, and there was a couple of things that one of the bosses wanted me to do, and I'm just like, nah, that didn't work. And finally we get out a clean go at intercepting him, and um fucking perfect vehicle intercept. They would stop at this massive intersection, boxed him in, um, and I'm like, I want what the fuck is gonna happen here? Because we knew they'd been making pipe bombs, and I don't know what else they had. There's four of them in the car, I don't know who the fourth guy was. Anyway, without it was perfect, beautiful fucking thing. Um out we get, get them out of the car. Um, we get out of the car, everything's good. I'm like, and it'd been a fucking stressful time. Anyway, on the team leader where my car was, I kind of had to climb across and get out. And by by then the boys are getting them out and they're handcuffing them and stuff. And and um this one fella's at the one of the main dudes is at the back of the car, and uh, he's just laying there and he's saying, he's just saying, Allah Akbar. And I'd never heard other than like in TV shows and shit. And this dude's just laying there going, Allah Akbar. And he kept saying it, saying it, and I'm like, and it was fucking creeping me out to be honest. I'm like, shut up, mate. Shut up, and he's looking at me, he's like, Allah Akbar. I'm like, fucking anyway, there's people everywhere, and uh anyway, then he says to one of the boys, he goes, Martyr me. Martyr me now. And and I have this thing where I think of really fucking good comebacks way too late. And old mate says to him, You had your chance 30 seconds ago, mate, and you didn't fucking take it, you coward, or something like that. And I'm like, fuck, I wish I'd have thought of that to say to him.

SPEAKER_03 2:46:20

But um when you talk that vehicle uh vehicle interdiction, you're jumping out, guns out at them.

SPEAKER_01 2:46:26

Yeah, well, yeah, full unlocked full of them. Yeah, guns at them, movie style. Yeah, yeah. Um, where I'm big on you don't get out of the car until their car can't move. I've nearly been run over a few times, so I've learned that valuable lesson. Um cars do some damage, but um, yeah, yeah, so it's like guns at them, um, show us your hands, um, all that kind of thing. So, but yeah, mate, it was um uh, and there's actually a Harold Son cartoon, I'll show you a photo of it later where they they've got um there's a um there's a mum reading a Christmas uh like nighttime story to her daughter, and out the window, instead of reindeers on the roof, there's like a bunch of like little black figures on the roof, and it's something to do, it says something like um, and 'twas the night before because it was Christmas Eve, and it was the night before Christmas and it was all quiet, and it's like a bunch of sobers guys going down the thing because it was like they were gonna fuck up Christmas. And um they were going to They were go-to, yeah. They were going to a um there's some dude like in Danong who's like a I don't know, like a like a cleric or something like these radical kind of dude. And they were going for blessing to do the um To the hit the next day. Yeah. Yeah. Well we didn't know when. Yeah, was either that night or the next day, but they were going for the for the yep, you're good to go boys kind of thing. And um, yeah, it was fucking so yeah, that kind of thing, like because of the things that were against me, you know, you go from oh I've got just you know, and and it's a good lesson for yeah young fella, you know, anyone out there doing this stuff is you can you know, you might think that you're the black side, you know, you're around the back fence cutting off, but all of a sudden the bad guy runs that way. You just never know when um you know your your time might come.

SPEAKER_03 2:48:11

So yeah, I'm pretty proud of that job, mate, because it was too that three picks-ups, then goes picked, you know, and they're all in one car.

SPEAKER_01 2:48:19

Yeah, and like how we work is like the the alpha sergeant, the SOG court, like they do all the hard work, right? They're doing all the planning and and everything. So I was like the third dude or fourth, fifth dude in line, all of a sudden I've ended up with the main dude. But um, yeah, it was a good one, that one, mate. And um cu because the the threat was, I guess, so real, and you know, I didn't have a full normal SOG team of people I know and all that kind of thing. So um yeah, and they got pretty good um jail for that.

SPEAKER_03 2:48:49

Yeah, I'm just I'm just looking now. You you probably remember their faces.

SPEAKER_01 2:48:52

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Which one which one was the one fucking I think it's Charani, I think that was his surname. He was the one who wanted to be they look like fucking idiots that need to be put martyred, but um they'll be martyred one day. Yeah, well, I don't know. They've all found found peace. I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 2:49:08

No, that's what they all say.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:09

Yeah, but um mate, that was that was 28 years. Yeah, they yeah, they got non-parole 16 years.

SPEAKER_03 2:49:15

Yeah. Yeah. That's yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:18

Abbas was given non-parole 16 years. It should be yeah, pretty good. You know, it's a pretty good fucking it's nothing compared to what they'd get in America, I guess. Life life is life, yeah, yeah. But um it's still pretty good.

SPEAKER_03 2:49:31

Isn't it it's it's funny in America that they give you life and then they're like in the afterlife, you get life again. Yeah, it's like holy shit, that is awesome.

SPEAKER_01 2:49:40

They've got they've got a hotline to the guy down that was downstairs, mate. You know, so um what else is in it? The car chase job was another good one. Um in the office one day, um, I wasn't on call. The boys had worked that that night, so they were in late. I've rocked up for the old sergeants, like admin kind of dagging around, drinking, I don't drink coffee, but drinking hot chocolates and dagging around. And we get a thing, um, police have been shot at in Dandinong. Um, they've turned up to do uh I think it was something pretty minor, like a family violence like order or something to serve on this dude. He's gone berserk, fired a shot, they've withdrawn, he jumped in a car and fucked off in the car. Um so we get a bunch of a few people together, jump in the cars, we're trying to recall the boys who were trying to sleep, and we head out towards Dandinong. So for those that aren't familiar with Melbourne, it's probably a 30-minute drive from the office, which where we were in the city, out to Dandinong. Um and we were just grab grabbing dudes, hey, jump in that car, jump in that car. I was in the car with one other guy. Off we went to try and see what because he'd taken off with the gun. Um I had the the helicopter the police helicopter following him, and he starts driving east, this bloke, and he's driving at like 160, just fanging it. Um, and we're trying to get people together. The boys who were running our training course at the time, so we had a sergeant and three, they're at the academy, which was out that way, so they've like left all the students, jumped in their car, so they've joined in. So we've got this scratch crew of guys trying to get together to to arrest this bloke, and we chased him from Dandinhong to uh sail almost, which is like 340 kilometres. I think in that time he did about five carjackings with the gun. So the car he was driving would get low on fuel. He would just pull up in front of someone, jump out with the gun, get him out of the car, he'd jump in the car and take off, and the air wing would be like, all right, now he's in a white hold and registration ABC 123, and we'd drive past the car he was in with the victim that he's just um carjacked at gunpoint, standing on the side of the road, we'd blast past trying to catch up with this bloke, and um, yeah, we just chased him and like well we weren't we weren't chased, we were just trying to catch up to get to a position where we could do something about him. And eventually we were starting to get closer and closer because he would some of the cars he was stealing were shit and they wouldn't drive fast, but he was doing 160, 180, and we were trying, we were, you know, when the land crews doing 140, 150 or more, and I'm like, fucking hell, it it was hectic. And um we're trying to we're trying to arrange for other blokes who were on call to get in the helicopter to try and get ahead of this bloke. And back then, the um the country um radio system um in Victoria, um, like your your radio enthusiasts are whether they could listen to the police um comms, right? So because we were talking to the police helicopter on that, because they're the the network's different now, but back then, so we get into this little town, and by now we're getting fairly close to him, and there's like people on the sides of the roads as we're driving past cheering us on, going, Fucking yeah, get him, get him. And it's like we've driving never seen anything like it. There's like victims standing on the side of the road going, what the fuck is we're blasting through these little towns, yeah. Like 300 and something kilometres, we chased him for. And then finally we get to um we're on on him, like we've got we've got eyesight on the car, and we can see what's going on. And up ahead, he's carjacked another car, and we can kind of see it in the distance, and he's the another car. So there's two, he's the car he was in, and this other car are there, and one of the cars leaves. So we're by now, there's three, we've got three cars, so we're the I'm in the third car. The first two by and we're not close to get normally we're close and it all happens pretty quickly, but we weren't, we just couldn't, everyone was driving so fucking fast. Anyway, the the first two guys pull up to box in the car that we thought he was in, with and as we're sort of driving up to block it in as well, they're like, nah, wrong car. He's in the other car. But this time he didn't have time to um get the others out, so he's in the backseat with this old bloke at gunpoint, telling him to fucking drive, and the old bloke's fucking so we're like got speed on him, right? So now we're by ourselves, and we're probably a couple hundred metres ahead of the other boy, or more than that. I don't know, doesn't matter. Anyway, but he pulls over um to kick him out, and the bloke on in the car, so it's just me and one other dude, and he's like, What are we gonna he's like, what are we gonna fucking do? I said, mate, just pull in in front of him, I'll get out, call on him, and see what fucking happens, and hopefully the other boys will get there in time to do something. So we get in front of him, pull in, kind of sort of. I jump out, got an M4, and I'm got my gun up, looking into the car, and he's climbing from the back seat into the front seat. I can't see the gun. Um, I know he's still got it because he'd just done one with like the victims are all going, yeah, he's got a gun, he's got a gun. I can't see the gun, but I can see him climbing from the back seat into the front, and I'm like, look at him, please don't move, show him your hands. He's not fucking listening. Anyway, he climbs through, he gets into the passenger seat, I still can't see the gun, and then he sort of sits in the driver's seat of the car, and I see his hands on the steering wheel. I'm like, fucking no gun. And then he I see him fucking put it in drive. I'm like, well fuck, I'm not in a very good fucking position here, and he just guns it and I turn sideways, push my back against the car that I'm that I've just got out of, and this bloke just starts driving off. And the bloke who's driving my car, did a good job. He just full lefts it and pushes him into this ditch. I've got some photos I'll show you later. And it he basically just pushes him into this ditch, but I'm like, there's like this much gap between me and him. I'm like my I could feel the back wheels of our car hit the back of my heels, and I I don't know how he didn't run over my feet. That's how close he was to me. As I'm like, got me rifle and like why I look, if it'd been America, I probably could have shot him, but I was that's again as close as I've probably been to shooting someone as like, but I just couldn't see the gun. Um and then he got put into the ditch, and yeah, the gun was still in the car, and um lucky I didn't do anything wrong because the channel seven helicopter was so fucking low, mate. We had to tell it, can you move because the rotor wash from it was so fucking bad. I'm like, can you fucking go up a bit? We're trying to work here, and um yeah, arrested that young fella. I don't know how long he got, but um he's just a mad dude, and yeah, like I I called it the great Victorian car chase, like 300 and something kilometres we were chasing this dude forward to try and arrest him. It's fucking awesome. Yeah, right. And um, yeah, he was yeah, he was determined to try and get away, that motherfucker.

SPEAKER_03 2:56:50

He didn't want to get it. Yeah, yeah. Now uh I'm offline before when we were speaking, we went to uh KFC, had a bit of a snack, mate. We're talking about uh the integration of you know, you obviously come from the SASR, integration of SASR troopers or two commando, one commando, etc. coming into the unit itself. And obviously other things change as well, uh, in regards to the shooting packages. Obviously, you get in touch with Wayne Weeks, one of the OGs of the SAR. He's all over the news at the moment. Oh, is he? Yeah, there's some article that's come out. Oh, yeah, he did.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:23

He wrote a big article, yeah, given I think given a bit of courage of the generals and stuff. Yeah, um look, Wayne was he he um I didn't know him when I was in. He I think he got in in 97 and I'd left in 96.

SPEAKER_03 2:57:36

Because he was there for the Black Hawks as well.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:39

Yeah, he might have been. I think he might have been. Yeah, look, yeah, he might have got there in 96. But yeah, we we kind of I didn't know him, but um a bit of a long story, but cut it short. But I got to meet Wayne and started talking about how they're training and all that kind of stuff. And um he ran a combat shooting course down at Williamstown, went down and watched it, and I'm like, fuck, this is like elite. Like we're we need to get some of things.

SPEAKER_03 2:58:00

Because they've been gunfighting.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:02

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:58:03

They've been killing dudes in Afghanistan and Iraq.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:05

And they've been going to mid-south, which is where they got a lot of their drills and all that from. And we eventually sent a few guys there. Um, but I was like, we've got to have some of that. And it wasn't just the drills, it was how they were teaching. Like it was adult, adult environment. It was it was just everything we weren't weren't doing.

SPEAKER_03 2:58:22

No yelling, no screaming.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:23

No yelling, no screaming. There was standards and teaching. It was teaching and and demonstrating and um and it was just like a light bulb fucking moment for me personally. I'm like, so I pushed that pretty hard. Um we got him in, he ran a course for a group of instruments as instructors. Um and out of that, there was a little group of us that really um had myself as a sergeant and then probably three guys as senior connies that really got into it, learning it and doing it all. So we started running the combat shooting package for for us. Um and out of that, that's about the time I got the training course, the intake, and out of that, I I just a light came on my head like it's not just the it's not how we should just teach shooting, it's how we should teach everything we do. So I became really interested in how the brain works and how you learn and what's the best way to get people to learn stuff, and and and Wayne was fucking awesome with all that, mate. He nothing was too much trouble, nothing was um, he'd have to explain it a few times, or I'd ring him, go, hey mate, I've got this idea, you'd be like, nah, stick to what you're doing, or whatever it is. So yeah, him and a couple of other boys over there were really great. Um, and it really, I think a couple of other things happened. We lost our little training facility here in Melbourne, our live fire, and we hadn't built the new one yet. So um one of our inspectors is Bill, I'll call him, he um he somehow pulled off that we had to travel to Perth and Sydney and Singapore to do our live fire training. Mate, it was the best time at the SOG ever. We're doing heaps of jobs. We're going to Perth, staying at the rendezvous fucking hotel up there in Scarborough, going to the SAS Barracks, training, um, doing live fire. It was like a massive footy trip all the time. And and the the regiment guys were awesome with us. They were helping us, giving us ideas, look interested in what we were doing. It it never felt like we were um intruding or in the way, and that level of maturity that they had, what it certainly wasn't there. And I think well, I personally learned a lot from that, how to behave, and and I took a lot of that away um and really thought about our relationship with our cert. Um to my mates in Queensland who are in the real cert, S-E-R-T, I apologise, I know they hate it. Um, but you know, it it taught me in real time, well, kind of if if they're there and the SOG are here and they're happy to treat us like that, well, why can't we treat our cert like that and help them kind of improve and be better? Um so and and that was like a real light bulb and really lit a fire under my ass, to be honest, mate. At later, you know, it's getting a bit later in my career, and I really got into it, and it's probably something that I'm one of the things I'm most proud of is standing up that that shooting and changing the way we run our training course and just trying to make dudes better quicker. Um, because there's a lot, a lot of stuff to learn. Um as an example, right? So when I did my course, um we only had one method of doing CQB, and it was full noise, storming in, in the door, one split left, one split right, um, old school CQB, and that was all we taught. Um now we teach um yeah you search the slow methodical clearance, we teach hostage rescue, we teach both of them under night vision, we do um mount, we do all kinds of stuff, and our course is still 12 weeks or 13 weeks. So we're teaching all this extra stuff, but the course is no longer, and we're still pumping out dudes that are fucking good, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:02:09

Like a lot of that come from the SASR.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:11

Yeah, mate, how how to train and and and what we were doing and all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:02:15

It's absolutely invaluable what SASR did.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:19

Absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:02:20

Like they yeah, they put all that methodology into practice into the field.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:02:25

So you you it's really good that you guys amalgamated and they took you guys on board and mate, it was great.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:32

And um there was some things where I'm like, no, it's different, yeah. We can't do that. It's not Afghanistan. Yeah, yeah. You know, weeks he'd be like, oh, but you know, this is this is I might yeah, I know, mate, but it's just a slightly different, we just probably can't, you know, we can't be the first dude going in on instant, yeah, or the first dudes on instant. I'm like, yeah, we're not quite at that level of kind of threat just yet, but um it was good, and like I said, for me it was the the maturity of the unit and and how good they were with us, and and to be honest, mate, um we did a bit of stuff for the commandos too, and um we didn't get up there as much because their ranges are used a lot more by other people, whereas Perth, Perth just they own them, of course. Um, but the commandos were the same, really helpful, um really good to work with, keen to help us out.

SPEAKER_03 3:03:20

Um and this is where the that's uh what do you call it uh transition process from guys leaving west or east could come to SOG. It kind of was one of the only things the transition for those units.

SPEAKER_01 3:03:34

Yeah, yeah. Mate, and we we as we was talking about before offline, you know, we had we've had a couple of SAS fellas that have come over to the SOG. We've got we've had a bunch of guys from um two commando and Marco Hare from SSR.

SPEAKER_03 3:03:47

Yeah, yeah, Adam Smith, yeah, Smithy, yeah. Smithy, yeah. Um parts of his podcast coming soon. Come on, Smithy, everyone's waiting.

SPEAKER_01 3:03:57

Um but mate, though those guys were great and and um the they they like I was saying to you, like, yeah, we need to send them to the academy and they need to do our training course and learn our ways, but then once you get them out there, what they're they're kind of ready-built almost. It's like, yeah, there's a few things you've got to figure out and what what police can do and or can't do, probably more accurately. But um, and they've fitted in the office awesome. You know, one of the guys that has come from to Commander, he's a sergeant now, cert. You know, he's so he's moving out into the uniform world, and you know, so it's um it's good. I I don't know why other PTGs, I don't think any of them have a a a literally direct thing.

SPEAKER_02 3:04:38

But we do, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:04:40

We would get him into the academy, um, get him on um I don't know what pay level, but it might have been senior conny level 10 or something, which is yeah, probably less than they were getting when they were yeah when they were doing their thing, but it's a whole lot better than going to the academy on 50 grand a year or something, you know. So logical, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 3:04:58

Logical. Obviously, we uh went and went met one of the boys before and you know he's from from that world and shout out to him actually. Appreciate you for the tour, yeah, for the tour around. Absolutely awesome.

SPEAKER_01 3:05:09

Yeah, but mate, and and those guys have been great in their in their own way, they're bringing their own different experience, and um so yeah, all those things, and um it was just a good time, mate. Like every couple of months, because I was sort of part of the training, so I'd go away a fair bit with teams who were going away, and it's just good getting away. To be honest, probably the the home part by then I had a couple of young youngins and and all that, but um I was going away a fair bit, and it was just training, is it just yeah, those things, yeah, going but like just learning. Yeah, yeah, it was just live fire. That's why we were doing it was through that live fire training because our butt but now the boys got their own facility here in Melbourne to do their live fire. Um, you know, I was thinking I was saying before the SOG really made hay while the sun shined, while we had money um to get things like armoured vehicles and guns and training facility. I think it was like fifty million bucks or something for the training facility and all that. So um, you know, we did pretty well out of that um out of that time kind of thing, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:06:18

Yeah, right. That it's yeah, it's it's just really good. What what you're saying, there's not enough money now.

SPEAKER_01 3:06:24

I actually don't know. I I don't know. Like I like you saw today.

SPEAKER_03 3:06:27

I should be it should be should be there should be no budget, honestly. Like you we're in that time and age right now where every night there's a machete tack down here, there's this, there's that. Yeah, we need you guys, the guys at the office, tooled up with the best kit possible.

SPEAKER_01 3:06:45

Yeah. Look, I I feel like I don't think, and look, the b the boys will probably shout me down, but I don't think they're wanting for too much at the moment. Um, you know, the I'm sure there's some some fucking gun or some new thing that they want to get, but um, that's right, you keep you keep pushing and making your case and and all that kind of thing. But um at the end of the day, you know, um equipment and stuff only gets you so far. It's the people that are operating it that are the that are the thing and and and the good people you we just gotta keep finding them, you know. We've got to how do we how do we make sure the good people are coming into the SOG CERT TOU WATRG, which we've got to make sure that good people that are out there working in the cops or whatever are actually continue to keep applying to come, yeah, it's hard, but fuck it's worth it. Like you the you think after you've been in VicPole a little while, or any police anywhere, you think you know what's going on out there in the world, and then you get to the somewhere like the SOG or any other the tactic, and you're like, fucking hell, there is a whole nother world out there going on that the bloke drive or bloke or girl driving around the Divi van just has no idea. No, and they could drive around the Divi van for 20 years and they've got no idea that what organize real organized crime um what's doing, yeah, and what's really happening and and the level that some of these people are doing, you know, um done some awesome kidnapping jobs over the years. Most pretty rare for kidnapping jobs just to grab a random person, but a lot of most of it's drug related, you know. Old mate owes old mate a bit of a bit of cash and hasn't paid up, so um, you know, you um that's the main kind of thing, but you know, dudes are getting kidnapped and tortured for for drug debts and stuff like that, and it's just all this stuff going on that um and it yeah, it's just it's another world, but it's so fucking worth it to to do the course and get into it. You get the best you get the best training probably, you know, definitely in Australia. Like I've the the SOG of work, we've worked with HRT, um uh Singapore, fucking we've trained with the army boys, you know. Yeah, we're not exactly where they are, but we could hold our own. Like, I'm I'm not being a smart ass. Like we we do pretty well for a small little police unit in in Mel, in Melbourne. In fact, all the teams in Australia do pretty fucking well.

SPEAKER_04 3:09:11

100%.

SPEAKER_01 3:09:12

Um, you know, we've trained with the like the Dutch guys, um, they're they're good. Fuck, they do some hardcore stuff. Um, yeah, so we do pretty fucking well, you know, and you know, you don't need to go overseas to get that level of training like what what people are getting if they go to the SOG or any of the teams in in Australia is pretty fucking good standing worldwide, you know. We don't have private jets and stuff like HRT do, but not yet. But maybe one day they're right. If the Premier's listening, look, get the boys a jet, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:09:47

Get them an airstrip and get them a jet.

SPEAKER_01 3:09:49

Yeah, yeah. But um, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:09:53

So um so that 2000 yeah, 2019 period, this is where you get promoted again to senior sergeant. So this yeah, this is kind of where you you know you lay your your your tool belt, hang your guns up, hang the gang guns up, yeah. Packed away for the last time, yeah. And you become more of a manager. Yeah. This is uh you know, desk jockey.

SPEAKER_01 3:10:13

Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:10:14

So um Which I'm sure would be uh great for your wife and kids.

SPEAKER_01 3:10:20

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, though they were much happier to have well, you still are out a fair bit. Um But you're just not But uh you're not yeah you're not doing the real dangerous part, I suppose. But um I guess to go back a little bit, so 2017 I got handle on our selection and training course, and I had a um I had a a senior sergeant and an inspector, which is kind of for army people, it's probably like a woe-to and a captain maybe in my direct reporting chain that were really supportive, and um they gave me the rope to change things, and everyone thought the world was going to collapse in because I wasn't being hard enough on people on the training course and all this kind of stuff, and um, you know, it the the world has kept turning and and we've done okay. And so I had that for three years and I loved it. I loved I probably loved the training part more. Selection I found a bit more stressful um because um you don't want anyone to get hurt or dead. Um, you know, when you're pushing people as hard as we push them, you know, sometimes bodies do things that you don't want them to do. So yeah, it was a worrying, you feel that weight a little bit, I think, as a as the sergeant runner. But the training course I loved. I loved seeing like these coppers who had no fucking idea about anything, and in three months they come out and they're doing CQB, they're doing hostage rescue, they're driving cars, they're shooting guns to an awesome fucking standard. Are they perfect? Not yet, but fuck, they're ready to go. Um and I love that part of it. I love that part of developing them and seeing them, and even coaching the d the DS about how to how to how to teach and how to get through to people. And um, yeah, I was lucky I got to pick the people who I had, um, and they were guns, they wanted to learn, and it was it was just a good time, mate. It was really good. And yeah, like I said, then I got um uh promoted to senior sergeant, and and I got put in, well, I muscled my way into the portfolio to sit as a senior sergeant over selection and training for the next five years, um, which I was very grateful for. Um, because it was I just loved it. That was the part of it. I was just super interested in it. But I was still doing jobs as a senior sergeant and um doing that role. Um, but it was um it was a good opportunity to really bed in everything that I'd done. Um, and uh, you know, I go into the office this afternoon, and one of the guys who I put through on one of my second ones um is now the he's run two now as a sergeant. Um, you know, the bike that you met, he's run two as a sergeant now. And I'm like, that's how good's that? Yeah. The guy who I put through where I changed things, yeah, um, is now he's run it, it's like the almost circle of life is kind of complete. So it's pretty satisfying, mate. Yeah, I'm pretty proud of that. Um, yeah, so yeah, it's it's pretty cool. And the senior sergeant at the SOG, I was ready, it was talking about it before, I was ready to not be off doing the guns. I was 48 um when I got promoted, I think might have been 49.

SPEAKER_03 3:13:30

You know, I was like It's a young man's game, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:13:33

It kind of is, you know, and but I'd I'd I'd squeezed as much out of it as I kind of could. Um so I was pretty comfortable. I didn't have too much FOMO um, you know, when I when I finally took the senior sergeant spot and and I was doing something I was really interested in as well, which was good. Um, so yeah, but uh very fortunate, mate. You know, I I had the people who supervised me trusted me and and and gave me enough rope and I didn't I managed not to hang myself with that rope they gave me. So, you know, but it's another example, right, of people just giving you an opportunity. And you know, I I think it's important to the sooner you can understand, maybe you just got to give someone a go. Um, give them an opportunity, see what, see what happens, you know. And if they're passionate about it, give them a box of matches and a and some fuel and see what happens. You never know. You know, it's um you just gotta give people a chance, I reckon.

SPEAKER_03 3:14:27

Yeah, 100%.

SPEAKER_01 3:14:28

No, 100%.

SPEAKER_03 3:14:29

Like someone gave you the chance to step it up and become a senior sergeant, and then an upgraded inspector.

SPEAKER_01 3:14:36

Mate, so the upgrade inspector part, I didn't do it for long. I did a a few jobs and one one is very uh was very hectic. Um I didn't do it do it much, but that was the first time I actually really felt the weight of I was asking blokes to do something that I wasn't doing myself. So, yep, go and get those do that dude, those two dudes who've just shot up that house, go and do a vehicle intercept on them and arrest them. And it when I was doing it, I'd do fucking anything, right? I I was like, all right, yep, you know. In fact, not only would I do it, but I'd love it. But it was the first time I'd kind of I was that disconnected. It was I was the commander telling the the boys to do something, and I wasn't doing it myself. As a sergeant, it was different, you know. You would if you're doing a forced entry, you'd run through the door with the boys. Yeah, and as a senior sergeant, you're kind of in between, you're like the deputy tactical commander, so you're not the one with the full responsibility, but once you're the inspector, it's like that sits with you and and something happens, yeah. Yeah, like I I actually would haven't thoughts of fuck, what if I have to go and knock on someone's wife's fucking door and go, uh uh have you got a minute? Like what do you fucking say? So but you try I was trying to balance that between all right, well, I've got to have that over here, but I've also got to make the right decisions tactically and for the whole thing to work out, um, to let to let the boys do do the job kind of thing. So um, yeah, so that it was a really different, um, really different experience for me that doing that right. And I I didn't do it for much, but I had a couple of fucking good jobs while they were doing it. We had a job where these fellas had gone to shoot up a house, and uh I think there's been footage of it on the news. And as they pull up, they knew we had surveillance, we were out working on them. Um and as they've pulled up to shoot up this house, the old boys in the house were out the front and they had their guns too. So these two bozos have got themselves in a fucking shootout across the street with these other dudes in the house. And I'm we're sitting in the cars fairly close by with the window down, it was hot, and we can hear the gunfire from the car. Like, I'm in the command car, so we're a bit further back, and the boys are much closer, and we can hear the fucking gunfire. I'm like, yep, I guess that's the uh I guess that's the house they're gonna do. And then we're like, okay, what do we do? Um, and they've left, uh, got picked up, and they've fucked off in this van. And I'm like, yep, all right, boys, let's go get them. I'm like, fuck, I hope because they'd literally like they had a um, I think I had an SKS or something like that. They'd shot up the house with so it's some decent fire pad, another gun. And um, as they're doing that, um, I've given the boys the go. And then at the same time, the blokes have been shot up of like getting in their cars, and then like, let's go fuck these dudes up. So I'm like, so so anyway, the boys have intercepted the car, did an awesome job. Team leader who did that job, he's a fucking jet. He did a good job, got him, and we're sort of standing there, I'm like, oh fucking good. They're in like the front fucking front yard of a house where they've fucking smashed this car. But they got him, the guns in the car, bottle of Jerry of fuel, a whole bit. And then we get oh um, these fuckers who've in the other house are driving around looking for these blokes, and we're standing out in the root middle road, we're like, we better be heads on our, we need to have a bit of all-round protection here, boys. And the team leader, because we banged up a few cars in the in the arrest, and the team leader comes up and goes, Brooksy, Brooksy, do you want us to go get those fuckers as well? I'm like, no, mate, let's just fucking consolidate here and fucking sort this shit out. So yeah, and I'm like, oh fucking hell, that really could have gone bad. Yeah, but um, you know, you but you see the look on the boys' faces, right? And they're fucking up and about green, like how fucking good was that? Yeah, and I'm sitting there going, Oh, thank fuck for that. Yeah. Yeah. So yeah, under your command. Thank God it worked out. Yeah, yeah. So yeah, it's um, but it was good. It it was awesome, mate. It was a fucking good time. Good time.

SPEAKER_03 3:18:29

Yeah, mate. Well, obviously, this is the 24 period coming up to there, obviously, you're leaving 25. What's going on here? What's what spurs on this, you know, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:39

To leave.

SPEAKER_03 3:18:39

Yeah, well, you're getting on, yeah, this 24.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:41

Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:18:42

So is it is it creeping into your mind? Has it been in your mind for a couple of years or no, no, no.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:47

So I I was sitting around the office and I'd noticed my behaviour had changed, right? So I'd I become a little bit not interested in jobs as much. Um I become like fucking angry. Um, like little things would really fucking piss me off. Um I was pretty good at home. I don't think the kids um really knew that anything was off with dad. Um Louise knew she fucking she's on to stuff. Um but I just knew that just there was something a bit off. I I didn't know what it was. Um and for mate, I reckon a couple of two or three months, I would sit there and go, I I I need to talk to something. There's something not fucking right. I couldn't put my finger on, I wasn't gonna you know jump off a bridge or you know, anything like that. But I I would just get angry at shit. I'd be driving in the car, and people who know me, like, I'm a pretty relaxed company. I'm like, meh, whatever, fucking move on. I nothing too much bothered me, but you know, there was an incident at work where I like wanted to go in and have a punch on with another dude at work, and he he doesn't know this, but I'm sitting in there going, fuck that guy. I'm gonna go on, and I'm a shit fighter, man. I'm only a little bloke. And the dude would have beat me up for sure, but I w I still wanted to do it anyway. And I'm like, that's not me. Anyway, I procrastinated for ages. I'm like, you know, you you Vic Polar got heaps of stuff for mental health. Like, but I'm I'm looking at all these um services going, well, I don't really need that. I'm not gonna fucking kill myself or anything like that. I'm I'm not there, but there's something not quite right. And um, I end up ringing a bloke every I think it's every two years. The SOG have a um uh a psych, a separate psych thing to Vic Paul, um where every two years you sit down with a dude and you lie to him, tell him everything's fine, everyone does it. Sound familiar?

SPEAKER_03 3:20:42

Yeah, 100%. It's military life, right?

SPEAKER_01 3:20:44

Yeah, so yeah, I'm fine.

SPEAKER_03 3:20:46

Send me on another tour.

unknown 3:20:47

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:20:49

So anyway, I um I rang this bloke and and I said, I and I I'd had I'd sat down with him at least twice, maybe three times before, like I said, sat across the table like we are now, lied to his fucking face, yeah, everything's good. Kind of anyway. I ring him and go, hey mate, I need to talk. And he's like, Yeah, mate, sure. And I said, Um, like, can you meet up? He goes, I'm in the in the office tomorrow. Um, come down. I'm like, fucking mint. I got a pretty good relationship with him, even though I'd lied to him. So I go down talking to him, I go, mate, this is what's going on. I'm kind of explained a little bit, pretty similar to what I've told you. And he asked me a couple other things and he goes, You you need to take some time off. I'm like, okay. I said, Oh beauty, because it was near Christmas. And I said, Oh, beauty, I've got two weeks' leave coming up over Christmas. And he laughs, he shakes his head, looks at me, laughs, he goes, No, mate. He goes, uh, leave, short periods of leave like that are fools gold for police. He said, because what happens is you go on leave, you think things are getting back on track, makes it feel better, and then you just can't, and all of a sudden, yeah, you're back to work and it's the same. He goes, You need to take three to four months off like now. And I'm like, fuck. And it was a real um like slap in the face. I was like, Really? I'm like, I'm not that bad. And he's like, Well, you are, you need to do this, you need to um go to your GP, get a referral, go and see a psych and start working out what the fuck's going on. I'm like, oh okay. Um so mate, I I took his advice, which was smart by me, I suppose. Went home, sat down with Louise. I'm like, oh, I've just um I've just been to see the psych. She's like, finally. She'd never mentioned it to me. She's a legend. Like she'll just supportive, you know, go about your business, you know. Um, and and I like I said, I wasn't in this horrible space where I could never leave home or anything like that, but she knew. Um I think all the girls know, right? They fucking know 100% that they know, but they support you no matter what.

SPEAKER_03 3:22:55

Exactly.

SPEAKER_01 3:22:56

And uh anyway, I said to lawyers, look, this is what he's told me to do. She's like, Well, you better fucking do it then. And so I did um end up so the diagnosis I had was complex PTSD because and it really fucked with me because even though I've told you about some whip like pretty fucked up stuff tonight, this afternoon, but I I don't have I didn't I wasn't having nightmares about any of that stuff. Um like I I wasn't staying awake at night thinking about this or that. I was just like, uh and it I was like most people, it's like you have this incident that is the thing that you point to and go, that's it, that's the thing. And it actually really was I found that part really hard because they the sites would ask you, oh, you know, tell us about you know the trauma that you've seen or what bothers you. Do you have flashbacks about this, that, and the other? And I'm like, Yeah, sometimes, but not not fucking really. No. And it was kind of like because I didn't have that, I reckon that's what stopped me from going and getting help sooner.

SPEAKER_02 3:23:56

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:23:57

And and then I was we're offline talking. I I then I eventually went to see this other psych, and she was she was great, and she knew fuck all about the SOG and what it was. And so, you know, I said, Oh, you know, I used to work at at the she goes, where did you work in in VicPole? I said, Oh, oh, the SOG, and she's like, Oh, oh, what's that? And I had to explain, and it and it was actually good for me, I think, to actually have to explain to someone what it was, what we did. And as I'm telling her all this stuff that we did and how how we operated, like for example, when you're on call at the SOG, you're on call, you've got the car at home. If if I'm out to dinner with my missus and the phone rings and we're in the city here, it's like you're in an Uber, babe, I'm going, see ya. Um, or if I'm at the footy with my kids and the missus, it's like, see us, I'm going. Um, like that's the like the immediacy of that on call. Like you've got invest detectives and that are on call and they get called out and you know, homicide, they're like, well, the dude's already dead, we'll get there shortly, kind of thing. But it was that immediacy of on call, and she's like, How long did you do that for? I'm like, oh, off and on, 20 years. She's like, dude, what the fuck? What the fuck? So it was good for me to work through all that kind of stuff. And um, you know, Louise, my wife, she was awesome. She was she was good. I'd come back from the site and I'd tell her stuff. She's like, I knew it. I know I'm like, yeah, all right, don't need the I told you so business, it's all good. Um, but it then it became do I try and work through all this and go back to work, or do I snatch it? And there was a few reasons around um how old I was and pensions and different things. So I was like, you know what? I think I'll just snatch it and and remove that part from my life and then and and move forward, sort of thing. And um here we are, I don't know, 12, 18 months, I guess, down the track. Yeah, and um it's fucking awesome, mate. You know, I've had 12 months off. I now know what the kids have for lunch, I now know what time they've got to be at the bus stop.

SPEAKER_03 3:25:56

Uh how did you go on that first couple of months?

SPEAKER_01 3:25:59

I was actually pretty good, mate, to be honest with you. I I was like, I I actually played a lot of golf, which I think was was good. Uh with a couple of mates who one of them's an ex-sog bloke, one of them's still in, and a few other fellas that play golf. And I'm not good at golf. Um, and I don't know if it's the ideal sport to take up if you're having some mental health problems because it's fucking hard. It is, yeah, and frustrating. But um, I played a lot of golf and and it got me out. You know, I wasn't moping around home and and and all that kind of thing. And I I was saying it before, I didn't shut the SOG off like I all my mates are there, you know. So I was catching up with them and doing different things. So um, yeah, it was pretty good. And and I I know people have that that loss of identity, and but I I I never really kind of had that. I I I I don't know why.

SPEAKER_03 3:26:46

Kind of like you just knew as time to move forward a little bit, yeah. Getting on, getting on with life.

SPEAKER_01 3:26:52

Yeah, mate, yeah. So it's um yeah, and it was funny, you know, you tell the kids, oh dad's got PTSD, and they're like, oh my god, you know he's crazy, dad's crazy and all that. And you know, they're all you know, my daughter's 15 and my son's 13, and and they're old enough to get it. And you know, I I actually spoke to a mate who's a psychologist, my guy, and he's like, you use just explain it to them, but like they're kidding, because they're kids, you've got to explain it in terms they understand. And I was just like up front with them, hey, look, this is the go, dad's all right, I just need to sort this out, but I'm I'm gonna be leaving the police. And my son, he's Devo, he's like, he loves it, he's been in the office a lot, and he he loves the army and the SOG stuff and all that. And um, he's like, Oh, does that mean you won't have work cars home anymore? And this kind of stuff like, yeah, mate, that's no more kind of thing. So, but um, they were good, and um I just needed time, mate. I I just and the best way I can describe what happened to me was this over 20 years, I didn't diverge off on this crazy angle at any point, but over 20 years, I was like off course by one degree per year, I guess. And slowly, slowly over time, I ended up over there, and there was these behaviors and things that I was doing that I just accepted as were normal because it had happened so slowly over such a long period of time. So, yeah, that's the best way I can describe it. Like these behaviours that I had, like I had hypervigilance, you know, especially out with the kids, mate. I was fucking head on a swivel, um, you know, and uncomfortable in like especially crowds. Like I went to Luke Coombs concert and I'm sitting there and I I love Luke Coombs, right? And it was a brilliant concert, but I'm sitting there the whole time going, where the fucking exits? What am I gonna do if something fucking goes wrong? And it's like it's no way to fucking, you know, um to to go about your your life, you know.

SPEAKER_03 3:28:45

There's a certain level of vigilance that is important and you need to be alert, but there's that there's yeah, yeah, there's there's we did it, you did it walk in here, yeah, and you saw that guy, you go, it's your mate, isn't it? He was an absolute dirtbagger and he was up to no good, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:29:02

Exactly, mate, exactly. So but um, yeah, so mate, I I um yeah, it was it's been actually good. Um like I said, the the psych ended up broke it broke up with me. She's like, I don't need to see anymore. Um which was I was like, oh, okay, that's good. She's like, hey, if you if you need to ring me back, ring me back. Um but I haven't. Um and I'm in a really good space now. Um I it's like I was just running on the treadmill fast as I fucking could for so long. And then as I get older, I can think back and go, yeah, I had a little bit of gap between the army and and and the police, but it's still kind of you could almost all jam it all together and it's like 30 years. It's my whole adult life doing risky shit.

SPEAKER_02 3:29:51

Um at the top tier.

SPEAKER_01 3:29:53

Yeah, yeah. So I just need I probably yeah, I just needed to move away from that and have a bit of calm. And um yeah, it's it's good. I think Louise is sick to death of me having me in the house though, because she works from home. It's like, are you gonna go and play golf or are you gonna go and do this? Get the fuck out of the house, you're shitting me because I'm not working and she's trying to work at home and all that.

SPEAKER_03 3:30:13

So but you have started a bit of a side hustle, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:30:16

So the side hustle, mate. Yeah, so I um I decided when I was the sergeant running the um selection that uh and it's something I actually stole from Weeksy. Weeksy said to me, he goes, steal unashamedly, not property but ideas. Um and he he had a system of giving people feedback. And I was like, you know what, I'm gonna do it for people who apply for selection. If they're unsuccessful, we'll make an appointment if they want, they can come in, I'll tell them what I saw, what I thought, how they went, where they went wrong, where they might be able to improve. Um, and I I didn't do that with an idea of starting a side hustle. But what I ended up developing was this database of stuff that made people be unsuccessful. And it was often simple, simple stuff that they just.

SPEAKER_03 3:31:07

I saw you doing that in the job when you were doing the selections.

SPEAKER_01 3:31:10

Yeah, I did the debriefs. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So but but I had nowhere to um I'd be like, you know, often the most common thing, mate, was people just couldn't manage stress. They get onto selection and the the DS are there with a clipboard or a notebook or an iPad assessing them, and people do weird stuff under stress. And, you know, I would say to them, you know, they you know, as an example, I'd say, Oh Matt, do you remember the scenario you did where you know the guy was asleep in the car and they'd put their head in their hands, they'd be like, Oh, I can't fucking believe I did what I did. I would never do that out on the street. I don't know why I did that. The why they did that is they were just they weren't thinking clearly and they were too stressed, but I had nowhere to send them to kind of fix it. They were back out in the van, you know, doing 20 jobs a shift and getting smashed on night shifts and stuff. So um, so yeah, then uh once I'd left, I was like, I was out walking the dog where I do all my best thinking, and I was like, I wonder, I wonder if I started something where I just mentored some people to help them get ready just so they're not as surprised by the whole thing. And and um so I rang um a couple of mates going, Oh, I've got this fucking idea, what do you reckon? And um one of them said to me, mate, why don't you just do a pilot of it? Just run a pilot, see if you like it, see if they like it. Because I had the structure, I'd written down the structure of what I wanted to do and the things that I thought were valuable. Why don't you do a pilot of it? See if they like it, see if you like it. I'm like, that's a fucking good idea. So I did that um with a few fellas and um and got to the end of it, and the two things I learned, and anyone is I fucking love doing it, mate. I I really enjoyed it. Like these young, and so far they're all men, but I'd love to mentor a woman that could somehow get into the SOG, that would be an interesting top problem for the boys to solve. But um I love doing it, mate. These young people who are chasing my motivation, big goals, they're motivated, um, they they just want to get after it, and and it's just you I'd forgotten what that hunger was like until you sit across the room with them and they're just you're talking to them, and and you can see they're just soaking everything in. They're like, fucking tell me more. And I'm sitting there just talking shit like I'm kind of now with you, and they're like madly writing shit in their notebooks. I'm like, hang on, that's not even on the that's not what we're talking, but they're writing shit down. Um, and then the the sealer for me was um I worked with a young fella who was up in the NT, and he did the program and it finished, and two weeks later he did selection and he finished it and got selected, right? So he's driving home the night he's after it's finished, and he rings me and he's like, Brooksy, Brooksy, I got in, I got in, I got in. And I'm like walking around my house like a proud fucking father, mate. I'm I like I get goosebumps now thinking about how excited he was, and uh after that happened, I was like, Yeah, this is something I want to fucking do. This is fuck look, not everyone I work with is gonna get through, but I'm batting a thousand at the moment. But good young fella, and um uh just that excitement for him that I've I've helped he was a jet. He didn't he didn't need a lot of help, but I feel like I had a little bit of maybe I gave him a little bit of magic dust or something on him, maybe I gave him a little bit of confidence. But when he rang me and told me he was in, I'm like, this is fucking cool. Uh and a little bit some of the stuff you were telling me. Exactly, you know, some of the experiences you've had with the stuff you're doing, you kind of go, Yeah, this is fucking good.

SPEAKER_03 3:34:49

You keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 3:34:50

Yeah, and and you know, I'm I'm only giving him a little bit of help. At the end of the day, they've got to figure it out from themselves and they've got to go and do the hard shit. You know, they've got to have that no quit mentality and and perform at their best and all that kind of thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:35:03

And all it takes is that mentorship though. Yeah, I see. Someone to just go, mate, just just keep at it. Do this or do that.

SPEAKER_01 3:35:10

Yeah, or maybe it's too soon for you. That's it, yeah. Maybe maybe go to search for for exactly 12 months, or you know, you you're you've got injuries, don't risk it, you know, get yourself well or stop overtraining. Super fucking common, mate. These young fellas, they're fucking just training so hard, and it's like they get on a selection, they're already cooked. Because you know, they get close, you know, it's like a month out, and they're like, oh fuck, I I need to train harder because I'm not fit enough. It's like a month out's too late, boys. It's too but they do, and then they get on a selection and their bodies are cooked.

SPEAKER_02 3:35:41

Overcooked, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:35:42

Yeah, and and and they and they they bomb out. So um, but yeah, mate, it's it's I've really enjoyed doing it. Um, I don't think I'm gonna buy a super yacht or anything, but um, the main thing is I've enjoyed doing it, and and the feedback I got from them was really positive. Um, and the guys that did it were really good, they were good young fellas, and the feedback they gave me wasn't just at a boy, Brooksy. It was, hey, you should think about adding this or that or do this bit, or so it was constructive feedback. It wasn't, oh, you're amazing, Brooksy. I don't want to fucking hear that. And I I've always sought out people who I call them avoid cheerleaders when you ask them for someone, hey Maddie, do you think this is a good idea? And if they're a cheerleader, they're gonna go, yeah, yeah, Brooksy, do it, do it, do it. I I I'll I've always sought out people who'll go, um, um who'll go, nah, nah, Brooksy, nah, that's not, don't do that. That's nah. And uh, or yeah, that's good. That's good. But think about this. You need to find those people who will actually fucking tell you the truth. Yeah, exactly. They're not gonna just get a cheerleader, you know. Oh yeah, good one, Maddie. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:36:50

Fucking do 20 grand ladder blown to nothing.

SPEAKER_01 3:36:53

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So um, so yeah, mate, it it's it's really good. Um hopefully get a few more people on board. Yeah, for sure. Help them out.

SPEAKER_03 3:37:02

And this covers all states or or yeah, yeah. Well, like you said, that guy from uh Northern Territory, that's the what are they called up there?

SPEAKER_01 3:37:08

Yeah, the territory TRG territory response group. Yeah, so um he'll love that he's getting a bit of a shout out.

SPEAKER_03 3:37:13

Yeah, shout out is he's on the job.

SPEAKER_01 3:37:16

Well, he it's a bit of a different system up there, but he he's still got a ways to go. But you know, he's done the selection part, which is awesome for him. And um, but I I think the the lessons and the not the lessons, yeah, the lessons and and the process is pretty similar.

SPEAKER_02 3:37:32

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:37:33

In most states, and to be honest, even with the army, it's pretty similar. I've had a an army fella reach out to me actually, and um I said, Look, mate, it's been a while since I've been in that world, but I still think the lessons and some of the things that I can talk to you about can help you. Um, but probably me, one wood to use the golf term, is yeah, the police PTGs, um, I have a pretty good understanding because I was we had a really good relationship with Queensland cert, good bunch of fellas up there. Um, I've got some rippers to point your way, but they just got to leave the job. Oh, yeah, yeah. There's a couple of good fellas up there that can send them, contain them, yeah, register, but they're they're still still doing it, so they can't yet. But um, but yeah, so you know, I went to New Zealand, I had a look at their um selection before I left. Um again, different, but it's the same stuff, mate. Same, you know, manage stress, get yourself fit, fucking stay motivated, don't quit, um, don't do dumb shit, manage manage yourself, prepare properly. Um, so yeah, it's pretty um it's pretty universal, I think, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:38:39

And uh obviously what's it what's it called?

SPEAKER_01 3:38:41

Uh North Spire, North Spire Advisory.

SPEAKER_03 3:38:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:38:44

Um yeah, I I now that I've had to make emails and stuff, I I wish I'd come up with a much shorter um business name. So when you got to type in the whole, I should have just called it I don't know, Brooks or something. But anyway, it's a bit long when you type in the but yeah, North Spire Advisory.

SPEAKER_03 3:39:02

Um Instagram as well.

SPEAKER_01 3:39:04

Yeah, got the Insta, yeah, which um it's funny. Like like I said, Louise, my wife. So we built a website from scratch, which thanks AI, helped us build that. And it was a struggle, you know. Louise struggled through her bit, and then I got on and struggled. And but we built a website, it's okay, it's not perfect, but um, and yeah, into the old the Insta, like you know, I sit there for like 40 minutes because it's tempting, right? Like I I'm trying to make the Instagram posts that I do actually my thoughts and what I really think, um, and then trying to use AI to make it look cool. But every time you put it in AI, it changes your words and it try and you read that and you go, Oh, that kind of sounds slick. And and I'm conflicted by oh, that sounds slick, but it's not you my my real words are are this over here. So when you read some of the stuff on there, it might not sound too polished, but it's it's me and and and it's kind of sound should be, yeah. And and but it's tempting, right? You go, oh, that's some cool stuff. And now you can see people who've got AI generated fucking stuff like that. Um, but it yeah, so it's but you know, I didn't even know how to post something on like and like so my poor my poor wife, she's like, Oh my fucking god. I might you've got to I'm sitting at the computer with the mouse like an old man, and she's like, Can you just let me do it? And I'm sitting there going, No, I've got to learn how to do it. Tell me how to do it. And she's like, Okay, click up there, do this, upload. I'm like, Oh my god.

SPEAKER_03 3:40:27

This is how I know you're old, you're using Instagram on the computer.

SPEAKER_01 3:40:33

No, well, actually, it's actually made for phone, so I do do a fair bit of it on the phone. But when I do the posts, because I and I I I stress over the posts, mate, because I read them and I'm like, I know the fucking boys will let me know about it if I fucking misstep or do something fucking, you know, that's that's um not right or it's bullshit or whatever. So I'm there going, reading through it, going reading every word, thinking, oh, what could the how could that be? And I don't know. You see other people, they just bang shit out there, and I'm like, just put it out.

SPEAKER_03 3:41:02

I do.

SPEAKER_01 3:41:03

I just put it out, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:41:04

I just worry spelling mistakes all the time and everything. I don't care.

SPEAKER_01 3:41:09

Yeah, so but that all that part of it's been really good learning about that, and um the the reach of social media is just crazy, mate, wild crazy, wild. Like when you reposted that first one I did, like that had 13,000 views, right? I did it, wow, and every other post had like two thousand or something like that. And it just goes to show you like the power, yeah. The reach that's it people that and you know, it is one positive thing, I guess, about the the the world we live in is you can reach um you can reach so many more people, yeah. Yeah, so but um it's a wild fucking

SPEAKER_03 3:41:48

And if you're out there, if you're out there young GD that's wanting to get into your your PTGs, reach out. North Spire. North Spire will help you get there.

SPEAKER_01 3:41:57

Well, yeah. Yeah. I think um and look, I've had some real good young people reach out already. And um it's actually exciting, mate. Like I said, it's um I I can't do selection for them, but just to get them more ready so that when they get there, they perform at their best. And then at the end, if they're sitting there in a room at the end of it and they're sitting there going, you know what, I'll I think I've done as well as I can do. If that's good enough and it gets you selected, how fucking good is that? But if you don't, if you don't get selected, at least then you know you've put your best foot forward and your best wasn't quite good enough, then you can move on to something else, another avenue in in your career, you know. You can because in Vic Pol uh, any police force, there's so many jobs you can do.

SPEAKER_03 3:42:40

Exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 3:42:41

I thought I wanted to be a homicide detective when I came to Vic Pol, and then I saw what homicide did, and I'm like, aren't they like catching like serial killers and stuff like that? And it's like, no, they're not really. Yes.

SPEAKER_03 3:42:51

And how many opportunities do you get to uh try out for SOG?

SPEAKER_01 3:42:54

For SOG. So they have we have two, and then if you want more than that, you can apply for an exemption.

SPEAKER_03 3:43:00

Well, there you go. So it's um And I'm sure there's plenty of guys that failed the first and gotten second.

SPEAKER_01 3:43:05

Yeah, plenty, mate. And back in the day, very few people got through on first go. Uh it's changed a bit now. I think because there's so many resources out there, people are more like I didn't know shit about anything when I tried for SAS selection. I had no fucking idea. But there's so many, you know, TV shows, like there's TV shows, there's YouTube clips, there's so much information out there. That's it. A lot of it's fucking bullshit, I suppose. Um, but there's a lot of good information out there. People, you know, they know what selection maybe is kind of like, so I think they're they're closer in what they know than back when I first started. Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 3:43:41

But um yeah, or you can just reach out to North Spire.

SPEAKER_01 3:43:44

Yeah, I'll put you straight.

SPEAKER_03 3:43:47

Mate, um I guess we've come up to that uh final part of the podcast, mate. Absolutely. You there's only so much you can fit into uh, you know, we've been chatting for three hours and 40 minutes now. Fuck really yeah, mate, yeah. Wow so there's only so much you can fit into. No, no, mate, it's great because there's just so much you've done in your whole entire career. Not only the SAS, but now, you know, 25 years in policing, 20-ish years in in SOG mate. Like it's incredible. It's incredible. And for you to come out, then the what what I love about it is how you've come out with PTSD, complex PTSD, but still haven't allowed it to make you become a victim. Nah. Because we see so many guys get out of guys, gals, whatever, get out of these services and they just play the victim card straight up and think that the world's crumbling down. It's not. Get on the front foot, get moving forward, go do something else, figure out, figure it out because there's just so much out there to do, and life's too precious to let it go.

SPEAKER_01 3:44:47

It is, mate. Find find a new purpose. Exactly. Find something else. I don't know, take up golf.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:52

Yeah, I play golf, yeah. Yeah, well, yeah, well, yeah, mate. We're up in Newcastle, mate. We'll take care of it.

SPEAKER_01 3:44:58

Thank you for it. It's the home deck up there, so you know, yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:45:02

Um obviously I've got a couple of final questions for you, and I guess leading on from that, you know, the SASR life and the the SOG life. Um, what advice can you give to people just to keep on keeping on completing any goal they set their mind to and just to crush it in life? But also, like for you, again, you pass SASR selection, no easy feat. You pass SOG selection, no easy feat. What is the formula for you? What was the formula for you?

SPEAKER_01 3:45:29

I I think the formula for that is you can't get around the hard work part of it. If you're trying to look for ways around doing the hard work before it, then you're probably already um you're probably already done before you get there. So I think it's you've got to be prepared to do the hard work. And and nothing really that's easy is fucking valuable. So if you find things that are hard and do hard things, you can you can teach yourself to be able to do hard things. And my young son, I talked to him about it a little bit going, hey, you know, we can do hard things, you and me, you know, when he gets a bit flat, he's only a little fella. But yeah, so get out there, do hard things, and you can do it. You and what I say to dream dream big, why not? Why not you? Um why why not you being the you know, I can never be an NBA player, you've got to dream big within, you know, within the realms, but yeah, you and then once you set your goal, your mind to it, you just fucking lock in and don't let anything get in your way. Um and tick every box as much as you can before it physically, mentally, home life, everything's right so that you can particular with with that, but and then just hunt fucking find that purpose. What's your purpose? What do you want to do? So yeah, it's funny. I've heard you ask that question so many fucking times. And when when you said I knew it was coming, I'm like, fuck, I should have prepared for that.

SPEAKER_03 3:46:55

But again, for the people out there, if you need some advice, reach out to North Spire. You're gonna be PR PR guy, mate. Uh second question, what uh scares you most in life? What are you most afraid of?

SPEAKER_01 3:47:07

I can tell you what I I was most afraid of. So um losing my dad when I was seven, once I had kids, so my memories of my dad were very um vague, vague. Um and once I had kids of my own and they and uh uh my daughter got to seven and I was like before she got to seven, I was like, fuck, if something happens to me before she gets at least to seven, she's not gonna remember fuck all about me. So leaving this earth before my kids got to a point where they could really know who their dad was fucking terrified me.

SPEAKER_03 3:47:50

Do you think that played a part of the role of you I guess moving out of you know the operational side of SOG? Sublimally, maybe, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:48:01

Certainly wasn't a a conscious thing, but maybe, yeah. Yeah, but that that really um uh scared me. Um, but you know, they they're much older now, they're 15 and 13, and and you know, I'm like, okay, surely they'll remember something about dad. Yeah, yeah. It's kind of you know, as I said to you when we're talking before, when I heard Smithy do this one and he talked about having something down for his kids to biggest thing, isn't it? To to hear this all the time. Um, and you know, they can um sit and listen to um dad's life, it's recorded, so that's it. Um but yeah, that's probably the thing that did scare me. Like it really fucking and it it it really um bothered me. Like it wasn't a constant thing, but every now and then something would come up, something that happened, and I was like, I'd be like, fuck, if I fucking die, and and you know, these little people don't get to know that I forgot to it wasn't gonna say the kids' names, too late. I'm like, oh okay, but my little bloke's two years behind, then he got to seven, and I'm like, oh, that's kind of yeah, so it's um that really bothered me, mate. Yeah um that that the kids wouldn't know who their dad was. And it's funny doing this because my uh my wife, I didn't um meet her until I was 35 or 6, so I she didn't know me when I was in the army. We weren't childhood sweethearts or anything like that. So she knows the SOG life very well.

SPEAKER_02 3:49:30

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:49:31

Um, but she doesn't so she's she'll probably hear things on this one that she might not have um about me. And I I guess probably something uh I meant to mention it before is um we sort of spoke about is the the girls that support us, they're fucking awesome.

SPEAKER_03 3:49:49

Spouses, mate.

SPEAKER_01 3:49:50

They they do it hard and they don't complain. We go out there and we fucking arrest bad guys with our mates and go shoot guns and do all the stuff and we're living this adventurous life, and you know, the the the wives are at home and they're managing the kids and they're managing getting them to sport and school and paying bills and doing all that stuff, yeah and everything, and and also that and still working full-time, yeah, and and yeah, yeah, exactly. You know, yeah, it's uh and every every SOG bloke, every SAS bloke, you know, there's the single Easter out there, of course, but um they've got women behind them who are supporting them and and enabling them to be able to chase their chase their dreams and and um yeah, I'm fucking grateful.

SPEAKER_03 3:50:36

100% mate, yeah. I get it, absolutely get it. Yeah, my wife's my wife's been through away a lot, young fellow. In and out of the country, Iraq, Afghan, and far yeah, mate. Um a third question tell us something about you that people don't know. What's your guilty obsession?

SPEAKER_01 3:50:52

See, I've heard this question too. Um I reckon something people might not too many people will know is I fucking love building jigsaw puzzles, mate.

SPEAKER_02 3:51:02

Oh, do you?

SPEAKER_01 3:51:03

Yeah, my mum builds them a lot, she's still um around. Um she's only young, she was young when she had me, and she loves building them. And if I get on a roll, I I can sit there for fucking hours building a jigsaw, just figuring out the I don't know whether it's the little hits of dopamine every time I get a piece in, but um I've always I come and go like them uh during COVID I built fucking heaps of them because we're locked in that house. I had nothing else to do. Um but yeah, there you go.

SPEAKER_03 3:51:31

There was a spike in uh puzzles uh sales during COVID. Yeah, because we were fucking we were under house arrest for two years, baby.

SPEAKER_01 3:51:38

So far around. But yeah, probably jigsaw puzzles is something a lot of the boys probably wouldn't um wouldn't know. So there's a whole bunch of other stuff.

SPEAKER_03 3:51:47

What do you do when you finish it?

SPEAKER_01 3:51:48

Do you collapse it or do you Yeah, take a photo of it and send it to Mum and then collapse it and put it away? Mum hates it because she's always got one on the go because mum's by herself now, and so my stepdad died a few years ago, and and um but she has a a a puzzle table in her house, and every time you go there there's a puzzle sitting there in some level of construction, and me and my brother get there and fucking build the puzzle on her and then go like I'm gonna start another puzzle.

SPEAKER_03 3:52:17

Yeah, nice mates. Um TV show, movies, what do you what's your what's your go-to? Your top. Yeah, the movie you just it's on TV and you just watch it and you like watch it time and time again.

SPEAKER_01 3:52:32

Probably the movie I've watched the most is Heat. Yeah, classic. Heat's a good movie.

SPEAKER_03 3:52:37

It just starts off all the time.

SPEAKER_01 3:52:39

Yeah, there's there's yeah, there's a bit going on there. Um TV shows, uh I it's fine hard to it feels like there's so much on now, but I I tell you the sh the TV show that got me into show it was a clo a show called The Shield.

SPEAKER_03 3:52:54

Oh yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:52:55

It's an American cop um show. Um and oh, it went for ages, and um like they were bad dudes, those cops. But um, it was a cracking show, but I've kind of watched it back. I'd I've got it on um uh on CD, so I can yeah, and I sat down with um a young fella to I'll go, mate, fucking watch this, it's awesome. And he's kind of watching it, and compared to today's like shows, it's kind of like, oh really? It's like come on, but yeah, I I loved that show, The Shield. It was fucking it was good. But you know, I like those Taylor Sheridan shows, Yellowstone and all that kind of thing. They're they're pretty good, but Yellowstone was sick. Yeah, yeah. I've just finished watching the uh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:53:37

So I just finished it the other day.

SPEAKER_01 3:53:40

Yeah, interesting. But uh yeah, I'm pretty sure that's how the the dog at the Sog got his name because of Yellowstone, I'll rip. Oh yeah, I think so, yeah. Yeah, right. Well, KB, I think, gave him that name. Uh the fellow I was talking about that passed away, so but um yeah, so there's so many good shows. But yeah, probably Heat and um again, I knew this question was coming, I should have fucking mate's uh music.

SPEAKER_03 3:54:05

What are you uh was there is was there a gym at the office?

SPEAKER_01 3:54:09

Yeah, there is, you just didn't see it. I didn't see it, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:54:12

Um is it good?

SPEAKER_01 3:54:14

Yeah, there's two actually the Sog have a little one, and then there's the one for the the big one that the whole building uses. But yeah, it's good, it's good. Um music. Uh of recent times I've I've got into country, I I like your newer kind of country, Luke Combs and stuff like that. But my roots are like your old school rock and roll, like cultures, little angels, and all that kind of stuff. That's my that's my one-wood kind of thing. Um, and I love it. Like I I don't have as diverse, but my kids have very broad um music taste, which is awesome. You'll hear a uh little blokes right into am I ever gonna see your face again? Oh yeah at the moment. And he loves to fill in the in the blanks. But um, yeah, that that stuff I I really loved. And I actually found a cassette tape that I used to put in my Walkman and play. People like young people out there going, What the fuck's and what's a cassette cassette tape? Because my little bloke found it. He goes, What's this, dad? And like, fuck, that is a tape that I used to put in the Walkman and put in my basic pouch when I was training for um SAS selection like Copperhead Road and a bunch of other songs on there. That and uh I don't have I just don't have a cassette player to play it on, but yeah, so yeah, that's um yeah, the old cassette tape was um I'm like, oh yeah, we used to put it in this thing.

SPEAKER_03 3:55:32

I know, and you have to get a pencil to sometimes it'll screw out, so you gotta get a pencil in there to Yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:55:40

Yeah, that was the training, the training soundtrack.

SPEAKER_03 3:55:43

Yeah, yeah, right, mate. Um mate, again, if people want to get in contact with you, where can they go?

SPEAKER_01 3:55:52

So Instagram on Instagram Northspire Advisory, and uh there's a website www.w.northspireadvisory.com. But there's a link on the Instagram and all all the young fellows tell me just use Instabrooksy, you old folks. That's it, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. Um, but yeah, you just get on the Insta and and um there's either a link there to the website or you can just get on the DMs and um yeah, I'm learning a lot about managing all that stuff at the moment.

SPEAKER_03 3:56:18

So yeah, it's nice, mate. Well again, appreciate you uh coming into the you know, had a bit of issues with hotels, yeah, ended up getting into the intercontinental. I fucking love it. I've stayed here a few times, it's nice, it's really nice hotel. But uh appreciate the the SOG coin too and the and the hoodie.

SPEAKER_01 3:56:34

Uh you're right, mate. Least I could do.

SPEAKER_03 3:56:36

Yeah, love that one. Absolutely sick, mate. But uh yeah, we'll definitely stay in contact and mate. Anytime out in Newcastle, let's go for a hit.

SPEAKER_01 3:56:43

Love to. And a few beers. Love to have beers. I could use a beer now, yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:56:47

Yeah, easy, mate. Appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01 3:56:50

All right, awesome. Thanks, mate. Thanks, Matty.