Ep. 255 Sam Bush 2nd Commando Regiment Australian Special Forces

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_01 2:24

Um, this range of the case. All right, Zero Limits listeners on today's uh Zero Limits podcast joined in the Newcastle studio by a veteran of the Australian Defence Force, more specifically, spent his whole career within 4R slash two commando uh later on, 2009. I'm pretty sure that that changed over. Now he was brought up in another podcast with uh Robbo and uh Berg's obviously spoke about him as well. Part of DA NOR. I just had uh Berg's on for a debrief and we spoke about DA N because it's been the 20th anniversary of DA NO, and they all caught up down in Canberra a few weeks ago, and it was just like they never left off from where they were. But uh his name is Sam Bush, and again, really established career within Defence Force. But not only that, he left 2008, 2009, moved into the civilian world, and just continue to crush it, which you know we'll definitely talk about because I love those transitional periods of guys leaving defence and carrying on what they did in defence outside, but applying those measures, you know, outside of you know shooting guns and whatever, but uh applying it into business. And uh he's down here in Newcastle, quite a successful man now, rolling around with a tutor on his wrist. So that that shows some uh success there. Sam mate, welcome. How are you? I'm good, thanks, Matt.

SPEAKER_03 3:46

Thank you very much for having me.

SPEAKER_01 3:47

Appreciate you, appreciate you coming down and wanting to share your story. I know it's you know your first podcast, quite daunting coming on, sharing your story. Again, a lot of you guys, in defense, military, uh sorry, um cops, etc., everyone's so secretive. And it was, you know, 10-15 years ago, no one would say anything. Like it was just taboo to say anything. Now they're all coming out with books, and now everyone's coming on podcasts. But it's good because what it does is it allows future generations, your kids, for ex for example, I spoke about this offline, your kids to hear these podcasts and go, shit, you know, when your kids have got kids and they're like, Oh, why am I wearing my granddad's medals? Well, have a listen to this and let's find out you'll get to hear how much of a badass he was. Yeah. So be proud.

SPEAKER_03 4:32

Yeah, it is um it has taken me a little while, I guess. Um there's been a few people that have reached uh out to me to either come on your podcast or a few others, and um very lucky to have served with some really awesome people who've had a lot of nice things to say. Um I mean, I think firstly, I I did get a little bit scarred because when I first got out, I I didn't really explain to people who I or what I did before I ended up in Cairns. So I live in Cairns now with my wife and family. But I had a um I had a journalist who reached out to me from the Cairns Post to do an article about um it was actually about opnial. There was some very small bits of information that had come out. Um and I did an interview with this guy who was a young journalist, and the article's still online, you can search for it. Uh it's got a disgusting photo of me with a shaved head. But he's basically written a whole heap of shit in there, um, took a lot of things I said out of context, added some stuff in there about Davy Crockett and the Alamo, which um it was quite funny. Nick Hill uh contacted me very shortly after that to query me about, hey, are you did you say this and did you say that? And I was like, no, mate, I'd I um that's that's not what I said. And I so since then I've been very cautious about you know publicising that, other than on my priv private Instagram or social media that I share with friends and family photos and things like that. But um no, look, I'm really excited to be here. Um thank you for the opportunity. And like you said, you know, Eddie was probably the one. I mean, Dave Parker um started twisting the arm, but I think it was Eddie who really you know stuck the knife in and gave me the idea to to come online and and and share a few stories.

SPEAKER_01 6:11

Yeah, mate, I I I totally get it with the the whole media thing. That's Journo's being journos, mate. And then obviously we went through the whole IG ADF stuff and media and uh Ben Robert Smith and Shulzy and that just blew up and obviously Hesto's issues with November Patoon, and so I can see why a lot of guys just like, well fuck, I'm staying out of this because they're just gonna twist my words. Uh even look at Hesto, mate. They the ABC literally changed gunshots. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:42

Like that's that's next level. It's a disgrace, it's a disgrace that our national broadcaster would do such a thing. And you know, even where they've very, very reluctantly, I don't even think they've fully apologised for what they've done.

SPEAKER_01 6:55

Um, you know, just gave Hesto 400k. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:58

Now he's off in Spain and just floating around. Yeah. No, it it is um it is something that we need to obviously we need to protect our our operators and our service people who've done these things at the same time. But like you said, we we need to get these stories out because uh like we just talked about offline, in a few years' time, our generation is gonna be the Vietnam vets of the eighties and the nineties, right? And so these stories are gonna be lost forever. And I think now that we've got the technology with podcasts and, you know, digital media and things like that, we've got so much of an opportunity to be able to tell not only our side of the story, but also the things that made, I guess, like you said, who we are and how we came to be in the positions that, you know, you think about some of the stories that we've heard, the bravery and the Victoria Crosses, you know, you think about I mean we're jumping ahead, but you think about Cam Bird, who was a good mate of mine, but to for him to be at that door on that day to do what he did, the story for him to get there, you know, you you listen to Doug and Kay talk about and to and his brother Brendan talk about who he was as a kid, it's it's amazing that that individual, the the the bits and pieces that that that create that man uh in that point where he he made took that decision which ended up costing him his life. I think it's amazing. And such a good opportunity for us to be able to do this.

SPEAKER_01 8:16

Yeah, exactly right, exactly. And like you spoke about Eddie Robo, fast Eddie, uh, you know, who was on previously, but and obviously the team leader being Cam Baird and their stories are just they're they're unless they're being told on you know somewhat these platforms and other platforms, they're gone forever. So we need to bring those stories to life so we can uh you know keep the memories of the guys that have been you know that have passed alive. It's always good to just gob off as well. That's what diggers do best.

SPEAKER_03 8:43

Yeah, we do, we do like to do that. I I do like telling a few stories though. But um, yeah, and I and I I do like having a yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:51

Mate, before we crack on with your defence career, post-life career, let's get back to these younger days, mate. Growing up Western Australia on a little sheep farm.

SPEAKER_03 9:00

Yeah, I was born in a in a little town called No Anger Up, which starts with the G. Um I just read that, I'm like, how do you even say that? Um, which is uh it's 45 minutes to an hour north to northwest of Albany. It's it basically sits at the base of the Stirling Range, which is the major mountain range there. Um and it was a a wheat or grain and sheep farm, predominantly run by my uncle, um Uncle Brian, um, and my dad um helped out on the farm as well. I think my grandfather, Lindsay Bush, had moved over there from uh Uroa, so they're originally from Victoria, my family, um, or my dad's side. Um and yeah, spent you know, very early years um there on the farm, which I think is where I kind of get that's really who that's my soul. Is I'm a farm boy at heart and I I did grow up in the city for quite a lot of years, but I can see the way you dressed it's carried on. The Queen Street uh cowboy. Um but um uh yeah, so yeah, no angry up. So it's a little town, uh it's north of our farm. So we could where my farm was, it's near a town called Amelop, uh another funny name. Um and then yeah, I moved to Perth um probably when I was five, four, five, or six. Um we moved to uh a bit of a rural um area north of Perth, uh, Wanneroo, um, and then eventually moved into the suburbs uh where I started my primary school.

SPEAKER_01 10:29

Yep, yep. Just quickly here, you've wrote a story here that's uh about my uh the road train.

SPEAKER_03 10:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So this is this probably highlights a little bit of who I am uh as a rogue. Uh my mum loves to tell this story when we get together with family and friends, is that when I was maybe 18 months to two years of age, you know, we're living on a farm, it's harvest season um or it's shearing season, so there's there's all the men are out either harvesting or shearing or whatever. She's had a uh long day, and so what she's done is she's um put me down to go and have a sleep and she's gone out do a little bit of work or whatever. She's laid down on the couch to have a bit of a um bit of shut eye for herself, and when she's woken up, she's gone in to check on me and I'm gone. And so she's looking around the house and uh I'm I'm in a cot, mind you, so I've escaped out of the cot um from our house. And as she's wandering around the house, she she goes outside to see if I'm out with a dog and w where our house was in relation to the main farmhouse was on the on the lower side of the hill and there was a crossroads, you know, two or three hundred metres down the road at the end of the paddock, and she sees this road train coming to a uh a screeching halt. And back in those days it was a dirt road, so there's dust and shit, and you could hear, you know, you know what a road train sounds like when it puts the brakes on anyway, and so straight away she's like she's assumed the worse, and so barefoot, she's run across the paddock, there's rocks and malleigh roots and bits of timber and bits of shit everywhere, and so she's running across, and there's this truck driver who's picked up this 18-month-old kid with the dog, and I'm apparently had been playing in the puddles at the on the side of the road. Um, and I think his comment was, Oh, are you are you missing something? Are you missing something? And so um, yeah, she likes to tell that story a bit and you know, there was a couple of other occasions where, you know, we we have a lot of dams uh in and around where we lived, and they would find me across the road with the dog, uh, in the dam, you know, waste deep water. Never really knew how to swim, um, but just getting up to no good, you know, having a great time, not thinking I'm hurting anyone else, but just you know, obviously causing a lot of stress and heartache for her. So she was probably a little bit uh happy, I guess, when we moved to town. Um, but I don't think it act it didn't really stop. It just I just got on to to bigger and better things, I think. Motorbikes and uh pushbikes and all that sort of crap.

SPEAKER_01 13:07

And eventually playing in puddles in Afghanistan. Yeah, puddles in Afghanistan, yeah. Or aqueducts, I should say. Yeah, yeah. Yeah, right, mate. And um brothers and sisters, you got any siblings?

SPEAKER_03 13:17

So I got uh I got two um I got I've got three um brothers and sisters, so I've got two brothers, um uh James and Michael. James is three years younger than me, Michael's four years, and then my sister Catherine, who's sixteen years younger. Um so from my mum's second marriage uh with my stepdad Gary. Um and uh yeah, yeah. So my but all my family basically live back in Perth in WA. Um James works in the a lot of fly and fly out rigging, so he's a rigging specialist, does a lot of work on um like shipping lanes and things like that. Um and my other brother, Michael, is a um he's a Sparky.

SPEAKER_01 13:57

Yeah, right. So like you said, you move so from I'm not even gonna pronounce that one. No anger up, yeah. Norang Noranger up. Yeah. From there you moved to Perth as a a young fella, and obviously this is where you you know you st you do all of your schooling throughout Perth.

SPEAKER_03 14:11

Yeah, yeah. So I went to um for anyone that knows Perth, uh, we lived on the northern suburbs, kind of vicinity of Wanneroo, Jundalup. So anyone who knows that area, um, I actually went to Camberwara High School, which is no longer there, it's been demolished. I think they've got houses on it now. Um and then we eventually moved to uh so my parents divorced when I was about six or seven. Um and so living with a single mum, um my dad moved back to the country, um, lived with a single mum for a period of time, and then I guess throughout my childhood, you know, because I was such a rat bag, and look, I'd never did any I wasn't doing anything wrong, I was just getting up to no good. Bit of a class clown, um, just getting into things that I probably shouldn't. And so I used to get sent back and forth to live with my dad every now and again. So my dad actually moved back down south to the area where I was born and and grew up a little bit. Um he would manage farms and and a few other little bits and pieces. Um I went to live with him for a while. Actually moved back to No Angara. Um he lived there with a with a girlfriend or a partner he had at a time. Um but then yeah, eventually my mum and stepdad uh built their own house in a place called Clarkson, which is to the north of Perth. Um and I did year six and year seven uh before going to high school at Ocean Reef Senior High School. Um and then, you know, I guess like most stories uh of guys like me, I had underg undiagnosed ADHD and all these other bloody things. So I think in year nine I became such an insufferable kid to my parents or to my mum and my stepdad that uh she eventually shipped me off to live with my dad permanently. And at the time he was living in the Kimberleys, so in the town called Windham. So my stepmother, she was a um she'd been appointed as a physiotherapist at the hospital in Wyndham, which is for people that don't know, it's about 100 K's north of Cunanura. Um in the it's basically the n most northernmost town in Western Australia. Um very, very small population, uh high indigenous population, very low white kids, and so I spent two years there, uh, did all the year nine and year ten um living in Wyndham, spent a bit of time on the El Cuestro cattle station, um fishing, you know, running around with no shoes on, um, basically loving life. It was really it was actually really good until I eventually came back to Perth to do year eleven and twelve.

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Yeah, and just looking, obviously, your younger brother, younger brothers, three and four year age difference. So I'm guessing those two hung out together, and then you were kind of the and it's it's it's really wild because that's similar to my family. Me and my younger brother hung out together because we were the same, you know, two years apart, and then the older brother was four or five years different. So you almost live a separate life to that older, and obviously, this is where your ADHD and your just mischievous behaviour, you know, w was left uncontrolled because you're not working with someone else.

SPEAKER_03 17:11

Yeah, yeah. And I think um now that I'm an adult, you put it in hindsight, I think both my brothers are both exactly the same as me. They've both got ADHD, probably a little bit autistic, and but they had each other to kind of contain each other and bounce each other off, and they were obviously very, very close. Um, and then obviously uh the other part, obviously, I left to join the army, but then there's this distance of well, I'm living on the east coast, they're they're growing up through high school there. Then I've got a a baby sister added to the mix, and so the difference between me and her i is you know, it's 16, 17 years. Um, but like at the time, yeah, it's um it's funny how you know all those three are probably closer than I am, even though I'm very close to my brothers, they are probably a better unit because they've spent s they've spent so much more time together. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:06

Yeah, mate. I get I get it because I'm yeah, similar, similar. So you come back to uh Perth for year 11 and 12. How'd you go at schooling? Yeah, obviously, again, a bit of a rap bag.

SPEAKER_03 18:18

Yeah, look on it. I was I was very good at school. Yeah. So when I um uh I was very good at maths, very good at science, um, very practical, very technical. I actually, you know, in once I became an electrician, I actually started studying engineering. Uh I do have I just have it in my brain where I can actually understand engineering principles and things like that, and and mass wasn't really too hard. Um again, I didn't really I didn't apply myself. I just had fun. Um I played footy, I played AFL as a young, as a young guy, um probably actually my whole childhood. So from year five, uh sorry, from year one, uh when I was about five years old. Back in those days, I was kick used to be called free ball in WA. Um so I used to play free ball and then I used I've played for the Whitford's football club for most of my um school school time. Um and then when I went away, I play actually played seniors for Windham in the local league. And then when I came back, I ended up playing for a club called Ocean Ridge. Um but yeah, so that was basically my life is hanging out with my mates, go on a footy train, and um in year 11 and 12 I actually got selected to play Colts for West Perth, which is uh like a waffle, uh the waffle down there. Um so that was it, yeah. Pla hanging out with my mates. I'd go to school when I had to, uh, and I would play footy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 19:38

So you said you know, you had that you had the smarts in there, but you're just the typical young boy chasing bird, playing sports, doing the boy thing, you know, being mischievous with the other boys. Within, you know, where does the defense come into it? And I know you leave school and you go into university. Have you got any family history within defense or yeah?

SPEAKER_03 20:01

So m both my mum and my dad served. My mum was in the RAF um for a period. My dad was an engineer, um, and then both my uncles on my dad's side both uh served in Vietnam. Um my grandfather on my mum's side, um, he served in Japan in the occupation after World War II. Yeah, right. Um and so there was and there was further history that goes back, which um at the time I didn't really realise. I just knew that um, you know, there were whenever I went to my banana pop's house, I always saw photos of him in his Air Force uniform. Um and I'd and I'd always known that my dad was in there. But like my uncle Brian, for example, he's he's very heavily into the military, been very supportive of me. I think he was the president of the Mandra RSL for a period. Um and so knowing knowing that it's always kind of been in the back of my mind, um, but I other than that, I had really no idea. The only other thing I had was Campbell Barracks where the SAS are based in Perth. Obviously that's down the road. You drive, you know, on the West Coast Highway, you drive along it, you drive past it all the time. That I always knew that I wanted to do something like that. Oh, I wish I could get in there someday. I wish I could see what they're doing. And because I mean I I've heard you guys, I've heard on podcasts talk about movies. So Navy SEALs was a movie Charlie Sheen, right? Wasn't was a movie for me that I was like, you know, that looks cool. And so I'd imagine that those guys were on at Swanborn doing the same shit on the beach and doing all that sort of stuff, right? And they were getting picked up in helicopters and um, you know, hey, we're Navy SEALs, we're here to get you out, all that sort of shit. And so I I I never really had a I never had a desire to join the military. Um I my goal, my goal when when I was in high school was I was gonna play professional football, I was gonna make the AFL, I was gonna go to university and study um uh sports management, sports science. I actually wanted to be a physiotherapist by trade. And so my idea, my my life plan was to play professional football for a period and then become a sports physio and then get involved in the game and do things like that. That's what at 17, 18, that's kind of what I wanted to do. Um and so yeah, when I when I left, obviously I went to university for a period, absolutely hated it. Um actually I loved uni because there's no one looking over your shoulder, but you're just on the gas every night. There's you know, at the time, you know, there's plenty of chicks and you're going to uni bars and toga parties, and you know, that there's just you know, there's a much bigger world than obviously being at high school. Um but university wasn't for me. I I could not, I just couldn't focus on, you know, sitting there going through lectures and things. Uh there were some things, I guess, in the first part that I really, really enjoyed. So um one of the first courses I ever did was practically learning uh how to coach swimming. So coaching the freestyle of swimming. Um I actually really enjoyed that and I got a lot out of that. And I guess if you think about you know where I ended up in terms of training and and stuff like that, um learning those early coaching abilities and actually some of the science behind learning some of their stuff. Um I actually got a I got a lot out of it. But oh yeah, I didn't stay. I I pulled the pin after one semester at university.

SPEAKER_01 23:13

Subliminally, like you talk about your grandparents, and it's funny, I don't know if it's our vintage or there was always photos of grandads and great-granduncles all dressed in the uniform, so it's like a a subliminal messaging of you know, because it was in there, like it's obviously it's it within you to go, you know, eventually you join the fence, but I remember going to my grandparents' house and you just see the old their brothers and their sisters and you know their their dads and all in uniform. You're like, Fuck, that's actually pretty cool. And you have but you had no concept of exactly what the Great Wall was as as young for you, I don't know what the fuck that is.

SPEAKER_03 23:51

I had no idea. And I think like another part of it too, which you know, my mum's all of my mum's friends who I called aunties, so like my auntie Diane and people, they were all my mum's Air Force mates. Yeah. And so they still get together and they march on Anzac Day and they get together and they, you know, enjoy some wines.

SPEAKER_01 24:06

Yeah, you understand it.

SPEAKER_03 24:07

And now I kind of understand why they still do that. At the time I probably I didn't put two and two together, I just thought I mean I called them my aunties and uncles and uh my uncle Ken, um, who was d who's Diane's husband. Um, you know, we spent a lot of time with those people, and it's now only really looking back, um, because there were you're right, my mum had photos of her with those people um in and around the house. And so yeah, sublimin subliminally, it probably was in the back of my head that someday, you know, some kind of service might have been in, you know, in my future.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

So you get that taste in uni, and you know, it's funny because that uni life, like you said, it was just like just parties, and that's exactly what the defence force turns into once you get into it. But your first thought is a pilot, what's going on here?

SPEAKER_03 24:55

Yeah, so because I did because I did okay at school, um, and I because I lived in Perth and I'd had been exposed out to Pierce Air Force Base, and so the the PC nines, the training aircraft, they used to fly north over the over where we lived all the time, and so I I would always see them. And we used to go to open days every now and again, and because my mum was in the Air Force and we had kind of a connection in the Air Force with my grandfather, I I kind of I thought about that being, you know, with Top Gun, I thought, you know, I'd love to be Maverick. Um not goose? No, not goose and definitely not Iceman. I could never pull off that haircut. But um yeah, I so I wanted to be a pilot, and so I I originally uh applied to be a pilot in the RAF and I I couldn't pass the hand-eye coordination test the because there's a the testing was basically m there's multiple moving parts and you need to control them at the same time as they're moving. And I wasn't it because I wasn't a video game kid, and I this is what I put it down to, because I wasn't a video game kid, I I couldn't really do that. I could do all the other things, I could pass everything else, but I just couldn't pass a hand-eye coordinate coordination test. And so I kind of then w was gonna go down a different different path, which uh I'm glad I didn't.

SPEAKER_01 26:05

What path is that? Just put it out there for the people.

SPEAKER_03 26:08

I was I had applied to be to go to RMC to be a um airfield defence guard and AGI as an officer.

SPEAKER_01 26:16

Which uh As an officer too.

SPEAKER_03 26:18

As an officer too. Um which um it it probably went further down the track. I actually met with a guy um who was a who was an officer um working out at Pierce. Um I went and had lunch with him. He lived in Scarborough and so I'd I'd done the full work, so I was trying to obviously do my research, but um in the end I got I got jack of the whole process and I went in there one day and just said, look, I'm changing my um I want to join the I want to be a grunt in the infantry.

SPEAKER_01 26:47

And where well like where does that come from?

SPEAKER_03 26:49

Did you so I think the knowledge that I wasn't going to make it at footy, so I when I left uni, I was working with a guy uh who I knew through the local footy club that my brothers played with, Queens Rock's Bulls. Um he was my brother's junior coach and he owned a um stonemason business. And so if anyone's been to northern northern suburbs of Perth, there's lots of limestone retaining walls everywhere. So his business was building these retaining walls, and so I was starting to do a lot of that. I was still playing football, still playing really good footy. Um and then when I came to the realisation that I wasn't gonna be good enough to be to get drafted, I just had I'd had a gut full and I just said, no, stuff this. Timor had just kind of been kicking off, so I'd seen it a bit in the media, and so I just said, no, stuff it, I'm gonna join as a grunt and I'm gonna yeah, I'm gonna go into infantry. And they were they were adamant that the no no no no because I I had I had enough um I had enough um ability to to go and be an officer and I was on the verge of obviously being accepted and they didn't wanna um they didn't want me to turn my back on that opportunity, but I'd kind of made up my mind, I'd just like no, let's go and do this. What year was this? This would have been 99.

SPEAKER_01 27:56

So 99, you head to Kapuka, mate. Do all the testing, all the site. I'm sure you've already done all that already, all the medical and all the physical and stuff. Yep. Obviously get your position offered to go to Kapuka, mate, head to Kapuka, and how was that? Again, you're coming from like you said, a bit of a wrap bag, a bit of this, probably not so much discipline, especially coming out of uni. Yep. Now you're going straight off the bus and they're straight into you.

SPEAKER_03 28:20

Yeah. Um look at the time, I think it's I hope it's the same for I'm assuming it's the same for everyone. I was not prepared. I was really not prepared. I thought I was, I was doing training, I'd already cut my hair, um, I hadn didn't hadn't done a number two, but I'd already basically shaved all my hair off. Um, so I thought I was getting ready for the physical aspect and being prepared. But no, when I when I got off that bus and um I I was not really prepared for what was kind of coming, we basically went straight up to the boozer, um, number twos, everyone got a number two haircut. There was a guy, uh I'll just mention his first name, Jaron, um, and we called him Jesus because he turned up with like some of the longest hair and a beard. He looked like Jesus. Um and he ended up going to four so he ended up coming across in one of the direct entries uh as we came through. Um but yeah, we went up to the boozer and we got our hair um haircut, and then I think from basically day one, day two onwards, I was 100% locked in. It is exactly what I needed at the exact right time.

SPEAKER_01 29:25

Isn't that crazy, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 29:26

100%. Yeah. I and and if if I think back to the the the weeks and the months leading up to it, um there's no way that I would have been prepared. But once I got there, it was Yeah, Kapuka was awesome. Yeah, you wake up at this time, you you pull your bed sheet over your shoulder, hallway five, we we go out there, you you knew that you you had set things that you had to do, um, set times and you had to go to places. It was easy. It was really quite easy.

SPEAKER_01 29:53

Isn't that wild? Because, you know, again, a majority of the podcast guests have had on the same I you know, I always say this in every podcast, but everyone comes from that same similar background, broken, you know, somewhat broken homes, but just mischievous in behaviour, and then you go to an establishment where discipline is the main priority, and you you you you get there and you go, fuck, this is this is what I've been longing for.

SPEAKER_03 30:16

Craving I could say craving.

SPEAKER_01 30:17

Yeah, yeah. Wow. Yeah, interesting, interesting. So, how how did you find that Kapuka period? And again, this is you know, this is where we spoke about it just before, about history. This is where you meet Cam Bad as well. You know, this is yeah, pretty cool.

SPEAKER_03 30:32

Yeah, well, um Yeah, it's funny when you look about it in time. So I'd I'd I had met Cam at the time because uh he was a few platoons behind me um at at the time, but I remember meeting him up the boozer. Um and of course, big, big guy, very imposing. I I at the time when I joined the army, I was 72 kilos. I was a skinny little blonde kid, um, you know, and and he's this guy who is already a man. He and uh you know, he was pretty good and a bit of a specimen. I mean, he won best of PT pretty much everywhere he went. Um had it had a had a little bit to do with him, but yeah, that was the really the first time I ever met him um was at the boozer um at s at uh Capuka.

SPEAKER_01 31:15

Yeah, mate again, it's it's history, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 31:18

Yeah, because VCMG, mate, like it's uh Yeah, yeah, and you know, the best part about Cam is he he was such a humble guy. Um he he would be so embarrassed by the hoopla and the fuss that's made about him these days, right? I I remember I mean we can talk about down the track, but I remember when he got his MG um after Luke was killed. Um I remember talking to him in a very private moment. So it's not in front of people, and you know, this is just two mates having a chat, and it was like, look, you know, I don't really deserve this. This is you know, we all did stuff that we had to do and we got the job done. And so he was like that the whole time, right? And so he would be completely, you know, I mean he'd be very respectful because of the the actual award because he would have seen it, it's not for him, it's for the team, right? Because the team kind of did what they did, but it's his incredible bravery and his ability to think. Because I think when Bleag was killed, he was the acting team leader at the time. Right. So he wasn't even in that, he wasn't even supposed to really be in that role. So he stepped up into a role and then he did what he did and he won a medal of gallantry for it, right? In the worst moment when he's just seen one of his like good mates killed. Um, and just you know, just it's the measure of the man, right? It's just the measure of the man.

SPEAKER_01 32:37

Yeah, for sure. And I'm sure you got more baddie stories down the track, which we'll talk about. Get through Kapuka, mate. You obvious obviously again absolutely enjoyed it. Uh get into a bit of firearms, and I'm sure you're you're a country boy, so I'm sure you've had some somewhat experience playing around with guns, and then but uh so from singles uh sorry, from Kapuga, you move into Singleton, Sunny Singleton up here in uh the Hannah Valley, mate. How'd you go moving into that? Because you know, Kapuka's all about fundamentals of you know being an Australian soldier, but now you move into the uh initial employment training of being an infantry soldier. Now you with all like-minded grubs and just all everyone's got ADHD and autism and yes, so I mean if we go back to Kapuka quickly.

SPEAKER_03 33:21

So while I was in Five Platoon and I had a Corporal Rogers, um was my I was in the one section, Five Platoon. Corporal Rogers was my section, he was from one RR, and we our section was full of ARA infantry blokes, right? He he had pulled in when he got the platoon. So we were all infantry. So we used to stand up and we used to do the role of the infantry in the hallway every night. Yep, yep. He would make us do it every night. And so I did that for eight weeks. So I was so excited to finally get to sing out and to get into um you know really what I what it was all about, right? I wanted to get into the training, we wanted to get into, you know, um, you know, shooting more weapons, tactics, um, being basically being immersed, doing PT every day, twice a day. You know, it was awesome. It was it and to be honest, Singleton again, I really enjoyed Kapuka, but singer was another step up, right? And I think it was another thing that I was like, yeah, this is I've made the right decision, um, this is really where I want to be. And and at the time, so I went to Bimbar Platoon, and we had a lot of studs that ended up going to um to the unit. Some guys then continued on, went to the regiment to the SASR. Um, but we had an awesome platoon, those two platoons. So I I um I actually got injured when I did I can't remember what it's called, what the final exercise is. Hardcore. The hardcore. I the I got injured uh on the final stomp um and didn't complete the final stomp. So I went back to Borneo platoon, which um again Bin Bar and Borneo were the first two platoons I think that went over to um four hour hour at the end of that, but um no, it was awesome, full of full of a bunch of legends.

SPEAKER_01 35:02

Yep, so you found purpose within you know obviously defense, uh loving the life. Where you know, at the end of it, obviously you don't know you're going to four hour, you know, coming to the end of um singleton, this is where you get you know your selections to go where? How does this work out to go to four?

SPEAKER_03 35:18

So if I go back to Buck Um Rogers from Kapuka, he had he was saying, you know, I love one RAR, I'll always be the big blue and all that. But he was saying you want to go SF. If there's anywhere you want to go, you want to set yourself up to go SF. And so whether that be 4RAR, he had mentioned that. So I had no idea who 4RR were at the time or what SF really was. The only thing I really knew was about the SAS because of where I was at home. Um, but yeah, so fast forward, we're at Singo. Um the RS, sorry, the CSM of which is now which was then Charlie Company, 4R, they came down with a heap of dudes. Um I even think Muzz Turner might have come, but there was uh a heap of corporals and sergeants, and basically they were going to stay with us for the final two weeks of Singo, and they gave us a bit of a brief. They were saying essentially, you know, because we're gearing up for Timor, we uh we need to fill the battalion. Everyone from Singo is coming to 4RR for the foreseeable future until they fill the battalion. However, we want to give you this opportunity because, you know, we are a commando unit, we're building a commando capability, we're gonna basically put whatever whatever you need and whatever you want to get as many people qualified as commandos, as operators as uh as quickly as possible. And so, you know, there was quite a number of us at that time that I was just like, well, that this is exactly this is awesome. Like that's that's what I want to do. Um and so yeah, when when the time came, we were all going we were all going to Sydney, to Holesworthy. Um it was just a matter of whether you wanted to do selection or not. And at the time, when we originally when we finally got there, everyone just got chucked into this one massive platoon, well, two massive platoons. Um and um and uh yeah, and eventually what would happen, and we can talk about it more in detail, is eventually what would happen is guys were then uh if they didn't want to do selection, they they got taken out of Charlie Company and they got put in potentially Delta or Alpha or something like that. Um but there were some others of us who had done um when we got to the unit, obviously we're getting smashed day in, day out. We would do the barrier test. Um they tried to run as many selection courses in the year 2000 as possible to try and get as many of us qualified as as they could, but they couldn't because we were doing off gold at the same time.

SPEAKER_01 37:35

Like you said, you get the holesworthy. There are some notable figures within that uh unit, uh, which I've had on the podcast, um, the Nick Hill, the late great Nick Hill, and a bunch of other other blokes, Murray Turner and heaps, heaps of uh notable figures. Four Area was such a you know new concept, Bravo Company, the the commando company. How was it arriving into 4 area and you know how strict because again they're starting to set a standard, they've all been at uh SASR, got all their training from there and come across and now trying to establish this this commando unit, I'm sure it would have been quite you know, just like like look like everyone always says that a two commando, it's uh every day's a renewable contract.

SPEAKER_03 38:20

Yeah, and I definitely felt that uh early on. So when we when we first got there, so there were some guys that had turned up a little bit earlier, um, and and guys continued to turn up throughout the whole of 2000. Um obviously the goal being to deploy as an infantry battalion to Timor in 2001. Um But for the for the first part of 2000, um yeah, we were in Charlie Company and it was made very, very clear to us that that we are essentially in a preparation for selection every day. So we're gonna learn, so so when you go to the battalion, you learn normal things like um, you know, like dig it in, how to be an infantry person. We we didn't learn any of that shit. We learnt how to be, well, we learned the basics about being um a good infantry soldier first and foremost. But on top of that, they layered all the commando tactics, all of the the commando SOPs, um, all of the PT, all of the um requirements that we had to do for the barrier test and selection course. So we did a lot of stomping, a lot of 3.2 webbing runs, uh a lot of log carries, a lot of all that sort of hard stuff. Basically, it it felt like we were on a mini selection course every week. Um uh in and around. Obviously, we were getting some skills up, doing some weapons courses, um, leading into opgold, which was the um domestic counter-terrorism response for the Sydney Olympics. We were doing a lot of prep uh the SAS guys um were doing the they were obviously Tag West, so they were responsible for response, and we were out of cordon and um and other bits and pieces. So we learnt, you know, um defence force aid to the civil power and uh riot control and um all that sort of stuff. Um we did to learn fast. Yes, very, very fast. So I think I've heard a couple of guys talk about it was like it was like drinking from a fire hydrant. Um and it was basically it was almost sinkle swim, right? So the that because we had a I mean at the time I remember we had a platoon, funnily enough, um it was um 11 platoon, which if you think about in today's word, that's November platoon. So we were one platoon, it was like 120 blokes. Um and at the time we all lived above the gym in um in Jordan Lyons, which is above the bar, the spo club. So if you think about it, there's only like eight to ten rooms. So there's 120 blokes living up there, and it was squalid. It was friggin' squalid, and we had uh, you know, um we started doing things like um because we're bored, right? You we'd be getting beasted day in, day out, but then you'd be bored at night, you'd be on the piss, and then you'd be, you know, we someone come up, the movie Fight Club came out, so someone started up someone brought some bloody boxing gloves, and we had we started this thing called we we called it Fight Club, where if you had a beef with someone, right, um, you'd get you'd challenge them, throw the gloves on, and uh guys would go at it up upstairs in the hallway, right? And you'd have, you know, eighty to a hundred blokes standing around egging them on. I mean, there's a couple of guys, uh one bloke who ended up being a QE because um he got hit in the side of the head and blew his eardrum out. Um there were other guys who were a couple of dudes, um one brooded his mate's missus, and so they were they were punching on and oh, it was uh it was diabolical. And I think Eddie might have talked about it. Um Gordo, who was the secret commander of the other platoon, he he came out one day and he says, I hear those fucking assholes up there, uh, they've got this fight club. If any if I find out that any of you have been up there, I'm gonna create a fucking pack club and we're gonna put 30 kilo packs on and I'm gonna run you around the ring road until you die. And that was his exact words. And so those guys, and so like they they were like, Nah, I'm not going down there. Because they we were they always to come down, they'd bring a six-pack or a carton, and we'd sit we'd just sit around and guys would punch on. And you finish, the everyone shakes hands and pats each other on the back. And uh but in terms of the unit, no, it was um work-wise, you know, you you you mentioned before that you know, a lot of big personalities and big people. I mean, I think you know, you talked about Nick, you know, guys like Wes Hennessy, McShaw, you know, um Commando Steve. Commando Steve, Steve Willis, um, you know, these guys are all walking around. And at the time, uh as part of the commando uniform, you're allowed to roll your sleeves up. So um you've got all these dudes who are pretty jacked, and they're all walking around with their green berets on. Um and that and I don't think they really gave us, you know, at the time I thought they didn't give us much respect at all. Like we were just lids, which, you know, in the scheme of things we were, but it but the guys that we had that were training us, like they they put everything into us. They gave they gave us so many opportunities to be able to be successful, not only as a infantry soldier, but as a as a commando and to do selection, you know, we really got um you know, we really got a leg up, all right. It was really we were very, very lucky to to be able to be in that place at that particular time and be given those opportunities to do that sort of stuff. Um but yeah, and you you think you know you get more broad, you know, you got a guy like Brett Wood who at the time he was a Lance Corporal, I think. Um you know, another guy who just had a lot of respect just by the way that they did things. And so, you know, I looked up to those Bravo, even though we were basically side by side, you look over to the next shed and you'd be watching these Bravo company guys getting their gear ready and making sh making sure they get their stuff um sorted. And I always used to watch them, and I I I take it back to um you know in B Blackhawk Down where they're getting their gear ready, right? And the Rangers are watching the Delta dudes. Yeah, that's how I kind of felt at the time. Yeah, it's just like, oh, why is he doing that and why is he doing this? And you know, you get you get those guys who would come over and lead lead the sections, the guys that came to Charlie Company, and you'd learn little things like how to pack your pack and how to you know how to put your straps away on your fast ex clips and you know, how to wear your helmets, how to how to sling your weapon. At that stage, we didn't have M4s, we were running the M16s with the 203, the old school ones. Um But yeah, it was yeah, it was learn fast, but at the same time, we had we had a lot of fun. Like 2000, the year 2000 in Sydney was a lot of fun.

SPEAKER_01 44:44

Yeah. I I think it's really healthy too, you know. Uh I know in the defence force, cops, etc., that tall poppy syndrome, or if you're in a certain unit and you're looking down on other people that you know obviously aren't in that unit. I think it that is also healthy, like you said, because it builds that inspiration, makes you want to fight more to get to that level and do the same to the to the younger generation. Because, you know, looking at yourself, you know, you're going through at your time Craig Hamburger, Dave Parker, Robbo, and I'm sure there's tons of other blokes that have obviously been on the podcast that you go through now are that that vintage, you know, that where you look down and go, and but people now, these younger diggers, come through like, I want to be one of these guys. So I think it's really healthy sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 45:28

Yeah, yeah, I I think it definitely is. I think at the time, you don't you kind of don't realise it. Like, there's a few guys I I used to think, like, what a prick. Why's a guy got to be such a prick? Yeah. But I look at it net now that I'm I'm obviously older and wiser, I look at it more to say, Well, you know, that he these individuals are earning he had earned the right to do that, and all he wanted was the best for me. And if you think about the work that we're in, he just wants to make sure that if I'm next to him at some in some shithole that I'm going to look after him and I'm going to be able to protect him, right? If he gets shot or if he gets injured or he needs help that I'm going to be able to lift him up or carry him or do whatever, protect him. That's it. And then, you know, it it took a few it took a few months until obviously when we started getting into a few gunfights, I think it really came to the fore where, oh, this is all making sense, right? And and I think from a even from an Australian point of view, the SF capability and the amount of work that had been done, even with SAS and other infantry people over the years leading up to the 2000s, no one had really done any of that. Whereas you look at the Americans, you know, they've got a history of of repeated um deployments, operations from, you know, they basically have been in combat non-stop um forever. So they've they've got people that can bring that into the into the fold. Whereas we never really had that. So uh it really kind of I guess amp up as we started going multiple deployments and back to back to back, you know, it very, very quickly became, oh, this is the reason why, you know. At that point, we didn't really know why that guy was being a prick. But then you you do realize very quickly, ah, that's why you're like that, and I that's why you made me do this. And it's life or death. And it is life or death.

SPEAKER_01 47:04

Maybe if you're an electrician out there looking down at your apprentice, probably not the same thing. But like you said, the you know, you you want to build that inspiration, but you also want to build the toughest soldier that's gonna be standing next to these guys because again, it it it does become life and death what you experience, you know, down the track. Yeah, yeah, especially in Afghanistan. So this is early 2000s, you've done that op uh op gold, the Olympics have all happened. When do you start like a selection?

SPEAKER_03 47:29

Is so I did selection in 2002. So 2001 was when we went to Timor. So yeah. So what uh so I was in this super company, uh or super platoon, this uh Charlie Patoon, which had a hundred blokes, and then eventually what it started getting done is that they raised the Alpha Company, then they raised the Elder Company and s and um support company, and so they started filling roles to get so once op guide was done, then they started to filter out some of these guys uh into other units. And so the the I guess the central point was Bravo Company was supposed to be filled with mainly operators, so mainly qualified personnel. Um there was a few guys that got to go to Bravo Company who had done selection but they weren't qualified. Same with Charlie Company. So if in Charlie Company, uh so like there was a lot of guys who I know that went to that went to Timor with Charlie Company who had done either a barrier test, selection, or both, but they weren't qualified. But the majority of the secos, the the officers and that were all qualified blokes. I had done a barrier test, but I did not get on a selection course in time. And so I then got sent once I missed the last selection course of 2000, I went to Alpha Company after Op Gold. And so I think uh I can't remember what platoon I was in, but yeah, we um I deployed to T-Mall with Alpha Company, and the way it was supposed to work was you obviously got the four AOs. Um Charlie Company was, I think, at Ida Balleton, um Alpha was at Batagade, and then Delta and Bravo were between Bobonaro and I can't remember the other place, but they were there, and we were going to rotate every three months or whatever. In the end, that didn't happen. We just basically stayed in the same spot. So I rotated from Badagade, which was basically uh it was like a resort on the beach, um, much better than the one that the Charlie Company guys had. We had we actually had surf that would come through every now and again. Oh, it was crazy. Um Junction Point Alpha was the uh other place which was one of the main crossing points uh across from West Timor. Um then we would go up to um up to Balibo, there's a retrans station up there, and so the three platoons would basically rotate between that. Um and then, you know, I think most people have said it, that not really a lot went on. It was very, very good to learn how to be a soldier in the field, learn how to deal with like members of the public. So you're not you're not dealing with um, you know, uni students playing enemy, you're actually dealing with an active threat. With an active threat, and you're dealing with part of the population who aren't gonna follow instructions, they're gonna do what they want to do. Um and so yeah, not really too much happened. I think um, you know, I think it was a great experience. I think um I I got a c we got a call out once, there was a bus crash. You know, they you know how they pack like 400 people into a bloody coaster bus. There was uh a bus had rolled over and there was a guy who hadn't had managed, not managed to let go in time, who'd got crushed, so I got to witness that, unfortunately. Um we went on a few um patrols uh along the border. Um I remember so I was actually on patrol when September 11 happened. That's why I'm just about to bring that up. A couple of days before that, though, we were we were at a we were on an OP looking at a a um an Indon base and uh they had a party, right? And they were playing like the Venga Boys. So the Venga Buses. So they had Venga Boys and they had um at an Indonesian base. At an Indonesian base. Yeah, so the we I mean, I don't think they knew we were there, we were in a quiet OP. So we we flew in bus. We flew in and uh in a Huey and and hiked you know four or five Ks into the border. And uh yeah, so they'll play an Aqua like Barbie girl and Venga Boys all night. So they went till like three in the morning. So, you know, none of the guys in the OP got any sleep. Um and then yeah, a couple of days later, um the morning of September 12th, it would have been at the time. So September 12th, we got a call on the radio, helicopters coming to pick you up. Um we got picked up and um yeah, got dropped back at Badagade um to say that uh an incident had occurred overseas and they were withdrawing everyone. We didn't really know what was going on. And we pulled into Badagarde, and and for anyone that's been there, that there's the main big white building at the front on the right, and then behind that is this it was this massive tented area where they had these TVs and where we would watch pirated movies and shit like that. And um, yeah, they had it on, and it was just it was like on replay, you know, first plane, second plane, and then by this stage, like the the buildings had all fallen down. This was probably early to mid-afternoon, maybe uh uh after it occurred. Um and I I do remember, I thought it was a movie when I first walked in. I'm like, oh, what's this? What's this?

SPEAKER_01 52:22

Because everyone has said that.

SPEAKER_03 52:24

Yeah, because it's just it's just unheard of. Yeah, you're not not really expecting it. And then um, you know, a lot of the chatter, there's a lot of chatter that that's happening, you know, it's like the digger um the digger net, yeah. The digger net, uh, you know, oh we're gonna we're we're getting pulled out of Timor, um, the Chocos are coming in here and we're going to Afghanistan and blah blah blah. And after it kind of cooled down after a few days, you know, um well actually later that day um we got a brief from the OC, it was it was mir more about the security um situation, um things were gonna be a little bit escalated, but we're not moving, we're not leaving, things were gonna continue on as normal. And then I don't know how long after, might be a week, maybe ten days, then they started, guys started getting pulled out of their sections and stuff like that. Uh alpha company, we probably weren't as much affected because we didn't have too many um we didn't have a big trove of qualified dudes, but you know, Bravo and Charlie and that guys were getting pulled out and sent back to to gear up to start building the tag. Um and you know, I I I do remember that there was some talk about our stay either being cut short or it's gonna be extended, but they weren't sure exactly one. But in the end, we ended up going home at the same time anyway, which was in about October, October 2001. I think we ended up getting home. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 53:43

So you get back to Australia in October. We've got to look on the West Coast. West Coast start deploying at this stage to Afghanistan, October, November. So that's gotta be on the radar for four hours going, Fuck boys, like if they're gone, we're the next SF unit, surely. Which obviously didn't eventuate, but you get back, and this is where you get the opportunity to go do your selection.

SPEAKER_03 54:06

Yeah, so I got on the first selection of 2002. Um yeah, so uh yeah, we got given basically when we got got back, there was a few of us that had already done a barrier test. Um, we were told, look, next year, um I think it was January or February, I can't remember, it might have been just after Australia Day, um, they were going to run another barrier and then start selection basically the next day. And so because my barrier test was quite a it was earlier, six months earlier at least, um, there's a few of us that had to do a second one. So we did a second barrier test. We then jumped on that selection course and um yeah, ran ran through selection and yeah, I basically did back to back, I went from the the barrier, I just pumped out course after course after course, and by the end of that period I had my my beret, I was fully qualified. Um it's funny, right? Because you know, guys like uh, and I remember this, Garth Gould, who's now the head of um SOCOM, he was on my selection course at the time as a I think he might have been a captain. Um and uh we had actually on that selection course we had the first lot of water troop guys from the Navy. So a lot of the Navy clearance divers who would come that they wanted to do uh go on the tag, they were told that it had to do selection. Um so there was a lot of guys there at the same time. But uh yeah, we had, you know, it was I I feel really blessed for that course because it was right after September 11. We knew what we were gonna go and have to do, probably. Um we all thought that this was gonna be this massive war um that it obviously turned into. And so we really all had our eyes on the prize. I mean, Berg's was on that course um with us, um, and yeah, obviously uh I really enjoyed it. Um had had a lot of fun. Very, very hard, very, very hard. But a a lot of those relationships that I'd built over the next coming few years, you know, we've kind of started between that, and then obviously we all did selection together. So you kind of you already know what you can expect from certain people.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 56:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 56:15

So you do the selection together, and as you said, you move into that reinforcement cycle. How'd you find all that training? I loved it.

SPEAKER_03 56:21

I loved it. I did um the only thing I hated, um, even though I enjoyed it, but I hated it. Well, I did a winter amphib course. Um cold, very cold. Um, and being a skinny fella, I did not like the cold at all. Um we we actually did our amphib course, it was a little bit different. So we couldn't we were based on Spectacle Island. I don't know if you know Spectacle Island. It's it's in it's in Sydney Harbour. Um and it's I think it's an old military base, but it's basically it's in there, but there's nothing on it. There's there's like a dormitory and there's a few other things like that. Um and so we were in and on Sydney Harbour basically all day, every day for I think it was a four-week course, um, middle of winter. Um no, it was it was awesome. And and you like, you know, we go down on the parachute course and uh Fast Eddie. Yeah, with Fast Eddie, um, which was amazing. Like I had such a good time down there. And then it was funny when we did it, I don't know if you mentioned it, but we actually did our first jump together. I've got a photo of it somewhere. We're one and two in the chalk, and uh there's a photo of me, and I've got like a kind of like a shit-eating grin, but you could see the fear on my face, and he's he's in the background with ah rock on, like he was very excited anyway. We jump out and um under canopy, he's yelling at me. He's like, How fucking good is this bushy? Woo, woo, woo! He's yahooing, and we get down on the ground, and uh one of the PD um parachute training instructors um he's like uh bushy, robot. I know, I know it's exciting, but you gotta you've got to keep a cool up there, and he's like, sorry, Sarge, sorry, Sarge. But I remember that very vividly because I remember looking at him, and all I could hear, like I'm trying to do my drills and like not sput in, and all I can hear is this idiot yelling at me from above. Woo woo woo woo. No, it was nothing like it. It was good. It was good.

SPEAKER_01 58:13

Um so 2002, 2003 swings in. As we know, the Iraq war kicks off, and that totally changes the shift of the Australian Defense Forces' uh options. Basically, withdrawal from Afghanistan, SASR focus everything into Iraq, and then this is where two commanders oh four AR, they obviously forget about Afghanistan now. Weapons of mass destruction in Iraq, and you start looking forward to that.

SPEAKER_03 58:39

Yeah, so when I so I finished my I finished election, I got posted directly to Bravo Company. Um again, you know, right place, right time, there was a there was a gap. I think someone got rotated onto team and so there was a gap there, and so I got to fill that. Um and yeah, so there was probably I'll call it late 2002. I think we started doing some prep. We started getting some briefings about, you know, there's a possible deployment, and blah, blah, blah. Um I remember it might have been December of that year, we was when we first got our briefing about uh resistance to interrogation. Because at that stage, uh RTI and all that sort of stuff. So the selection pipeline was completely different to what it is now. We we didn't obviously do CQB, CQB was done later on um to get yourself into theme. Charlie Company was off on its own, and we it was just um yeah, you would just do the basic amphibi, para um dems, uh mobility, medic SIGs, etc. And so anyway, I we um we got the briefing about interrogation, and obviously, you know, I'd read the book Bravo 20 and um That's it the one that got away from Chris Ryan, and I and they brought up a lot of that intel of what the Iraqis had done in the first Gulf War in '91. Um and so they were talking to us about, you know, it was like a week-long course and briefing. Um and then back in those days, uh, once you once you get that brief, you can get thrown in the bag anytime within 12 months. Um and so you know, at the time they were talking to us about, you know, if if you do get captured and there are these things, you know, you'll be happy to know that the Iraqis, you know, they did kind of um follow the rules, you know, they didn't execute people, you know, they did belt them up a little bit and you know, they did do a few other things and the guys got treated like shit. But the majority of the people that were captured during that Gulf War were released. Um and you know, it's all name, rank, serial number, and all those sorts of things. And um yeah, so that was probably late 2002, and then that's when it started getting really kind serious. And obviously, you're seeing you see in the media, you know, um you know, George Bush would make a comment, you know, um John Howard, and that they would be talking about possible things and what they're gonna do, and there's all this pressure being applied. And in in the background, we were kind of gearing up as Brava Company, um, we were gearing up to basically go and support, I think it was one squadron who from the SAS who were obviously gonna go and hunt scuds in the Western Desert and a few other things, and we were gonna be basically be there, QRF, um combat search and rescue, and we would support them in whatever they wanted, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

So you talk about all that uh you know interrogation claiming because obviously uh come March, you know, when the evasion happens, I think Jessica Lynch gets nabbed. Yeah, you know, and obviously all this interrogation stuff, and you would have started seeing some of that stuff on on the news. Now you get to get to Iraq and what's on your mind? Because this is now your first time into an active war zone, it is kicked off in Baghdad, and everyone's seen all the footage. Uh shock and awe, they called it. That's Operation Shock and Owe, where they just dropped just tons of bombs, just tons and tons for weeks straight. How did you go getting into Iraq? Mate, obviously you would have been pumped like this. Oh, we were joined for.

SPEAKER_03 1:02:02

Yeah, we were we were thinking you're gonna be fucking gunfighting on the ground. Uh and and to be to be fair, there was an expectation that we were gonna be doing a lot more than potentially what we ended up doing. Um and so we ended up deploying quite early. I think we were in country, so we based ourselves in Jordan, um, and um we deployed in country maybe January, January of 2003, maybe February, um, but it was quite a way before the actual invasion. Um and so we did we did a lot of planning and we were doing um, you know, uh workups with the regiment guys, and we were doing workups with helicopter crews and um you know, doing a lot of gas training, you know. It was a funny story. We went through this and because you know the PX, you know, you could go and get these uh uh Yanks love these friggin' pickles, yeah. The big the hot sassy mama, and they would have these little ones that were really spy anyway. So it became this thing that guys would take, but we'd buy all these pickles and shit and put them in the gas bag, right, of guys and put it like stick it right into their mask into where the mouth is. And so we'd be doing our exercises and break contract contact drills and gas, gas, gas. And guys would go to pull out uh their gas mask and put it on. There'd be this giant pickle in their gob. Um and so uh yeah, so while we're over there, we're having a good time, but yeah, we were we definitely thought that we would be involved probably more than what we um we were, but I guess at the same time, right, uh we're a relatively new capability, um, hadn't really been tested. Um, you know, the regiment guys were doing a very, very good job of what they had to do. You know, they just the guys had just come from Afghanistan, so you know, they've already got runs on the board. I think um, you know, uh later on down the track, we started to do so they were t starting to talk about Austral us being there long term until probably after Christmas. And so if that had happened, then I I reckon the unit would have been used and deployed a little bit differently to what it had, and it would have probably gone on and done more stuff. But I think they realized that they needed to get us back or they wanted to get the regiment guys back because they didn't have they didn't actually have set targets that they wanted us to go over. And I think it was probably a good decision made by the government at the time that if you're not gonna give us a role, we're coming home. Yeah. And I think that it was a good thing of you know, the leadership in the Australian government at that time were very, very definitive of no, we're not just gonna be there all the time. If you we we've either got a job for these guys or we're gonna bring them home, which is what they did.

SPEAKER_01 1:04:33

Which is also a new concept for the Australian Defence Force, because you know, prior to that, you know, there was Somalia, Rwanda, quite small things uh in comparative to obviously active war, but also Vietnam. So really for the defence force are like, oh fuck, we don't know how to utilize the assets that we got. So, like you said, let's bring them back. Uh how long do you spend in Iraq? Still a good experience. I think it's five months, four or five months.

SPEAKER_03 1:04:57

Yeah, we did um so we did, you know, a lot of what we did was um, you know, we didn't get any um real big shit fights. Uh we went and we took over Al-Assad Air Base, so the SASCATs went and secured that. Um, and then we we basically flew in and we did a little bit of security and making sure it was all good so that when the Yanks came in they could take it over. Um, you know, that it was a you know, it was one of those things, alright. I'm watching this dude from one squadron driving a bulldozer, um, filling in the holes because they'd bombed the the runway, and so they were um they were doing all sorts of shit. And we're you know, we're getting around, we're looking at all these MIGs that are being pushed in the dirt and uh covered with cam nets and um going into gas chambers, so like um chemical weapons bunkers to protect themselves from chemical weapons. I've actually got a poster on my wall which I took out of the electrical cabinet from that bunker, which actually I've had it translated. It's um it shows how to turn on all the gas evacuation facilities. Um I've got that in a poster. Actually, Dave Parker made the uh he made the thing up because he used to be a chippy. Um he's very good at that sort of stuff. But um yeah, um we did that and then we um a platoon got um basically tapped on the shoulder to go to Baghdad um to run security for uh the D Fat officials and Department of Foreign Affairs and stuff. And I actually wasn't on that platoon, uh I was on the other platoon, and um one of the guys again, right place, right time. One of the guys, while we were fucking around at Al Asada cut a big hole in his hand, um, and he was the driver of the the lead section, and so he couldn't go. And so obviously I was uh I was a driver at the time, so um Wellesie um who was a section commander, I think requested for me to come and fill that spot. So I ended up jumping on that job to go into Baghdad. Um I think you sent the picture, yeah. Yeah, so the the the whole idea was we were going to support the D FAT officials and there were some guys uh from the CATS who were um basically supporting setting up meetings because the Australian embassy used to be outside the green zone. So if anyone's you know, there's a uh I think it's a seven or eight story building next to where the old embassy was, and this is where they were trying to create the green zone in the middle where they can obviously secure everything. Um and so we we basically ran around in our um Land Rovers running support, um following them around and um looking for a suitable place, but then obviously every night we would go back and we would stay. At the time when we first went, we were staying in the embassy, so it was actually really eerie because they'd locked that up when they left in ninety one. No one had I don't think manyone had been back since the nineties, and so it had been locked up for ten years. Um occasionally maybe people Would come and go, but all the decor and all the carpet was all like 80s, 70s and 80s, and um the bed spreads. It just looks, you know. Um but it was amazing because the garden was immaculate, and so they had this guy who lived across the road, he was actually a Christian fella who lived in um opposite the old thing, and his job was to look after the garden. So he looked after that garden for over a decade. Um and it was immaculate, it was absolutely immaculate.

SPEAKER_01 1:08:17

SASR and Tucumana, we we obviously know over the years, yeah, especially moving to Afghanistan, same uh compound, and there was always that friction. So I'm sure that friction kicked off back then. You know, they're looking down at you guys going fucking peasants. You know, were you getting that that vibe in in Iraq?

SPEAKER_03 1:08:37

Yeah, I I think it was probably Yeah, I mean we always got that vibe. I remember so I remember if we go back to 2000, we got some guys, there were a few guys that came over, a few senior officers and a few senior uh patrol commanders who came over that were assisting with the um selection courses and training and a few things like that. Um and so my my um opinion on them was based on those guys, right? And they were they were guns, they were really, really good, they were very, very good to us, gave us as much information as possible. I think it I think the actual friction more came just by the perception of the way the units treated each other. Like I don't think it was it wasn't really anything in particular. I mean, like a guy like uh so the head of the task force was uh Lieutenant Colonel Rick Burr, um and he he made a few snide comments um publicly and then obviously in private a few times and so while I don't know him personally, I thought he was an absolute cock. Um just because the he gave the impression that we we weren't up to um we weren't up to muster, all right, and that we were gonna rely only on these one squadron guys to do what they want to do. And because they got they kept getting some of these jobs um and we weren't getting them, there was this like fuck what the fuck why are we here, right? If we're not gonna actually go out and do anything and support people and do stuff, what why the hell are we here? Um so there was a little bit of that mentality, but at the same time, you know, a couple of my really good mates, so one of the guys who was in my team, I'll call him Baz, um everyone will know him. Um he ended up after that trip, uh, an amazing guy, older fella. Um he he's a he's a scientist, he's actually got a science degree, but he he get he got back from that, and a lot of guys actually got back from that trip and said, Stuff this, I'm gonna do selection go to the regiment, because there was a perception that like those those people aren't gonna let 4R hour or the commandos do any good jobs. Um they're not gonna let us loose, we're gonna be treated like babies, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And so there was more it was more a perception um more than really the the dudes on the ground. Like I I never really came across a guy who was like an out and out prick. Um but yeah, there was it was definitely a bit of friction. Yeah. Um which grew into Afghanistan and then got a bit more than a bit more pushy, pushy, shove, I should say. Yeah. Well, I mean, we got to I mean, to put it in context, right, when we got to this base in Jordan, there was this big igloo, and basically it was all open, right? So we were all expecting, and it's minus mind you, it's uh winter over there, so it's it's zero to getting down to the minuses at night. Um and we're expecting we're just gonna be in this igloo um with where the cats were. And then they're like, oh no, no, you guys are gonna be over in some other stuff. And then they started bringing these demountable buildings in. And we're like, oh, this is great. And then we were told, no, no, that's not for you, that's for the pilots, or that's for the air crew. And we're like, what the f what are we gonna sleep in? And so they they just pointed to this pile of green army tents. And so we had to go and assemble these Vietnam era army tents and go and sleep on racks um in those things. And so that that kind of, you know, uh that might give you some like insight into how it might have started, but um, you know, I I I really I do get it. In Hindsight, I do get it, but you know, at the time you you know, we're all like fuck this. What's so good about these guys?

SPEAKER_01 1:12:03

Oh no, you know you know how it feels to be an infantry soldier in the in a regular battalion. Yeah, yeah. Mate's uh just during this uh deployment, this is the first time where you pull the trigger, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:12:18

Yeah, so um it's it's a bit of a uh not funny story, but um so we when we went into uh into Baghdad, one of the like I said, one of the roles is we were security for finding the D FAT staff wanted to find a facility that met all their requirements plus security. I mean the photo that I shared of you with me, Betty, and the rest of the team on the steps, so that was a building that had a tank round through the front door, um, but it it met all the requirements um for what the embassy needed and it was right within the green zone. And so on Haifa Street, south of Haifa Street. It's where it is now. Yeah, so where it is now. Um and so what our job was essentially to go around with the D FAT staff um and with you know, there were obviously a couple other agencies that were with the cats, and so we would just be their support, their fire support. And so one night uh we got a tasking our team, um, so it was um two vehicles. So at the time we had our rovers, uh Land Rovers, but um when we were going on this job, we took one of the I think it was like a Triton or maybe a Hilux um Joule Cab Ute and it had a Mag 58 mounted in the back. Now Turtle, uh, one of the other guys, he was driving a fully up armored uh Land Cruiser Troopie, um, and then there was another um Hilux, I think, in the convoy which had a gun as well. And so it was nighttime, and so what the the idea was that we would escort these D Fat staff to a restaurant just around the corner somewhere. And again, right, that there's no security. This is the wilds of Baghdad. Um this is very early, 2003. Um I don't even think I don't even think the Saddam statue had come down. It might have, might have. But anyway, so you could hear gunfire and shit going on left, right, uh all around all the time. Anyway, where we go, we drop these guys off. They get out, they go in the restaurant, they have their dinner, you know, they're in there laughing, and I don't know what they're actually talking about, but they're they're essentially trying to negotiate the new embassy. Um and then as we came out, so the plan was originally to as we came out, we would take a left turn, I believe, and we go down the main drag, which takes us back to where we were staying. Um but for some reason the team went right and we essentially went to do a blocky, and then we got halfway down that street, and I remember seeing I'm in the I'm in the back of the the Hilux um with this Mag 58, with just my body armor helmet, um, night vision on, and um and it was dark, like it was very dark. And um we got about halfway down the street and a guy pulls out of the side of and he had some kind of machine gun and he let off a burst and it went basically straight over my head. Um I I returned fire very briefly, it wouldn't have hit him. We then the team basically hit hit the gas and we did basically moot m manoeuvres back out to where we need to go. Um we um essentially finished off, we went back to the hotel, um, and as we finished off the hotel, we dropped off the D Fat staff, and then our job was then to go back around and roundabout, back to where we were. As we're as we're leaving the hotel, it I I just had this I had this feeling that I I just did not feel safe after being obviously shot at. Um I just I was my head was kind of on a swivel, and as I'm looking, so where where the old embassy was, there was like a traffic island, and we used to go across it and do a UI and then come into the new embassy. And so the guys are all in that in the building, so right adjacent to us. And as we're coming down the road, we we were in the lead vehicle, and I could see these like a group of people down the street, and then there were two in particular, and one of them definitely had a weapon, and then the other guy I eventually saw he did have a weapon, and so I I've kind of put my laser um as he's looked, and he's kind of looked back at me, and then as he's looked back at me, I saw his eyes kind of like holy fuck. Um and then he tapped his mate on the shoulder to turn around, and then the two of them went to obviously started firing, and so I let off I let off one burst, which I'm pretty sure hit old mate in the chest, um, and then the second one I let a couple more off. But as as we're coming over the island, the the land cruisers behind us and Turtle who's driving, he's looking up at me with these dinner plate eyes because the tracer from the Mag 58 is basically going straight over the top of his vehicle. Yeah, yeah. So he's so he's uh and look, their vehicle might have been three metres behind us, two metres behind us, very, very close. And so obviously, um the the driver in the front, he hits the gas. I'm uh I fired three bursts, um, three three to five round bursts into it, and um I'm I'm pretty close 100%. I hit the first bloke, definitely hit the second guy, and then obviously we've done the we've done the rush. These guys are all standing too. So they're over the guys were in that building overlooking where we just were. We just kind of pulled back into the embassy. Um the the cats who were in the Land Rover, we had a little bit of a debrief down in the foyer, and then they said, Look, go and square your shit away, and then we'll we'll go inside and we'll have a chat. Um, and so yeah, I went I went in there and obviously everyone wants to know, what the fuck? And I'm telling my story. Betty comes up to me, he wants to know, he wants to know the ins and outs of you know, what did I do this and how did I do that, and how did you know he was going to turn around? And um, yeah, after that, yeah, we went into the into the kitchen, they got me a um got me a can of coke and um I can't remember the dude's name, but he was from he was from um the cats. And we just went through basically step by step, hey, what happened when you did this, when you left the building, we went through the whole thing and you know, um, I don't think there was any I actually don't think that there was any evidence left over. So once once that had happened, uh the guys had gone out to do a little bit of a recovery or a recce the next day and there was like gone. Yeah there was no trace of it. Yeah. Um and then um yeah, so that was that was essentially my first um your first contact. First contact. First kill. First kill. First kills. Kills, uh, yeah, probably, yeah. Probably for the unit as well. Um yeah, it might have been. Yeah, it might have been. It um How's that reflect, you know, like an Um I I think I think uh now that I look back on it, right? So when we get back from there, uh I'll fast forward a bit, when we get back from there, uh we had some time off after Iraq and obviously we cashed up a bit, we'd been away, and I was living it up, I was having such a good time. But I started having I actually started getting I started having nightmares, right, about this incident. Not not about what I'd done, but I kept having this recurring dream that the first burst that I had fallen out of the Ute because I wasn't strapped in or anything like that. And so I just kept having this dream because at that stage you remember that they were taking hostages, right, and they were cutting people's heads off. And so I kept dreaming of that, that I kept I I fall out and the guys are gone, the the cars are going and they don't know, and like I'm on the radio, and I um I ended up confiding in uh in a friend, uh a female friend who um lived in the building where uh we lived. Um and it yeah, it kind of got blown out of proportion the of what I what I'd said. But I I copped a bit of grief from some of the lads that I I was feeling um because I think uh at the time, if I put more in context, at the time the movie Sixth Sense had just come out. So it was like, oh Bushy sees dead people, Bushy sees dead people, and I was like, well, and I was kind of laughing it off at the time, but you know, for for a long period, uh it really I kind of I didn't struggle with it, but occasionally I'd have these fucking very vivid nightmares that I'd been tipped out of the back of this Ute watching watching these lights disappear in the distance, um, and then just waiting for this fucking dude in an orange jumpsuit to come and cut my head off.

SPEAKER_01 1:20:26

Which is crazy because you look back 2003, you know, if you come out and said you were crazy or seeing things and having those dreams, like you said, blokes were like fuck mate, this bloke's gone crazy already. I copped it. Oh, yeah, but you don't want to say anything too loud because then they're like fuck you're off the teams, you're out, you're gonna be PTSD wasn't a fucking thing back then. No, no, it wasn't no, it wasn't but it's crazy because that's that is the onset of the the early stages, and not that you're fucking crazy now, but you know what I mean? That's the onset of the effects of war and you know, taking life for the first time and so young and mate, it's it's uh Yeah, I mean twenty I was I was twenty two.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:03

Uh I wasn't in twenty-two, I just turned twenty-one. Yeah, I just turned twenty-one.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:08

Which you know, you didn't think you're gonna get into going over to Iraq, but you well, you thought you're gonna get into a gunfight, but you didn't expect it to be like that.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:21:17

Which obviously you get back to the unit and everyone's like, well, fuck, this bike's actually killed someone. Like that's you know what I mean? Like you know, I I might be talking, you know, I guess for some CVs don't understand it, but you get back to the unit and everyone's like, Oh fuck, yeah, this guilt he's killed dudes. Yeah, yeah. What a mad what a mad dog. Yeah, yeah. How it becomes is it does because that's how it becomes in the unit, you know? Like and it was all legitimate.

SPEAKER_03 1:21:38

It's yeah, yeah, and I didn't uh and at the time, like I said, I I I don't think I've told too many people that story about the um the nightmares, but um Which is good because it it reflects the real life of what you went through. Yeah, and and in hindsight, I kind of wish I hadn't set it in the context of the person I did because she I think she may have taken it a different way. And then the boys, you know, we're all young, they're all giving me shit. Oh, you're trying to get in their pants and blah blah blah. Which I wasn't. I was legitimately having issues with these fucking uh recurring dreams. But then like after that, that c I I repressed that and I just and that's really where I went hard in drinking piss. I mean, I've been a really good drinker up until that point, but after that, that's when I I really went to the next level. And I had a good time. And I'm I am creating it.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:29

That's a pretty mechanism, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:22:30

Yeah, a bit of a copy mechanism.

SPEAKER_01 1:22:32

Which you know, again, I think moving forward to Afghanistan, the other blokes, the Cambeds, everyone started taking lives. And then they eventually, I guess, understood you know, I guess where you come from. I'm sure they had their dreams, and you know, I know there's some war dogs out there just love it, but you know, um the you're not the first and you're not the last.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:54

Yeah. And I think, you know, we'll get into a little bit more of the Afghanistan, but like as I went through my career, I kind of realised that um that's kind of normal. Like my brain is obvious and now I've seen hindsight that I'm older. I I'm realising that my brain is actually triggering something to say it's doing that for a reason. Not because not because that's I was afraid of that, but you know, if I I hadn't actually really probably processed it the way I probably should have. But anyway, you know, in the end, um I'm I'm glad I actually mentioned it, but at the same time I I wish I had done it a different way because I didn't really get the re I didn't really get the response I probably was looking for or that I needed. I I actually I got what I wanted, I got what I deserved because that time the you know it is um it's not cool. It's not cool to say that you've got problems, it's not cool to say that you're weak. Um and so I kind of got what I deserved and I you know I buried everything down after a while, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:23:51

Again, different different times. Yeah. Again, in hindsight, so much easier to look back, but you're only 22, you're like, what do you fucking know? We're all 20-year-olds. You just want to get back to Holesworthy and get on the piss with the boys. Yep, that's it. Or they're calling you a weak, yeah, weak pussy. Weak, weak is what they would say. Yeah. Mate, so from so obviously from there you get back to get back to Holesworthy, uh, decompress. How did you go from, you know, this is your first appointment into a war zone, you've taken life, now you're back into Holesworthy. You're just straight back in the swing of things, no decompression really, just straight into training, mate.

SPEAKER_03 1:24:26

I went straight into training, and I actually think uh I went on Talisman Sabre that year. Um it was funny. Um I think it was 2003. It was one of those yeah, I'm pretty sure. I ended up driving, so we we had to drive a convoy from Holsworthy to Townsville, and we took a heap of SRVs up. Um and so the whole way. The whole way. So me uh uh That's a piss trip. I was in a car, yeah. I was in a car with uh Raddy. Um if anyone knows Raddy. So Raddy and I drove these SRVs uh all the way to Townsville. Um and if you think about it, if you were doing it in your own car, right, it'd take you two or three days. It was it was like an eight or nine day trip. We would do, you know, 250Ks a day and we would stop. And then we were, you know, it was very military because it was run by the transporties, and so we were just drivers essentially. Um but the best thing was we we beat the FE up there by a couple of days, so um, we all got on the gas in in Townsville, which which was awesome because I love going to Townsville. I don't know if I could live there. Um for the guys that have lived there, I think they they do like it. But um I used to love going up there with the unit because you know you'd be up there for six, eight weeks, and it's just you know, and you think about a bit of Maggie Island. Oh, Maggie Island. Oh, yeah, yeah, yeah. Scrap. I mean, you know, it was such a good place. And when we used to go up there, obviously those exercises all happen in the the Q3, Q4 of the year. So it's like springtime, it's not ultra hot, it's warm time. There's no it's not raining, it's party time. Yeah. Yeah. And so we go and do, you know, the benefit of doing commando ops is we'd be in the field for two or three days, 72 hours. You know, we go and get on an aircraft and we parachute in somewhere and we go and attack something. We'd be back in base in three days. That's it. Four days max.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:05

Work hard, play hard.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:06

Yep, yep. I get it. Down a mount cow, down in the uh the sea view. Um but again, like uh geez, I would have been still, yeah, 23, 20, 23 years of age that yeah. 22.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:19

And cashed up.

SPEAKER_03 1:26:20

Cashed up, yep, cashed up, six-figure digger, fit, just living life, living large, living like a king.

SPEAKER_01 1:26:27

Yeah, yeah. Yeah, with the boys. Yeah. Everyone, again, with like-minded human beings doing the exact same thing. Yeah, it was good. It was uh it was awesome. Uh 2004, this is where you do your advanced CQB. Yep, yep. I got it. This is where it's starting to establish a bit further, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 1:26:42

Yeah, yeah. So I think um, you know, to end of 2001, obviously those guys that went and established the counterterrorism um capability, you know, they really set the bar for how that unit was going to be going forward. And it was a very, very high bar. And I I even remember at the time, even through parts of 2002, 2003, outside of you know, us doing what we were doing, you know, you go to the mess and you'd see the guys come down from the tag in their overalls or their flight suits and with their bloody oakly you shoot oakly A-frames and they had beards and long hair, and you know, it was it was where you wanted to be. It was like, you know, that's what I want to be doing. Um and then obviously things kind of changed once we started deploying to the GAN, everyone wanted to get out of the tag to get on a Green Rolls team so they could go over there. Um but um yeah, that's it, that's exactly where I wanted to be. I did my CQB course, um, Kerry Danes, I don't know if you know Kerry Danes, old Saskatchewan was the um senior instructor. Um and Bram, who I think was a sergeant at the time, he was one of the DS as well on my on my course, and it was an awesome course. We had such a good time. Um had a couple of my really good mates, so um shout out Damian Mander, who uh former clearance diver now lives in Zimbabwe um protecting animals. Um he runs a foundation in Zimbabwe. Um he was a clearance diver and um he he um he be he came onto my team. Uh um uh we called it the rainbow team um because um the guys that were struggling, some of the guys that were struggling in the other teams, so I was the last one left in my team, so everyone else had left, and then they basically reconstituted guys that were struggling in the other team in this, and we basically left all the same colours, so we were a rainbow team. Um but yeah, it was it was awesome. It was um it was a it was a great course, lots of learning. It was basically flat out from start to finish. Um I had my first proper alcohol-related incident on the course, but um still managed to finish and and and um yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:02

But um, like we said before, this is where you need your alcohol abuse, I should say, you know, extended, but it was encouraged as well. That's the problem.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:11

Yeah, it was. Um, I might as well tell you. The um here we go.

SPEAKER_01 1:29:16

And you're not the first, you're not the last mate. There's tons of stories.

SPEAKER_03 1:29:20

I had um so I had so this is at the end of the Sydney base part of the course where um because we did as as much as we could in Sydney, um, and then we would deploy over to Perth and we would do the final two weeks in using all of their facilities. Um and so it was a Sunday night, we're down at Northeys. Um we had to be at base at it might have been six o'clock or seven o'clock parade. Uh we were all gonna get on buses and drive out to Richmond and then catch a Herc. um or or some kind of military plane over to Perth. Um and of course I was like, I'll I'll go home soon. I'll go home soon. And I think the my problem is that once I start I've r I can't really I can't really stop. I don't get much worse. I just I just keep going and going and going. And so I ended up staying out quite late, got home, slept through my alarm. Bram Conley actually was going to pick me up, take me in because he lived around a corner from me at the time. I've woken up, I've seen all these missed calls, I've rang Bram and I'm like mate, I've fucked up, I've slept through Carrie Danes, who was a warrant officer at the time, he he gets on the phone and he says, Where are you? And he I said I'm at home, sir. And he says, Well you got two options. You can go back to bed and uh you're off the course and you'll be charged and I can't guarantee you'll stay in the unit or you can get us to Perth and if you meet us there you might be able to finish this course. And I said Roger that and so I hung up the phone I booked a virgin flight and um because I grew up in Perth I got my brother or my mum to pick me up from the airport and I actually got to um so we were staying at a barracks um in Fremantle. I actually got there before them. So I actually beat them there.

SPEAKER_01 1:31:00

And then Eddie spoke with us didn't he?

SPEAKER_03 1:31:03

I think he might have he did he did that's right he did he did. And uh anyway yeah so I beat them there and you know I I mean I smashed that course. I I I'm I I I actually really found a niche I really enjoyed that kind of work and then how we were doing it. And I I I did really well and um I didn't win student of the course uh which was probably noted but um but yeah I I loved it. I finished it uh and Kerry pulled me aside after and and he he basically gave me a bit of a tune up to say look you know you might get away with this um this sort of stuff every now and again um I I got I got extras I think I got put on guard duty for nearly a month but I I got to pass the course and yeah he um he did give me a tune up to say you know you better watch yourself because you can't do this all the time. I'll let this one slide this is one um but you did a good job you you know you you've done well on the course and you deserve to pass blah blah blah and so after that I ended up going straight to the tag um straight up to Charlie Company into um X-ray platoon yeah mate uh nause will get you it will it got me a few times I'll tell you that for a fact yeah especially when they're playing the Vanga Boys yeah yeah so from there you move into the uh tactical assault group uh East uh this is only you know a fresh uh start for tag east but how'd you go again you love that CQB style of things like you said you saw the boys with the Oakley's on and the beards and it was just like the place to be yeah how'd you find that uh that rotation into it I mean I l I loved it I I and um you know uh I'm assuming it'd be the same now but at the time it was full on um you know uh you'd do PT in the morning and then you'd either go and you'd go to the range and you'd shoot till lunch and then you'd get in the cars and you do um fast driving skills or you'll do MOE or you know hey we we're thinking about this kind of door construction right how are we going to get into this type of door you know we used a broco and a cutter and all these different sorts of things and and so um this is when I first actually started working very closely with Brett Wood. So Brett was in my in my team at the time Dave was there at the as well Dave Parker um and yeah it was just it was all it was really really good and I think you know part of it was pre you know if you think back a few years we used to talk about breezeway time you know hurry up and wait and if you weren't actually doing something you were kind of waiting around and the unit started to get really fast really really quick but it wasn't until I got to tag that I I you know you really start working um like you would you would expect that you'd be working. Yeah so you turn up at eight o'clock in the morning um and so H Wes Hennessy was my bravo up there at the time um and he ran a very very tight ship you know a lot of PT you know being very very good at your gear making sure the gear's ready making sure the cars are ready because you know you've got to remember we're on a really short notice to move if something happens so um we've got to be prepared and and so we'd always do things and especially as a driver so I was a driver so I had responsibility for a lot of stuff to do with the car um making sure the cars were ready making sure all our gear was getting ready to pack you know you go into your into your cages you know making sure that everything was ready to set out so that if we got a call and we had to run a uh an EA we'd just chuck our shit on and we're good to go you know and I think that mentality and that mindset really kind of passed on through to how things kind of got done a little bit further on you know we really try to I guess the unit put more of that into the green rolls type of thing and it's a lot of stuff that I really carry through to today as well in my own life as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:34:47

Yeah hurry up and wait but also just doing things methodically and fast and quick and I think I think it also is a bad thing because you'd be walking through you know a shopping mall with your wife and kids you're like hurry up we've got a purpose there's a purpose here. We've got to go to this shop and get this done move over here.

SPEAKER_03 1:35:06

I mean I I I travel a lot for my work and one of the things that really frustrates me and I've got to be very cautious because obviously I've got two daughters um who like to dilly dally and a little bit wander and and when I walk through an airport I I'm I'm going from here to the gate and I'm going there direct. It shits me no end when there's people that are just dilly dally I I saw a meme on social media recently right they should have two lines at the airport people that travel and people who are acting like it's their first day on earth because oh it's ridiculous.

SPEAKER_01 1:35:36

The shopping centre is is one but the airport I think is the other one I travel a ton mate I'll send you this meme afterwards this this woman she talks about it about married to a veteran and mate just for the listeners out if you go in the airport and you know you're gonna go into security put everything in your backpack they've got all those new scanning machines now you don't have to take nothing out take your hoodie off take your belt off pre-prepare take your wallet I put everything in my backpack watch off everything minimize the the collateral of slowing things down when you get to that but to be that well it even goes to the point where when you're walking right when you're walking to the gate right it's like driving a car.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:14

You walk on the left and then the other person's coming back on the right and if you need to go across to the toilet you wait until the crowd's cleared you don't just walk across with your eyes fucking up your ass right to go to the toilet and where you've got you know these are just to me these are simple things like really easy how am I going to get from here to there oh there's people going everywhere. No no it's like that I think you've seen that um family guy yeah they get that Asian lady oh I'm going to go left right now.

SPEAKER_01 1:36:41

All right good luck everybody that's what it's like yeah well I was just about to say it I am 50% Asian just did the DNA test.

SPEAKER_03 1:36:48

Yeah it's a bloody Chinese it's a Chinese yeah yeah but um but yeah like little things like that and um you know you again in that environment you pick up a lot of things right because there's a lot of good there's so many good dudes in that environment that you pick up little things like oh how do you pack that away or where do you put your pistol or where do you think monkey does that yeah oh actually why do you do it like that and and you'll you what you'll find I think early days a lot of guys used to wear like pistols on their leg because that's how they've seen it and that's how they kind of come but then you know you look at the the G Watt for in the with the Yanks and ourselves more and more guys if they even carried a sidearm at all they would put it on on the front right because you don't want anything on the sides because you know you need to be narrow and you need to get into these narrow areas and and I think that's at the tag that's when I really started to put um things into process because you're doing things you know you're repeating things so often that the the different and the real small iterations on how you actually put things together that really matters and then when you finally get to the final thing and and it probably saved my life in Afghanistan a few times just by you know reiterating different things, going through different cereals, you know, changing different ways of holding a weapon going through the door or um you know even how you pack the car, even how you pack um loads and and things like that. That that was a real big insight I I think for myself because um I think the unit kind of took a lot of those things and as we got into more stuff in the GAN a lot of those learnings then filtered back into how we were training people.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:16

Yeah. Yeah. Just quickly do you find yourself you know when you're when you're out in the street in cans or wherever and you see like a you know a copper out there and they've just got fucking shit hanging off everywhere and you see their pistol just there's mags and batons across it and they've got the taser on the same side and everything's just and you're just like what is going on your bag of shit what are you doing? But you you would have seen that you know when you were in the army because you know you start you you start off as a bag of shit then you see Cam Baird wearing his pistol here and you're like oh fuck maybe I'm gonna do that.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:46

Like you said before that's you change your gear yeah not only because that's how you feel comfortable but you see the big dogs doing it like the Nick Hill wearing his you know magazines slanted or whatever and you're like oh shit that's that's how I'm gonna run things and even things like um and this is another one from travelling a lot you get these guys that buy these military inspired backpacks they've got fast clips over them and they're all undone and the tails are everywhere and I and or they don't zip the zip up and I I want to grab them under the shoulder and say hey can you fix those? That's really fucking pissing me off just having a look at that. But I mean you look at my bag I've got over here it's yeah it's still pretty tight. Yeah. Yeah it's a habit that won't die hard.

SPEAKER_01 1:39:27

Well exactly but then you obviously you know you utilize this kit in the operational theatre when it becomes life or death having a zip undone and you know you're you're in a contact and your magazines are falling out. Yeah. You know there's there's little things like that.

SPEAKER_03 1:39:40

Yeah I mean yeah uh I mean perfect example we had there were I mean when we get to Afghanistan we had a situation where um we had a guy who had his pack um packed perfectly um but a strap had broken right and and we lost the pack and inside the pack was a set of night visions so we had to go and obviously get it back and that created a bit of angst uh when we first got over there but off off the back of that everyone then used double carabinas so not just one loop we looped it somewhere else or and then we used a bungee cord and we did all these other things like that um because we hadn't learnt that mistake yet but then obviously now okay well that strap may break let's put it under this strap and that strap and then use it you know little things like that. Yeah of course um and sit and I I don't I I don't think civvies think that hard about it because it's they they're not under the pressure or they're not in a situation where it's really important. You know yeah um but I mean you travel you lose if your freaking passport falls out that's pretty important um so anyway yeah you see it all the time too oh yeah my my wife um god bless her she's uh um she talks about my standing bitch face like I have I've a very hard time of controlling my emotions in my face even though I can I think I'm being like a stone face she she's like you you're doing that face again you're doing that face again and so she can she can see me getting burnt up inside wait till I send you this thing and you'll be like fuck that's me yeah that's it but uh so obviously from this is 2004 now the talk of Afghanistan starts ramping up again yep the Iraq focus it's still there uh it's I guess it starts moving into that conventional regular army uh role especially for the sect debt because that's what you guys started you know you pretty much invented the sect debt the security detachment for DFAT which uh you know eventually turns into private contractors like myself Afghan starts ramping up again SASR start talking about um deploying which of these I think 2004 2005 they start swinging back into Afghanistan this is where the talk of now to commando or four hours should say talk about moving into Afghanistan yeah yeah it was um so I was still on the team I was still on team at the time um I can't remember the dates but the uh Melbourne Commonwealth Games I think it was 2004 so we were we were gearing up for the Commonwealth games at the time um and then towards the end of 2005 um again I was I was on teams I was on the team for quite a while had a little gap um between 2004 and 2005 but yeah I was on the on team for basically all of 04 and 05 and then um as the um I can't remember which company went over the two guys went first um two companies went first um Alpha and Bravo no Alpha and Delta no I was in Delta so I left Charlie Company and I went to Delta Company and so H was the Bravo down there he just left um team um and I went straight into um I went straight into a team there but um yeah we were obviously that became another bit of a focus and w the the talk at the time was we were um we were going to go over and we were going to do a job for a set period of time. So at the at the time I think so I was on rotation three with Delta Company that the plan was that by the time we finish rotation three um that the the situation in Afghanistan will be safe enough for the engineering team to come in. And it was actually good. So when I was down at Nile down in Canberra for this Nile anniversary um Mark Smedhurst uh former CEO of the unit and um Brett Challenger another former CEO of the unit they talked about setting the conditions between they had a plan through rotation one, two and three that by the time we get to the end we'll our area will be free of enemy the security pitcher will be good and then the engineering people to come in and do the hearts and minds they'll be free to be able to do whatever and they can do it with conventional um security forces. They don't need us there to be able to do what we need to do. And so they they had this plan and of course being on rotation three it was a summer rotation so we kind of you know we kind of thought that was going to get a little bit um hairy but at the same time again you're just excited to be able to go and do your job um in another country. Obviously the Afghan war had kind of been going on for four or five years at that stage so there's a lot of um there's a lot of intel there's a lot of news reports there's a lot of things going on so we had a fair idea about what was going to happen. I probably didn't realise to the extent of what uh we would get involved in but yeah it was it was an exciting time to beat and again I think a few other guys have talked about it um few dudes got stuck on team on that period like the 040506 period um and everyone just wanted to like back in the day everyone wanted to get on team because you got the you got the extra cash and you got to do the cool stuff and then now all of a sudden oh well hang on everyone wants to go back on the green rolls and so um yeah there were yeah there was a lot of um there was a lot of guys that were very very um keen to get over there and of course I find myself in the right place right time you know I just left team H needed a driver so um yeah I got slotted straight into a slot on Delta Company.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:05

So you slot straight into Delta Company but just quickly just before this you run into another bit of an incident on the alcohol on the boots again made well this is the could have destroyed a few things again.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:15

Yeah so this was um this was the reason why I left the tag um so I again we're at Northeast we're on a piss having a good old time it got me again well so I actually lived in a unit that um I was 50 metres from the front door so I lived on a street called Ocean Grove Avenue which is the first street up from where Northy's front door is um so from my from my elevator it was like a 50 or 60 metre walk to the front door.

SPEAKER_01 1:45:41

The Parkinson's just lived up there as well.

SPEAKER_03 1:45:43

Yeah so the Parko's lived on the other side of Northeast on the main bed yeah so I would go so it was like the triangle of death it'd either be at my place or we'd be at Parko's place or we'd be at Northeast hanging out with them. Right yeah and and so um yeah uh you know that time of year it was you know getting into summer anyway we had a good Sunday sesh and um everyone comes back to my house and I don't really have a great recollection of the e the events but we start wrestling in the kitchen right of my apartment and one of the guys um just happens to grab because we're all drunk grabs a frying pan and whacks me over the back of the head right and I I think I get knocked out for a period. I got a lot of mates there they're like you know oh just put him into bed I don't put him in the bed anyway so they put me to bed I slept in again um I get to work um I get chewed out you know I'm I'm gonna be charged I go through the process um BC who um is the uh OC of the unit at the time um I got one of the guys to actually write um they wrote supporting statements to say that this had happened that I that even though we were drinking I did get hit over the head with a frying pan which may have contributed to me sleeping through my alarm and I think I think they thought it was a joke but it was it's actually it's actually true. And so anyway I slept in I got uh Brett um uh booted me out of the tag he said you're going back um down to Delta Company or sorry you're going back down to the Green Rolls and I got I think I got like fourteen days ROPs um so for anyone that doesn't know what ROPs restriction of privileges so I um lived in the guard room um for two weeks painting rocks, doing drill, hanging, you know, sweeping gutters and so from seven AM to four PM I'd be at work getting absolutely beasted because I'm a bag of shit and then every night I'd be painting rocks and you know I feel your pain I've done it. Peeling yeah I uh marching with your pack on pack on and doing DP one inspections and you can imagine for a for an operator having a fine first of all find my DP one right which is things like you know your mill bank filter and your maps, your cups canine and all these things that you get issued but you don't really use but um yeah finding all of them and then parading and living actually lived under a hoochie out the back of the um guard room. Because I think at this stage I don't think we had at the unit we didn't have uh private security at our gate we had private security at the main gate but um diggers still ran the gate um at the unit. Anyway so yeah that's yeah that's how I had um that was another one a and realistically that was probably um I I was a little bit devastated at the time but then obviously when I found out oh well there's a slot at Delta Company do you want to come to Delta Company almost a blessing in disguise. It was almost a blessing in disguise and um you know I I missed I missed the Commonwealth games which I really wanted to do because when we were in Melbourne doing some some um workups for it we did some we did some awesome work. You know flying helicopters in and around Melbourne up and down St Kilda Beach. I mean we did we did a fast roping activity in Port Phillip Bay um on um one of the ferries and um I we were going through this serial where um at the at a lot of the um stadiums so we when we when we're doing when we're on tag we're doing a lot of experimenting with certain things like how you're going to carry gear, how you're gonna use what kind of ladders you're gonna use and obviously operating in a helicopter with a ladder is very dangerous because if you go out the door depending on the size you can obviously throw it up in the blades and bring the whole thing down. And so you know we used to come up with things with like we'd have milk crates that we would reinforce a milk crate because the milk crate's a perfect size and it's light and you could carabine it carabine it to your gear and you just put it down because if you've got to go through a window. And then we started experimenting because a lot of the venues had entryways um where it was a little bit higher so you might need like a two-step ladder and and in the ladder kit that we have we would always work on either single double or triple and we would work on rungs and so a a lot of the entries might need a two or a three and and um or may maybe bigger. And so over the weeks we're in Melbourne we were based out at Point Cook and so we were doing cereals and and I basically put my hand up to experiment with ladders and so I started with obviously the milk crate and then I started with a two rung and a three rung and then I started getting up to something that's you know a little bit close to my height like a four foot ladder. Then we got to a six foot ladder and so we ended up doing a cereal at night onto a um onto a ferry and uh I have this six foot ladder and so I'm sitting with my feet dangling out the door and I'm trying to we're trying to work out in the helicopter how we're going to get it out and get me get me down and so I kind of had it my arm so it wasn't connected to me my arm was through the rungs basically in the middle and I had it kind of slung across my chest and the idea that I would grab the I grab the rope because on when you fast rope you're not actually connected to anything you it's your hands that's it and so we'd we'd been practicing this and we'd been rehearsing it but as I went out I I fucking hit the ladder with my other hand and so I actually missed the rope and so we're at about 35 feet above the deck of this um ferry and I've got this six foot ladder over my shoulder and um Carrie Danes who was I think the supervisor at the time was watching under night vision and all he sees is me coming out backwards basically horizontal flailing like you see a stunt man in a movie. Um but I managed to just have one hand and right at the very last second I I grabbed on and crumped it and I basically landed on my back on the on the deck of this ferry and thank God the ladder was alongside me um Horizontally, because if if it had a speared in, yeah, it I it would have ripped my arm out. Um it would have ripped my arm out of the socket. Um, but yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've done that, I put the ladder up, made entry, I did what I had to do, and he's come up to after. He's like, Who the who's that? I said, Bush, sir. He's like, Okay, are you all right? Yeah, yeah, yeah. I'm good, I'm good. Um and so yeah, so um I loved Melbourne, and again, we were having a lot of good time and we're partying and having fun, and um, but the work that we were doing was awesome, you know. Gearing up for jobs like that, you've got essentially there's no expense spared, you've got helicopters basically all day, every day, you've got access to the best training. You know, we went and hit, I think we hit Bendigo Hospital when it was getting demolished, um, which again is awesome training. Um Yeah, it was it was an awesome time actually. Yeah, I was very I was disappointed to leave because I didn't want to leave that way, and I'd actually I when I caught up with Brett down in Canberra, I actually I pulled him aside and I I apologised and I said, Look, I I wish I had a known what I know now, I wouldn't have been such a fucking idiot on the piss, etc. etc. And you know, to his credit, he he gave me some really, really good comments and um um said some very nice things about me and my my work and other things, but um yeah, it's good to it's I had to get it off my chest because I I felt like a fucking idiot at the time. Yeah, that's what piss does, isn't it? It does, it does.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:18

You hit not the first and the last, there's multiple blokes that are screwed up multiple times.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:23

Yeah, and and I have um you know, I I have done some pretty stupid stuff, and I have you know I'm thankful I have. I have apologised to a few people that I've either said the wrong thing to or uh done the wrong thing and relatively harmless, but just stupid. Juvenile, stupid shit.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:42

Frying pen to the head.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:43

Frying pen to the head, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:53:44

But just quickly, 2005 the Cornella Riots. Were you at the Parko's house? Oh, was at Parko's house. That's where I met you. That's the first time we met. There we go. There you go, mate. Yeah, I was there. I was there.

SPEAKER_03 1:53:54

I remember it fucking vividly. Oh, and you know, I I actually really despise the term riot because I don't think it was a riot. There was it was gathering. It was a gathering. But there was thousands of people, right? And people got to remember the reason why that came to be was because we were getting in Crenella, um, well, we were getting a lot of people who were coming from Western Sydney, southwestern Sydney, and they were behaving like cockheads to people on the beach. They were being rude, violent, uh, things like that. But the thing, the the straw to broke the camel's back was that there was a mother walking along the beach, along the the the boardwalk there with her pram, and there were two I'll call them Lebos, I don't know if they were, but they were Lebos, and they turned around and they flipped they flipped her pram up, right? And this young lifeguard went to her defence. At Bondi. Um this was at Cronulla. And they flogged the they flogged the piss out of him. And so um, you know, that at that time the the unit had a lot of people that lived in the Shire, a lot of people that lived at, say, Marubra and Kudji, and a few other people lived in the city. But the the Cronulla people, the Shire people, if you've if you've ever been there, people always say, Oh, I'm from the Shire. So Shire people are very proud of where they're from. And, you know, there was a lot of there was a lot of enough is enough. And social media wasn't really a big thing in those days, but just by word of mouth, we were like, you know what, we're gonna have we're gonna have an Australia Day barbecue and we're gonna stand up for this because we don't we don't want this in our community. This is not who we stand for. Um and it's amazing to think, right, that's 22 years ago, right? And we haven't learned our lesson. Uh Australia as a company has not less learned our lesson. And so anyway, it started like relatively quiet and peaceful. And, you know, we were at Parko's house out on the grass and we're having a barbecue, uh having a fat old time. And some shit stirrers wanted to come and stir up some shit, which you know, unfortunately it devolved in a way it was, but it wasn't a riot. Wasn't we we weren't this is not Black Lives Matter where we're tearing the fucking place apart. It was it was very, very different.

SPEAKER_01 1:55:54

And there was a there was a a Ute with a barbecue on the back of it doing free sauces saying to my mate. What type of riot's this? This is Australia. Yeah. But I don't know if you remember, there was just quickly, there was a a couple of young, you know, Middle East kids that were walking down. We actually broke up a massive brawl that happened right out the front of Parko's place. Yeah. And we all ran out there to stop it.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:14

But that's Well, yeah, because I think what it what what and this is the thing, right? People when they get a bit of pissing them, they'd be they're a bit idiot. And they'd assumed that these people were coming to start something, but that these people were I think students or tourists. They were, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:27

They had no idea.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:29

Um and yeah, I rem I do remember that. Yeah, um I was sunburnt as hell. But yeah, I I I do remember that. And then obviously around Northees and the pub, and that's obviously then it progressed down to the train station, a few other things. We didn't really I didn't go down there, I did you?

unknown 1:56:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:56:45

May have launched a couple of bottles at the police, may have may have not have to be. May not have. Nah.

SPEAKER_03 1:56:51

But um yeah, it was um and then look after that, and this is the thing I think out of that whole situation was rather than come at the people that had had started that gathering, yeah, they went around bashing strangers on their own, taking the bin out, dads.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:08

They went back and forth for a few weeks.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:11

And like that's just shows you how cowardly these people are, right? They don't, you know, um, rather than come and take on the people in the communities that have had enough of their shit, they they just went and Easy targets. Yeah, easy targets.

SPEAKER_01 1:57:23

Um Which, like you said, mate, we haven't learnt bunny now. No, we haven't scared. No, we haven't learned.

SPEAKER_03 1:57:28

And it's you know, I'll I'll say something. I I am happy for I think about where I grew up in WA um in terms of immigration and that sort of stuff. Uh a lot of I've got a lot of friends who ha who come from immigrant backgrounds, whether it be Chinese, Middle Eastern, Indian, English, Scottish, but you know, the generation that came before that's it, they came to be Australians. They came to be um live the way of life. To live the way of life because we've got such a good way of life. It just seems at at the moment that the people that are coming don't want to be Australians. They want to be who they are, or or they want to bring the shit that they're trying to escape, which I just don't get. I don't I just don't get.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:08

No, I get mate. I get it. I get it. I'm I'm the you know, the the result of an immigrant, so you know my mother came here to change life and give us the best opportunity possible, which which we did. But you know, I totally get mate. Mate, uh so from there, like we said, Afghan, you've been pushed down to Delta Company. Not your own choice, because Brett Wood kicked you out. Uh, but again, blessing in disguise because Delta ramping up for Afghanistan now on the green roll. You get your first opportunity to head to Afghanistan, doing the pre-deployment, all that stuff, gearing up. Let's just we'll skip that part because everyone knows those those scenarios, training scenarios. You're on the plane, mate. This is uh different to Iraq. And you know, the SAS have been there, there's been a couple of deployments before you, you get the stories, it's not built up. This is the Taliban, totally different scenario, mate. Run me run let's run through this.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:07

Well, I'll go back slightly because at this stage, my now wife, um, I'd met her on Talisman Sabre the year before, so this would have been 2005, uh, in Townsville.

SPEAKER_01 1:59:20

And um not a mad cow.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:21

No, I met her at the bank, actually. Um I was there with my mate Shorey, and um she actually came up. The two of us were standing there looking like idiots, we're just looking around, and she actually came up and said, Oh, um, I'd like two bourbon and cokes, thanks. And I remember looking at Shorey, and I'm like, Yeah, okay, I'll go buy it. Anyway, so that's how it started. But um, we were living a long distance kind of relationship. It wasn't I don't think it was that serious at that point in time, but just prior to that, I was still in the team, I was still on team, and we'd organised for her to move to Sydney. And um, so she finally decided she left the job, she moved to Sydney, and so I can't remember the timings exactly, but basically she got to Sydney on like the 5th. Um, I'd just been removed from the tag, and then like a week later, um they said, Oh, you might need you might be coming to the GAN. We're going on this pre-deployment training, so went to Singho. So within a week, I've been deployed to Singho. She's in Sydney, she's from Townsville, it's middle of winter, uh, it's getting close to the middle of the winter. Um, she doesn't know anyone, she's just started a new job. I get back from that deployment training at Singho and tell her, I'm going to the GAN, I'm going to Afghanistan. And so that's kind of how our serious relationship started. But yeah, so I guess when we got on the plane and we're going over to the GAN, it was very, it was very much different because if you think about from um even Timor and Iraq, so Timor is now five years ago. Iraq is three years ago. You're hearing a lot more information around uh what's actually going on, what we're actually expected to do. You know, we're not there in a support role, we're actually there to do a commando role. Um, and so it definitely felt like it was going to be more um war fighting. More war fighting, you know, less sitting around waiting for a call. It's more about, you know, we're gonna be offensive, um, because like I said before, the mission was to clear as many enemy, um, what they call them at the time, the any coalition militia. Yep. Um, we wanted to clear as many ACM out of the valleys um as possible so that we could bring in the reconstruction task force at a later date. So we kind of knew what our job was gonna be. Um we kind of had a bit of a false start. Um like I said before, when we got there, one of the guys lost his pack and we had to go and get it. And just to rub our noses in it, the head of the head of the SOTG, who at that time was an a Saskat, made us all shave. And so we'd all had beards and stuff like that built up, ready to go, and he made a shave and says, you know, you guys you don't deserve to blah blah blah. And so we all had to shave back to back to zero. But then um, yeah, we started going on a few patrols, we went um went to the Mirabad Valley, which was a pretty dangerous place. Yep. Um and then yeah, really early on, um Brett, Brett and Berg's team um got in a gunfight, they got they were the guys were setting up to ambush them, so we were all back at base at the time, but yeah, the so that gunfight had happened, um the Sascats had started getting into a few. I remember there's a photo of me somewhere at um I was at the range at TK, we were doing um we were doing 50 cow and Mark 19 shooting and and the Sascats were on their way back and they got ambushed and um they were calling in fire support and dropping bombs. Um so we could see the mushroom clouds coming up and we're obviously hearing the reports. It was very close. So it was just the other side of TK. It wasn't I don't even think it was over the river, it was just on the other side of TK. Um and so yeah, we knew we we knew that there was certain things going on very quickly within the first couple of weeks.

SPEAKER_01 2:02:56

Um Yeah, and in regards to deaths, it was only Andrew Russell from SASR, and that was you know, early. So really the the attitude I guess for you guys, ten foot tall, bulletproof, ready for fucking gunfight. When do you get into your first your first stink? So my first proper stink was na opnial. So it was, yeah, right. So straight and again, we we you know we're speaking about op nylecause it's 20 years. Plus, had Berg's on recently and spoke about it, he spoke about it on his podcast, and it turned out to be one of the biggest engagements where you know I think we spoke about this offline when you had a coffee, like the CO was up in a 1C AC 130, and he basically thought, fuck, this is this is looking bad, because again, they could see on the enemy, but let's crack onto this, mate, let's dive into it.

SPEAKER_03 2:03:52

Um you know, so we'd we'd obviously were uh we'd gone through all our nursery patrols and we started going on a few um patrols, uh, you know, like multi-day things outside and um leading up to leading up to that, um so op Perth was part of a wider mission called um Operation Mountain Thrust. And the whole idea was to clear as much of the Chora Valley and all those sort of um areas um to prepare for other attacks so we can get rid of as many militia as uh a Taliban as possible um prior to the end of our trip. And so uh Operation Mountain Thrust was a theatre-wide job. Um it wasn't just without us, and so Opt Perth was our small part of clearing basically. Uh the intent was to go um east, northeast out of TK, up through Chora, and we would go all through the Chora Valley, down through the Belluchi Pass, back to TK. And so um uh that was essentially the job. And so, as part of that, um the head shed had a list of say ten high value, medium value targets that they wanted to get. Um now, due to whatever reason, so at this point in time, we still didn't have dedicated assets or we didn't have access to air or rotary wing and um fire support wasn't that readily available, you know, they were being tasked for other things, um, and so they brought that they brought this job um to to our. Well, the Australians had found this job, and then the way um Brett Challeng um talked about it la the other week when we were in Canberra was you know they had all these people and they wanted to go for them, but the timing started shifting. Now the start date of Ott-Perth could not shift because Opp Mountain Frust was a massive operation, um, and so the start date of Ott-Perth couldn't shift, so um they had to pick a time to go after these targets. But the the SAS guys kept getting tasked with other things preparing for op Perth. And so originally it was going to be an SAS job um and we were gonna be the QRF. And so the original plan was uh the SAS would fly in in helicopters, um, and helicopters would come back to TK, we would then get on the helicopters and we would be the QRF. Um and I think JT talked about it, um, that was quickly kind of ruled out because it just didn't really make sense. The only issue was, you know, they thought about obviously vehicle movement, but um uh there was a thought that potentially we would um we would let them know we're coming just because of the spot and work and things like that. So eventually what would what happened was Nile, and so for those that don't know, DA um objective Nile was a doctor, a local doctor, who lived in the area. He was a high value target who was a Taliban commander, um and the he was essentially at the top of the list that we had uh or that Australia had um to to get to prior to um launching opperf. Um when it became when it became um when they realized that the the SASCATs who were preparing for opperf couldn't get to that target, they couldn't prepare for they had too many things going on, they couldn't prepare, they they reached out to the JTF2 Canadian guys um who had uh window available in their time frame. Um and then the um the only available air assets that could fly the mission were Australian Chinooks. Um well they were the only ones that had availability. And so the the mission quickly changed from an SAS commando mission to JTF2 with Australian Chinooks, and we would then be the QRF. Um and through the planning, they ended up devising that us going in in a vehicle column um and pulling up, you know, five or six kilometres short um of the objective would give us enough time that if we had to get there, we we could get there to support them. Um I think we had three, three or four uh SRVs, so Land Rovers um and two bushmasters um were in our in our packet. Um and so yeah, so we we had known about this for quite a while, but the the actual pieces to get the Canadians involved obviously fell into place a little bit later. Um from my point of view or my recollection, uh I remember I remember getting an original brief where um the local SAS guys were involved, and then a couple of days later the Canadians came down and we did a basically we did a full mission brief with the pilots, the JTF guys and the Commando FE at the the TOC at um Terrancout. Um and so we we didn't really have well now that I know a little bit more information about the other side, you know, the the Australian pilots didn't have that much information. I think they they got asked with like 48 to 72 hours. And they've never done they'd never done that.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:46

Our Chinooks were there for resupply and just transport.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:49

Milk runs.

SPEAKER_01 2:08:50

Milk runs pretty much now they're fucking on the minigun. Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:08:53

And so, you know, at the time, you know, and they talk about it and if you've got an opportunity, go and look on the Australian War Memorial website for the um for the panel discussion on Op Nile. Just search for 20th anniversary in Op Nile because the pilots uh and the and the officers uh it's a four-hour thing, but the it's split up into two. The first panel is the um Canadian JTF commander, our commanders and the pilots, and they're really discussing the planning and how they went about it and and how things kind of what's kind of set the scene. And then the second panel is where the guys who actually did the work um got to tell our side of the story, but but uh nah. Um but yeah, so they end up talking about, you know, hey, yeah, we'll do it, yeah, we can do that, we can do that. You know, they'd never done it before and they didn't really I don't think they really had approval or um um from higher to be able to insert because they actually landed on the objective, right? That's the thing that a lot of people might not understand is uh there's a building which that they deemed that there would be the objective with two to three bodyguards and twenty to thirty militia within twenty to thirty minutes. So that they thought that that's the possible um target. And so the police said, yeah, no worries, we're gonna land there. And when you listen to the video, the way they talk about how the difficulty of them actually coming and sitting them down, getting engaged straight away at night. At night in in a dust bowl. Um, you know, it's incredible that that first of all that they landed the helicopter and that none of the Canadians were killed. Um I think we we lost uh one Afghanist and um a guy from uh I think he was in the CIA, um, but uh an old school war fighter in his late fifties who'd been in every battle, he got shot in the thumb, went through his uh round, uh went through his weapon and hit him in the thumb. And he they tell a story about how he was whinging that he'd been in every fight since like Grenada or Panama and he'd never been shot, um, and that was his first one. And so yeah, they were the two only two major injuries from the actual assault force. Um, but yeah, if I can go back, um yeah, we we basically geared up. I I was in the the lead vehicle, so um Ray, who was my team commander, uh, we were in the lead vehicle and obviously I was driving. Um and so the whole point was we would come to this objective and we would wait, the helicopters would come in, but the helicopters had planned to angle to go to one of the fobs, and at the very last minute they would turn hard right and come into the target. So that because they weren't um this is another thing that I found out recently, because they were the normal helicopters, because the spotter network is so good, um, it didn't have it wasn't like one of those uh SF helicopters that had the big fueling mount on the front. So the spotters are that good that they can say, oh no, no, that's just uh milk round or that's a blah blah blah. And so they assumed that well, hey, we we look like this, let's let's try this. And so basically we caught them completely unawares. Um but yeah, so um yeah, we we went off um started driving out, um, we we almost get to our location, we're kind of um under night vision, no lights. Um we hear the helicopters taking off or going past us to the left, um, and then no sooner had they turned right to to land that you could hear them getting spun up uh hardcore. Like they were copping rounds, you know, from probably fifty to a hundred feet off the ground, I I think. It was it was very, very loud.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:26

Sorry, j th those two helos are just full of JTF2 and their counterparts.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:30

Yeah, so we had um on on there there was the the JTF two guys, they had some Afgh support um people and they had one of our LOs. So Griffo, who um was a sergeant in the unit, he was a LO with them, and we had one of their LOs who was in one of our bushmasters. Um they also had we also had the same thing on the AC-130, we had um BC who was on the AC-130, and then they had representatives on the AC-130 as well. So that there was um three-way communication between all the people that are involved with with the fight.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:02

With your boss in the in the gunship.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:04

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:05

Which is pretty crazy. Because generally, you know, you the boss is back in the at base controlling it through the the tock through there. Yeah, a lot different. But now he's actually on the it's like.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:17

Yeah, so our our our platoon commander, JT, he was with us. Of course, yeah, we're talking the bottom of the city. He was in the he was in the AC 130, and he was the one obviously helping to liaise with all the different um agencies that were working at the time. Yeah and I think the other thing we had, we did have a predator drone which sat above everything and then looked at the entire field of battle.

SPEAKER_01 2:13:38

Yeah. So the two Helos come in that you see the the fish hook, they take a take a right, land in, do the job. Obviously, you know, I think I spoke about this. Bergs they land in. I'll made DA now. My objective nine. I've went to fire an RPG, he's been fucking downed by these uh JTF guys. Run from there, mate.

SPEAKER_03 2:13:58

Yeah, so uh like if I can go back. So the Intel picture that I remember at the time was that it was going to be him and a couple of bodyguards. That that's it, right? And um I've since learned that you know there was a little potentially a little bit more than that. Maybe they had 20 to 30 people on standby in the area that would come to their assistance once it all goes noisy. Well, what what eventually happened was that they were having a shorer. So he had he was a commander, he had all of his staff, all of his junior commanders um from the entire district, the entire TK district, um, or Ruzgun, were in in that area that night, and then they had brought all of their bodyguards, and then they had also bought their own armies. So, you know, conservative reports there there were 250 to 350 fighters in and around there bedded down for the night, um, that were there to protect Old Mate. Um and so we never we never really um I mean we ne obviously never knew that. We had some expectations, but we were we were prepared for that. So we the actual mission was the we would pull up to the blocking position two to three kilometers to the south, um, the JTF guys would hit the target, um, they would then call for us if they needed us, and then we had some set blocking positions. So my team, um our our job was to go to the northernmost blocking position on the road, which is on essentially if you look at a clock um in the target buildings down here, about three o'clock, we were gonna go to about 11.30, right? And uh on a road, and we were gonna protect entry from the north through to the west and then down this road, which if you think about it um from a map point of view, north is directly into the Belluchi Pass. Yep. Right. And so we're only we're only a couple of K short of the Bellucci Pass. Um but what eventually happened was we get to the blocking position. I don't even think we stopped. Um we talked about it the other week. Um it was almost as if we just rolled straight through because um straight away they called troops in contact, they'd taken one casualty, which is the Afghani guy, um, and it quickly became um they quickly became aware that there was way more enemy than they thought. And then I think that's when the AC-130 started seeing, you know, significant groups of people massing all around this compound. And and what I'm talking about is like several hundred meters, and they could start to see these people, obviously under thermal and night vision, that there were these large groups kind of coming out. So we were given the order to basically keep punching through. Um, and um no sooner had we been given the order that uh we started taking pretty accurate fire from the right-hand side, so kind of like if I was looking in front of my vehicle from like the two o'clock position, um, we were taking RPG and uh machine gun and AK-47 fire, um, some of it bouncing off the front of the car, some of it going over our heads. Obviously, it's a very, very dark night. We're under NVG, they're kind of they can't really see what we're doing. Um and um Hambo, who was in the top, so in my car, uh Hambo had a Mark 19, and then the other car behind us that we had a 50 cow. Um, and so we kind of rolled through that a little bit and we kind of took care of that as we did, but then as we got 150, 200 metres in front, we got proper ambush from like 70 meters, 70 metres away. Um, and there was a group, uh I think it was like six to ten, six to eight um dudes um in and around some rocks and some and some other things, they just come kind of come out of a building, and you know, over there you get those little mud walls that are maybe four foot high or something like that, and so we're getting properly ambushed. And um I mentioned the other week that at the time, because I'm driving, trying to keep the vehicle going forward, I got Ray who's in the driver's seat, he's got a Mag 58 going across the dash on the pintle mount, just feeding these guys as as hard as we could. And I had because my M4 was on a uh on a carabiner, and so I'm driving, and because I had no door, I had the M4, and I'm just trying to I had the laser, trying to pick, like I I probably wasn't having much luck, but I was trying to pick dudes off uh with my laser on one-handed. Um but then I could hear Sean because Sean the JTAC was in the back of my car and I had his radio actually on speaker. So once we went hot I turned it all the way up. So I could hear them relaying information around um how many enemy were in the area. From the gunship. From the gunship. And so the gunship was saying to Sean, oh sorry, Sean that went back to the gunship to say, hey, this is Dagger, Dagger 13 or whatever the call sign was, um, did you see those guys? And they're like, Yeah, yeah. Um and he says uh basically cleared hot. And then there's like a that's danger close, you're like 60, 70 metres, and he goes, Danger close. And so they dropped a 105 right in the center of those dudes, um, and and picked the rest of them. And so that was the first time I had actually heard and kind of witnessed uh the AC-130 fire 105, and it was so close that when when you actually hear it, yeah, it's it's very um it's very strange, right? Because you don't expect something like that to come from the sky, but you just hear this little drone. You know what a C 130 sounds like, but um it's not like it's not like you're getting shot at with a rifle where you get the crack thump, it's really you kind of you still you see it, you kind of hear it, and then it's shh. It's it makes a hell of a noise. Oh 105 makes a hell of a noise. Anyway, so that finished that. And at the time we were very aware that we didn't want to get locked in on that position because we needed to get to where we were going, because we could hear that going off hardcore. And so the boss reminded us to get moving, and we obviously kept moving. Um and then we got to the next couple of K's um or next kilometer or so, it was like relatively uneventful. Uh we were we're still taking, you know, f fire. You can he still hear people get shooting at us, and um, you know, you you can see uh I mean the thing that really surprised me is the amount of trace that that was coming, uh especially under night vision, because it's so because it's such a dark night, the the trace is coming and when it bounces off the front of the car um or off rocks or whatever, it's just going in every direction. And uh an RPG, when you see it under night vision, you've got the rocket actually it leaves this like if you can imagine like a smoke trail with um this light that goes across. Yeah, it's like a vortex that goes across the sky and it's almost it's almost like watching fireworks, but at the same time it's like holy fuck, like that's close, that's close. Um and so that kind of continued on until we got to where we needed to get to, and then we we we we got to our um we got to our blocking position and we set up kind of in the area that we we thought we were gonna have to be, where we were pre-planned, and obviously I was all way out in the front with my team, um yeah, blocking the northern section, and and that's when I started to hear on the radio um from Sean. Um I mean he made a funny comment because he was sitting on like a little trunk in the back, it's not even a real seat, and so we're getting we're in an open top Land Rover. This poor guy's on the radio, he's got ra two radios in each ear, um, and he's sitting on, he called it uh essentially it's an eskey, sitting on the back of this green eskey in the back of this thing. Um and he's just relaying, like, yep, cleared, cleared here, da da da, um, target over here. And meanwhile, the guys in the gunship were relaying from the predator feed, and also what they could see is that hey, um Bush Ranger, um, you know, there's groups of fifty to your north, there's a group of forty plus moving in from the east, there's a group of thirty over to the west, um, to the point where he act he says, Look, I can't I can't keep counting. There's groups massing um on all corners uh of the map. The only place that they weren't was, I guess, to the southwest, because there was nothing but desert out there. But everywhere else where there was accommodations, there were these just people piling out and they were you know manoeuvring to towards us.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:06

The Hornet's nest.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:07

The Hornet's Nest.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:08

Yeah. JTF2's done their thing, Aussie Chinhox have come back in, picked them up. And I I understand that you know, I I know a little bit about it, and there was so much confliction there. The Aussie pilots are like, apparently they've pretty much just done it outside of regards of whatever the commander said that they did it, picked up, JTF's disappeared. Like you said, there's so much enemy massing around. Main effort's gone. Yep. What did the Taliban do? They obviously shift their focus and efforts on seven slow moving vehicles.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:43

Yep, yep. So I as we're I mean that after that first initial engagement and we kind of set up and um, you know, we knew that there were we we knew that there were these large groups, right? And so we were essentially targeting um so Sean was basically targeting groups onto that area, right? And so I could see out in front of me like uh they were moving, and this is where they're actually quite clever. I mean, they're not clever to come up against us with no night vision, but they were very clever in how they actually try to maneuver, where they would split up from their groups of 20 into tens and then into fives and then into twos, right? So that they could kind of um intersperse themselves into the rocks and into the walls and where the trees were. Um and leading up to the JTF do guys coming out, we had the I had the 84 out and um and Hambo and I um were basically feeding it to them with the 84, same with Bray. Um we were putting either direct or we were airbursting it at 100 metres. And so there were groups of like 10, 15, 20 blokes, and I'd put an airburst 84 straight into them, clear them, they're down. Go over to the next one, that they're down. Um and then what kind of happened after about 15 to 20 minutes, that went on for about 40 minutes, and then the that kind of calmed down to the point where the JTF2 guys came out, they met up, everything kind of settled a bit. You could hear still still hear, I mean, there's still sporadic gunfire, the occasional RPG coming in, but it wasn't it wasn't like we were under attack, they were just kind of having pot shots. And so as the helicopters come in, um, and it's really, you know, brilliant. Um the Bravo who was uh I won't mention his name, but he was at the event the other day. He actually talked about it that if I was planning an ambush for incoming helicopters, I would have executed exactly the same because they basically just waited and because they could hear the helicopters, everything kind of died.

SPEAKER_01 2:24:37

Yeah.

unknown 2:24:37

They knew they were coming.

SPEAKER_03 2:24:39

And um they kind of kind of stopped, right? And so if you if you think about where the LZ was, the the JTF two guys were right next to us. We were fanned out in a bit of a horseshoe, um, and there were a couple of guys over the other side. But as the helicopters came in, as they got about 20 feet off the ground to land, it all hell broke loose. Absolutely all hell broke loose. Sorry, they waited until the guys got in the aircraft um before they've they launched, and they basically it was just full auto. There were RPGs going through in between the helicopters. Um so these are like two Chinooks coming down side by side. Um, and the pilots recall, you know, seeing RPGs going between, and there was traces going in between them, traces going this way. Um, you know, there were so we're on the I guess the eastern side of where the LZ was, and there were groups of like 15 to 20 on the other side. So I we're engaging them underneath the rotors and basically down the side of where the the mini gunners were in the in the Chinook. Um and meanwhile the Chinooks are engaging with those guys as well. And um yeah, like you say, they they lift off. It kind of, you know, the sound of the helicopter disappears, but then all of a sudden it's just the roar of, you know, we're getting absolutely pumped um from pretty much every angle. And so um we stayed in position for a period just to get a little bit of ascendancy. Um it it it kind of calmed down for a little while. Um just around that time is when I that's when I got um fucked over by I don't know if I got shot or whether it was frag from an RPG, but I was taking cover behind this little rock wall, and um these dudes came out of the side of this building and they just like like it was like lemmings. They were just coming out, one had pop and then another one, and so there'd be RPG, RPG, and then another guy with an AK or a um or a machine gun. And I'm standing sitting there behind this wall, and one of the RPGs hit the wall, and a r and a round either a round or a piece of frag or something like that has come up and and on the angle it's hit me in the head, and at the same time an RPG's hit the wall, knocked the absolute piss out of me, and um I ended up falling arse overhead, and um Brett and Ray were basically in the area. They'd thought I'd been shot, um how how big it was. Because obviously, like you're under night vision, so everything, all the flashes are all accentuated and things like that. And so they've they've dragged me back in behind the car, they've patted me down, um, to see I mean I remember Brett Um saying, You're not leaking, you're not leaking, it's all good, it's all good. And so and then from there, um that's when Sean basically got told by the boss to get in the fucking bushmaster because the JTAC is you're the you're our most important person at the moment because you're our eyes and ears. Um so Sean's gone into the JTAC. Um sorry, Sean's gone into the the bushmaster, and um he he told a really funny story because as he was going over, um Brett's like, get your fucking crazy laser thing and fuck those fuck those guys up. Um and because he had uh one of those lasers which is basically laser designator. Laser designator, but it's it's like um it's essentially the same laser that comes out of the aircraft. Like he was saying it goes out, so it goes out to 40 plus kilometres, very, very strong. And so he's like Marks the target. Marking the target, he's like lassoing them, he goes, Can you see these guys there? And then they're like, Yeah, yeah, we can see them. And he goes, Yep, I can clear it hot, and then they're just firing um 105 and 40 mil on these dudes. And and Brett's like, Alright, do it over there, do it. And he's like giving him target instruction and and uh so they must have nailed they must have nailed heaps of dudes um before he was finally said, get your get your ass in the bushmaster, um, where you're nice and safe. Um and uh and yeah, so by that stage, yeah, the the helicopters have left, the boss is like, right, we're gonna we're gonna leave. Um but because we've been ambushed a couple of times on the way in, we we've taken a different route, so we've gone more to the east. Um, and again, you know, the maps that we had were like left over from the Russians, right, and they were shit. They were absolute shit. And so what we were driving on might not even be a road, right? It's you've seen what it's like. They're like just little tracks that kind of go the easiest way. Um and so we're following directions thinking that okay, we're gonna come out at this position here, and then we're gonna get into the open desert and we can go back to TK. Um, well, that wasn't the case. So we ended up in where we ended up, there was a it was essentially a creek, uh well, like some kind of riverbank or one of those uh irrigation drains where they had um there was like an orchard in there, right? And which is where um you know they had funneled all the water in and there was no way, there was actually no way through, it was a dead end, right? And so but uh we'd been ambushed a couple of times getting into the orchard, and then by the time we got into the orchard, right, this is when we start getting to this period where you know these guys are five, ten, fifteen meters away.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:46

That close the engagements.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:47

Yeah, so we were like we were throwing hand grenades, um uh I killed a couple of guys with a handgun because I had a stoppage, I'd run out of rounds, um, and there were guys coming around the corner of a building and I'd put them down with my USP. Um Yeah, it was it was it was hectic, right?

SPEAKER_01 2:30:05

And so sorry, just quickly, you obviously you've you've been hit. What's the extent of your injuries at that stage?

SPEAKER_03 2:30:12

Um I because it was a head injury, it wasn't that it wasn't that bad, it hit me at an angle. I've got I've I've got a small scale, but at the time, because it's my forehead, and I've got a forehead like a Crow Magnon man. The the guys used to say like a caveman, right? I've got this big pronounced brow. Right. So they used to call me, they used to call me Crow Magnon man. And um it's a big target. So what it's done, it's it's hit me on the angle and gone up into my helmet. Um and I'd I'd got fragged in the vest, but I I was okay, but I was it was pissing blood big just because I uh the body temperature was up and it's your head, yeah. And so, you know, it's all through my eyes and beard and stuff like that. But I was okay. I was actually I was making good decisions, I was I was very coherent with what we were doing.

SPEAKER_01 2:30:58

It was superficial, really.

SPEAKER_03 2:30:59

It was really superficial, but at the same time, I I like my senses were I was like spidey sensors, right? I could hear and because at this time I didn't have any peltils on or anything, so I had no urine protection or anything like that. And so, but like my touch, my smell, you know, the taste, the dust. Um, after that had happened, right, I was I was I was amped, amped. Adrenaline. Yeah, adrenaline was um was really pumping. Um and then um yeah, so we get down to into this area, and this is when they start coming because we had to bear with us who obviously we can listen to their radio communications, and you know, they're saying stuff like, you know, don't kill them all, that we need to take some prisoners. Um and so like I said, we're we're I'm engaging guys like almost from here to the other side of this room, um, very, very close. Uh we're throwing grenades, um, we're doing all sorts of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 2:31:55

And you hear sorry, I just want to break this down just a little bit. You know, you're engaging like we're in this room right now, that's two, three metres away. Yep. What can you see under your night vision when you're what are they wearing? Are they do they look like your normal Afghan fighter or they look these these guys look?

SPEAKER_03 2:32:13

So majority of them well drilled. Oh, they definitely look drilled because of the way they maneuvered. Um and when we went down for Nile, the um the platoon sergeant, I won't say his name, um, he he was in the video unidentified, but if you listen to what he says, he talks about their manoeuvre and how tactical it was, and so how they were coming out of these buildings and these compounds in groups of 10 and 20 plus, and they were breaking down into basically fire teams, and then they were manoeuvring, knowing that they they they didn't have night vision, they couldn't really see where we were, but they they were very, very well drilled. And and I I think probably to answer the question, I think you I think they were local Afghani Taliban. I mean we encountered some Chechens and some other people later um on Ot Perth. Um, but these guys were more they're in their white dish dash, obviously they've just been asleep because it's like it's midnight, one in the morning or something at the by this stage. Um just a bit of extra training. Yeah. Yeah, a bit of extra training. Um and they were they were maniacal, like like suicide bomber maniacal. There were no suicide bombers at the time, but you know what I mean? They were they were desperate to get one of us and and and and get us hostage or take us prisoner or whatever. But um yeah, as we came back into the orchard, um, it was surrounded by compounds on most of the sides, and and there was like a road that kind of went in. And it was at this period where we kind of circled up the wagons a bit. We had the bushmasters in an at in an angle. I had parked my um SRV was facing basically back the way we came, and we essentially circled um and we were just fighting on every angle, right? So I remember I fired a um Hambo and so at this stage the other t other thing to say is Hambo's Mark 19 went unserviceable within the f that first ambush that we had. Um he got around stuck in the chamber, and because we were basically in the shit the whole time, he didn't have time to he didn't have an opportunity to pull it out. Um so he was firing out of the the turret um with his M4 or his SR-25. He was picking off targets with his SR-25, and so um at this stage um Ray's still um in in the car kind of to the side because he had the Mag 58, so he's going to town on dudes with the Mag 58. I'd pulled the 84 back off and started putting airbus bursts into the groups that were a little bit further out. Um and at the same time, the JTAC was basically trying to create a ring, right, just targeting these bigger groups that were around us so that we could deal with the threats that were close up. Now, I I only have kind of vision of my quadrant, um, but it was going on everywhere, right? And there was a guy, um Shane was in the turret behind me and uh in the bushmaster, and so I'm firing the 84 while he's in the turret basically right behind me, and he's going, he's targeting over here, then I see a tracer go over the top of my head, there's tracer going over there. Um you know, in that little period there, it kind of got it kind of got a little bit um a little bit dicey um before we basically punched out um to try and make make a hole in where we were, and that that's that's the next step, yeah. And I could talk about I mean, look, there's so many things that have happened in that in that period in that time. Yeah you know, I I remember throwing a grenade, right, and watching a guy go to try and pick it up um to throw it back at us and having it go off, right, right in his face. Um and you know, but they they just kept coming. They just kept coming from everywhere. Yeah. And then it was caused that that period of time there where um the AC-130 had run all out of all of its an ammunition. Um it was getting very, very low on fuel, so it essentially just became an ISR platform. Um and um they they I think they were really thinking about whether they need to stay or whether they need to go. Because we did have we did have a B-1 bomber on its way, but it wasn't coming for like 30 or 40 minutes. Um there was no other air assets in the in the area um that could kind of support. Um and you know, talking to Sean the other week, you know, they really, really wanted to stay. However, they'd lost an AC 130 in Afghanistan or maybe Iraq only a couple of years earlier because they stayed past uh when they should have. And of course, when the sun comes up, because they're at 10,000, 15,000 feet, this the the glare. So they didn't want to risk that. Um and that is the that's the point there where um BC says to me, that that's the time they say, Look, we've got to go.

SPEAKER_01 2:36:55

That's what you hear on that radio.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:57

Yes, that's he goes, we've got to go. And and Brett had said, you know, he he expected that there would be ten or more KIA when he gets back to base. That's what he thought at the time. Because we were we were pretty much surrounded.

SPEAKER_01 2:37:11

And this and you've got to look at this timing too. This is where the the the sun's starting to this is where it's starting to break. So again, the initiative now under night vision is lost. Yeah. The Taliban start to get eyes. What is there a point where you just you boys are just like, fuck. Well this could this is gonna turn messy or um look I you feel like you had control still.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:35

I think we still thought oh well, I still felt like we had control, but I we were all and talking to the guys the other week where you know we went and had this anniversary, you know, I think everyone felt the same kind of thing. It wasn't until we tried to so we tried to break out of that to head back the way we came, because we were like, well, we've got to go back the way we came. So JT, who I must admit, he he made some incredible decisions that night as a as a young platoon commander in a commando battalion in his first gunfight, the way he handled himself was you know, he's made some very, very good decisions. Um but which we went to break out of that area, and me being the lead car, um, I tr went to drive and because these cars are so heavy, I've got them in low range, and so you're in like second or third gear, you've got your foot to the floor, the thing's wringing its neck out, and it's doing 20 or 30k an hour, maybe 40k an hour. So you're not moving at pace. Um, and as we've gone to leave, that's where um there was um there was a little kink in the road. I remember this very, very vividly. Uh, there's a little kink in the road, and there's like a tree on this little peninsula, and I've since found out, I didn't realise this at the time, but there was dudes, two dudes set up on a roof with a PKM shooting at us as we're going down. I could see two guys off out into the distance that were setting up a gun pit, and they started firing, and I I'm watching the tracer come out hit this tree, and so I've Because I'm driving the car, I I put the car like I'm turning to the left, so I've put the nose into the left to expose where my side of the car was. Um and Ray's jumped out, and it I I've I've since heard that everyone said we all jumped out together like uh you know, like something out of Sonic the Hedgehog, you know, all the all the coins coming out. Um and so I've jumped out the side and I'm there's a little there's a little wall there, and I remember laying on my back for four or five seconds, and I'm just watching Tracer going above my head, I don't know, less than a metre, pinging into the side of my car where I was just sitting. And I'm just that's when I'm thinking to myself, these guys are just gonna come up over the top here, and one of these guys is just gonna put a bullet in my head like we're fucked. Um at that time, um, the guys behind us uh they took out the two dudes on the on the roof. Um, I then got up off the off onto my, I said, fuck this, do something, dickhead. Um, so I got up onto my knees and because I think they were reloading, and so I took out those two dudes that were firing over there, and then at that point, because everyone had seen the RPGs and all the tracer and the the fucking shit going everywhere, they thought we'd been properly blown up. So the guys raced up to see where we were. Um yeah, I was gonna jump, I thought the vehicle was fucked, we're gonna jump in the uh bushmaster and get out, but um Ray's like, no, it's it's still running, let's get the fuck out of here. And so one of the bushmasters then just gunned it, um, basically up that track, and then we just followed and we just peeled in and then we kind of just followed them um and we basically got the hell out of the dodge and we got all the way back to our blocking position where we'd kind of started the night.

SPEAKER_01 2:40:38

About five K's away.

SPEAKER_03 2:40:39

Uh or no, not there. The the the original one where the helicopter HLZ was. So we went back to the HLZ, yeah, and that's when the sun started to come up. Um and um Yeah, yeah. And I look, we got ambushed a couple of times on the way from there to there. Um because they were pepper potting in front of you guys as well, in in a way. Yeah, they so they started doing that very early, but it wasn't until we left the HLZ a second time and went around the long way the sun was up then. It was basically broad daylight. Um that's when the B1 turned up and um uh Sean got them to drop because there were guys firing at us from a building and he dropped a 500 pounder or a thousand pounder or a couple of them on top of each other. Um and then um we're still getting engaged from the high side, which is the west. Um and then this is where the Bravo's talking about um you know, we we were watching guys on motorbikes, right? Like two dudes per motorbike, like groups of them, trying to erase to get in front of us to set up ambushes. Like, and there were there were people still coming out of buildings, you know, six, seven blokes at a time, splitting into these little little groups. Um but yeah, so we ended up going back to where the HLZ was. Uh we kind of regrouped, sun started to come up, a bit of Casanamo, everything okay. Amazingly, no injuries. Um and then yeah, we made the decision to follow that track a bit more on a westerly basis to try and get around. And um, yeah, that was where um yeah, they were just chasing us on motorbikes, and um there was a there was two I remember there were two guys in a little gun pit that I just ran straight over the top of them um and Ray dropped grenades on them as we're driving over. Um yeah, it was uh it that the last little section he even that was pretty hairy because and I remember thinking, you know, without trying to big note it, uh you if you remember the scene where Eric Banner gets on the 50 in Blackhawk Down, and he's going down that road and he's just going here to there, that that that's what it was like. There were there were guys on the left hand side, there were guys on the right hand side that were firing like RPGs, so there were still PKMs bouncing off the front of our car. Um there were uh RPGs bouncing off the windscreen and the sides of the bushmasters. So like you know, I remember watching two RPGs almost two in a row, one off the side of a bushmaster and up, off the side of bushmaster and up, and you're like fucking Jesus.

SPEAKER_01 2:43:12

Which is crazy because a bush you can't take a buddy up, not a direct hit. That's right, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:43:17

And then um you know, and the other thing, right? And I I caught up with these guys because so all the bushmaster drivers are all six are uh dudes, right? Um and so they're in they're in there driving the whole time, right? And they're like thinking, What the fuck? Um and I think Berggs talks about one of the guys has like asked the question, Can I can I shoot? And Brett's like, Well, what do you want it to do? He goes, Yeah, so he's opened his little posting thing and he's got his side piece out and he's bang, bam, bang. Like actually shooting at people that were running across us. Like that's how close, that's how close these guys were. Um and so yeah, so we got to we got to that last little period um where we got back to the um HLZ. Um we kind of regrouped, everyone, okay, everyone in one piece, like swap some ammo. Um we then started to move around. Um, like I said, it's daylight at this stage. We then started to move around to the west. Um the JTAC ordered a hit on that building, so we dropped a couple of 500 pounders uh on that. Um and then that's when we kind of made this dash across the desert. Um and we got I don't know how far we got. We maybe got two or three kilometres down the road, and uh one of the bushmasters um stopped working. Uh it I think its fuel line had been cut uh in the fire in the night, and so they had to hook up a tow, and so you know, here we are. I'm still the lead vehicle, we're still leading out. We're um at least the gunfight stopped. Well, not really. Not really. So Jesus Christ. Once we hooked up the well, once they hooked up the bushmaster, then obviously they're towing it out, and then they're still riding in front of us trying to set up compass. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yep. And yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:44:52

And they were just getting eliminated though? Yes, they were just getting eliminated. And then this more would come. Yep, they would more get some. How long is this going on for? Like how many kilometers? This is a roll. And I think I spoke with Berg's about this. It like you spoke out, you you brought up the Eric Banner and Black Hawk Down. It seems like that, you know, that last part, yeah. Where it's just a rolling gun fight the whole way.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:11

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:45:11

Yeah. And there's only 20-ish commandos.

SPEAKER_03 2:45:14

Yeah, 28. It was 28 of us, right? Seven vehicles. Yeah, and seven vehicles. And um yeah, so that probably went for oh, let's call it 40 minutes, half an hour, uh, until we kind of broke free to the desert. And it was very it was very strange, right? Because you've gone from extreme gunfire, lots and lots of noise, and then it just kind of disappeared, and then it was progressively less and less and less, and then eventually, yeah, it was um it was kind of all over, and we got back and you know, we'd called uh well someone who'd called the QRF, which was the uh the Sascats, who came out to meet us on the other side of the on on the side of the river that we were on, um, to give us some ammo and um some water and shit like that. And um it um yeah, I mean I turned I obviously my face is I didn't realise it at the time, but I was covered in blood. Um my beard was full of dust and it was all caked and shit, but like that, and you know, there's you know I'd gone through 20 odd, 22 odd, um, 84 rounds. I'd used all my grenades, I'd gone through nearly 20 mags. So I carry I used to carry half a dozen mags on my body, but I had a uh my go bag had more. And so I'd gone through 20 mags of M4, probably geez, 20 or 30, um M203, 40 mil rounds. Pistol. I went through a whole mag of pistol. At least yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:46:41

Most of those hit the target, which was good.

SPEAKER_03 2:46:43

I think so, yeah. Well, this is the beauty of being on tag, right? You do so much shooting that it should be just become second nature. But um no, I definitely went through at least one mag because I remember doing a stoppage. And I remember thinking to myself at the time, fuck that was slick. Because I'd I'd hit the guy with a pistol and I'd got a stoppage, and I because my M4 was already down, and I did my drill, and fucking bang, dead. I'm I was like, and I remember putting it away, I'm thinking, geez, that was good. Jeez, you've done a good job there.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:15

Well, one guy, one guy, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:17

I put two into him, um, and he was obviously still going, and then the last one, yeah, yeah, finished. Which um yeah, yeah. I I I do remember actually saying to myself, thinking to myself, geez, that's a that's good drill, Sam. Yeah, but it was a yeah, it was a crazy fucking night. Very crazy night. And we ended up so we, you know, by this stage, we've been fighting for I don't know, seven, eight hours, maybe more. Um it was a very uneventful drive back to TK.

SPEAKER_01 2:47:49

Back to TK. Um what's it like getting into TK? It's it's like the Black Hawk down part at the end of it, and the servants are there with water, you know. What you get back in what what what's what's the talk going on here? Because this is yeah, this is your first gunfight, which turned out to be you know, first active combat, you know, two-way range type thing. Not only did you take a few lives, the there's fucking B-2 bombers, there's a specter gunship, like this is this is war. Oh yeah, it was it was what happens when you get back and your vehicles are setting up and everyone's like, fuck, that was wild.

SPEAKER_03 2:48:29

I mean, I I mean the biggest thing for me, I so I I think the first person I spoke to was uh Griffo, who was the L O with the JTF guys, and so um he'd obviously been in the thick of it with those guys, and but I I mean I haven't spoken about it with him since, but you know, the feeling of leaving us there knowing and then going back to TK, because it's like a 10-minute flight, going back to TK and having to watch or listen, knowing that he probably could have done something. I remember the first conversation was with him because he was straight, straight over to my car. Was he watching the feed? So I think he was watching the feed because he came straight over and he's like, You've got to clean your face, you've got fucking blood all over your face. Um, and we were looking at our car and it was riddled with bullet holes. Um I I I called my car Bring Back the Biff from you know Red Reagan. Yeah. And um, yeah, there was some massive holes. Uh and like that, there's even I've got a photo, a very blurry photo of one where you if you imagine the front of a car where you lift the bar to move the seat back and forth, so there's like a grouping of rounds in the front of Ray's Ray's seat. So it's come through the quarter panel and gone between either either hopefully he wasn't in there, but it may have gone straight through his legs um and hit the the bar in the seat. And then there were there were rounds in the back, there were holes in the back of the car that were like it looked like a fifty cow, um, you know, riddled with 762 holes, big dents where um like RPGs had hit. And and like it's amazing that none of those RPGs went off when they hit the vehicles and um, you know, uh it's amazing that no one was killed. But yeah, we got back to base. Um it's obviously a very strange environment, right, because everyone that's there wants to know, everyone wants to know what's happened and uh you know what happened here and what'd you do this and uh uh and and obviously, you know, I just wanted to go and get a feed, go and have a beer. Um there was no beers yet, but uh I I just wanted to go and have a Red Bull or have a s lay down and and wash all the shit off my face um realistically, that was the big thing. And you know, get the wound in my head kind of checked, because you know, I could feel that I could actually feel inside. I knew it was a hole or or a big slit. Um but it was yeah, it was not a big deal. Fucking hell mate, Jesus. And so yeah, so we got back, um, you know, and basically you gear up, well job carries on, isn't it? Yep, go and rebomb, re-ammo. Yep. Well Perth is basically the next, not that day, two days later. So that night they allowed us to have some beers. They said you can have two cans each, and so they were the 500 mil Heineken's. Yeah. So there's some photos online I've shared. Um we went into uh Brett's sec his team's room basically, and we all sat in there and um so we had a few beers that night. Um boss was very generous, and then basically the next day we were gearing up, um, and the day after that is when we so it's July 10, I think it was July 12, we left the base for Op Perth.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:39

Um How does that set the tone for Op Perth? You guys are now just like fuck yeah, we're ready. We were locked up. We're ready. Yeah. We've got it now.

unknown 2:51:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:51:47

Got some ticks on the board. Yeah. We're ready.

SPEAKER_03 2:51:50

Yeah. Even even some of like, you know, we did a bit of we did a debrief after and like what what happened and what went wrong or what went right and what mistakes did we make. And look, there we we made some minor mistakes and maybe there might have been some tactical mistakes, but in all in all, um, when we were presented with a problem, we executed it viciously, right, um and violently. And the the fact that the the the FE, the 28 of us or however many it was, that we came back essentially without a scratch on us, um, is a credit, is a credit to that team and that platoon. Um it was uh and that really put us I mean I know from our team, it really put us in good stead because I wasn't um I wasn't really worried about anything. Um I I wasn't prior to that. I might I might have had an idea in the back of my head, but I never really thought about dying or anything like that. But I I'd realised that very quickly what to do and um and how we operate and how we operate together and the communication that I have with my team commander and obviously my Oppos and and the rest of my team and then communicating. I had complete faith in the boss, you know, because we did so many things right, you know, it gave us a lot of what gave me a lot of confidence that whatever we go up against in not Perth, it's nothing's gonna be that like that. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:07

Was there ever a BDA done on that uh on the area?

SPEAKER_03 2:53:11

Look, I think I think there was, but I do remember that the guys, the um the cats and um another agency went out and it there was basically no really no sign that anything of that nature had happened had occurred. Like there's no dead bodies, no because they yeah, they pick them up pretty very quickly. Yeah, I do I I do remember that uh yeah, there was nothing. It was basically like it never existed.

unknown 2:53:38

Fuck.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:41

Um gunship and pred. Surely there's feed that's uh was it the It'll be there, it'll be there somewhere because someone's got it.

SPEAKER_03 2:53:49

Yeah, the boss Why don't they try and track this down? Well it's I know the boss has got it because he told me when I was in Canberra, he says I've I've seen the whole I've seen the whole lot.

SPEAKER_01 2:53:57

Um Why don't they drop this stuff?

SPEAKER_03 2:53:59

I don't know. I'm not sure.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:01

Let's let that know.

SPEAKER_03 2:54:03

But yeah, maybe look, someone out there's got to know too much.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:07

It's time. Especially if it's a 20-year anniversary, all this story's out there, and let's let's get that feed out there.

SPEAKER_03 2:54:12

And even the 20th anniversary, you know.

SPEAKER_01 2:54:14

Um changes.

SPEAKER_03 2:54:17

When I got asked when I got asked to take part in the panel, um uh because I've been interviewed a few times by um uh Reese, who's uh he's a historian, used to work for the Australian War Memorial. He he's he's the one that's done the history, the complete history of Afghanistan. And the way it works is once his the complete history is complete and the book is written, then a lot of the things can be actually unclassified. Now we the the the mission wasn't actually unclassified until after we did the the brief um a couple weeks back. Um and so you know the that's why the camera footage or the video footage from inside the panel was released uh much later um because it only finally got the final sign-off, which you think about 20 years, like you know, it's 20 years ago. What's in there that is um you know gonna be cr incriminating or what SOPs or anything like that? I I don't know. But yeah, that definitely there's there's IR, there's an IR feed out there somewhere that has the entire battle. And they do show in the thing, they did did show some footage excerpts from getting ambushed, the helicopter's landing.

SPEAKER_01 2:55:25

The government's got it. They just haven't dropped it yet. Correct. Yep. Well, if you're out there defense, let it rip. We want to see this because again, it's history, it's absolute history and it established. You know, your not even your career, but the blokes on the ground for that. And well, mate, it's uh it's gonna be exciting. Like you said, uh from there, you have to ramp up straight for old Perth and get stuck into more gun fighting. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:55:51

It um yeah, and Ot Perth, you know, for I guess for the listeners, you know, like I said, it was part of mountain thrust and was really setting a stage to clear um that area of Afghanistan of uh Taliban and fighters, anti-co anti-coalition militia to try and set the scene for the reconstruction task force, which was supposed to come in after us. Um and so Okpuh, Ok Perth was essentially uh a mission where we would push out to the east up to the Chora Valley. Um we would go into Chora. Um and for those that don't know, the Chora Valley, um, and I didn't realise this, I guess, before I went, but there's a lot of water, right? Because of the amount of snow, I guess, there's a lot of rivers and there's a lot of underwater um waterways and and groundwater, but there's a major river, uh I think it must be called the Chora River, which runs all the way down out of Pakistan into Chora and then down through the Baluchi Pass. Um and so Chora, um just prior to us arriving, or sorry, I think when the f the rotation before us had gotten there, the Taliban had come in and taken over and killed all the police and killed all these other people. And basically, if you if you help the um the coalition, like we'll kill you and we'll murder you, and they they made examples of a few people and etc. Um, and so the Chora police station was basically on the it's the easternmost part of our area of operations, basically. We were gonna go in there, we'll do a little bit of clearing up the river, and then we're basically gonna be it'll be um uh Delta Company, uh 10th Mountain Division had a company that were on the other side of the river. Uh we had some UAE soft guys out there um and some other other partners, and then um uh the the SAS guys were doing a lot of Overwatch stuff plus um a little bit of other work that um that we didn't really get involved in. Um and so yeah, so we the the first couple of days were relatively benign. We moved into the the desert directly. South of the Chora Pass, and we we did some vehicle interdiction and uh and some other things like that. Um it was at that point, I think Berg's has talked about it. So Hambo um and another sniper did a coordinated 50 cow sniper shoot of uh of a spotter at about two and a half Ks. Um and I mean it's uh we were talking about it just recently. The um that engagement basically cleared a cave which was on the other side of the ridge, and that cave was actually spotted by some ODAs who were on the other side watching these all these dudes spill out of the cave, and they called a fire mission. So we we've they've engaged this target, and then all of a sudden we hear on the radio that uh they're gonna call in a a gun, and so they've dropped some some big ordinance on this cave on the other side of the hill. Um and uh yeah, so that actually they ended up confirming they did a BDA on that, they ended up confirming that that spotter was was killed with by uh sniper fire um prior to that.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:47

So that was the longest kill at one stage, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:58:50

At one stage, I think it would have been the longest kill.

SPEAKER_01 2:58:52

Until JTF2, obviously. Yeah, yeah, until they took over.

SPEAKER_03 2:58:55

Yeah, it was you know, and it was amazing to for us for me to see because we're in the middle of the desert, right? It's it's it's two kilometres to that mountain, two ten kilometres to that mountain. So there's really nothing that can get you. So you you don't need a picket, you don't need nothing like that, because you know, you can see everything that's coming a mile away. Um that's an epic shot. Yeah, and then so we're we're just set up like that. One guy um was set on the on the I think um one guy was on the bonnet, uh had the fifty on the bonnet of one and the uh and the other guy was set because you obviously you're looking up at a fairly steep azimuth. Um yeah, and so we're all standing around, like, come on, come on, like, alright, ready, ready, stand by fire, and then yeah, got the cant. Excuse my friends.

SPEAKER_01 2:59:46

Yeah, no, that's epic, mate. Yeah, because I think if there's anyone that's out there that knows a bit of long distance shooting, it takes a lot of calculation, especially again the Afghans, you're already sitting at a kilometre above sea level and atmospherics and everything, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:00:01

That's uh pretty epic. Yeah, it is pretty epic. And then uh yeah, so with that we we stayed out there for a couple of days, we did some vehicle interdiction on that highway going in and out. Um, and then of course, you know, we got into the clearing operation, so we got into um into the valley, and we were essentially on the northern side of the river on the high site, and then the 10th Mountain Division were on the other side, and and essentially it was day to day. We would go into the greenbelt and we would clear the green belt, and so you we'd get into a couple of gunfights here and there, and um, you know, then at the end of the day we would go to the high ground and we'd established some dominance over that area, um, which was being monitored. Um, and then we basically did that for a couple of days until I think it might have been day three, day two or day three, was when um um yeah, we got into a pretty massive gunfight, and we had a heap of dudes um get injured from uh an RPG or a mortar that uh landed in the middle of our um our group. It was in the afternoon. Um the the what the what had the Intel had said that there were groups of like 150 plus moving in from another adjacent valley to kind of feed into the Baluchi Valley and then up into Chora. Um and I remember so the night before this, uh we got asked to go down as a as a as a platoon, we went down the I think the cats were doing something, they wanted a destruction, and we went down into an area um and our team might have been second or third in line. Um and a guy, um Rich O, he was the lead scout of the front team, and a a guy popped out and started taking pot shots at him. Um and so Rich O slotted him, went through we basically went into a contact front drill, um platoon-sized contact front drill. Um, but he was it there was the only guy there, and so we went through that. Um and then as we were leaving, um they started mortaring us from an adjacent um there was a like a cemetery, like this big hill, um uh which is where the where it was a cemetery, and they were using that as kind of like a um a designated area to be able to fire from, and so we ended up fighting back to our position and then bringing in um A-10s to do gun runs uh on them, and then it was the next day was the next day was the big day on up Perth.

SPEAKER_01 3:02:28

Jesus Christ. Uh how how long was that whole up Perth? So I think you got through through that unscathed this time? No, no, I didn't.

SPEAKER_03 3:02:40

Yeah. Um so I think the whole mission was like twelve or fourteen days, might have been fifteen. Um I can't remember exactly off the top of my head. But the the next day was obviously I'd got I'd got hurt. So um the night that we went in, um sorry, the next day we went in and um we we had kind of stumbled across like a quite a large group of of militia. Um the uh a guy from the 10th Mountain Division who was on the other side of the river, one of their team commanders or section commanders got hit in the chest with a RPG and killed. Um and then we started to get um we started to take mortar rounds basically into the position where we were. Now at at this stage at um at this stage um we had oh I think it was five casualties. One, two, three, four. Yeah, four or five casualties. So they would they'd receive frag. Um Brett actually got frags, but he got fragged in the foot. Um so he'd he knew he'd been hit, but he didn't realise how bad. And so while we were counter um we were counteracting what was coming in, we started moving into certain positions, and we what we wanted to do, what the boss wanted to do was us to get to link up with the 10th Mountain Division who was on the up there, obviously on the left flank. Um and um the the whole idea was we wanted to link up and then and push through and clear the area because we were getting small arms fire from a couple of buildings, uh, as I said before, where the cemetery was. Uh they were mortaring us from over the other side of the cemetery, um and and we had some casualties, so we had to take we had to go and secure a building so we can take the casualties in and a few other things like that. And so at that time uh my team commander had given me the instruction to go down and link up with the Americans, and it's funny to think about it now. Um I had a baseball cap on back to front at the time, so no helmets, you know, we were just patrol. I had all my I had my body armor on and stuff like that, but we we'd because it was bloody hot, we weren't patrolling in helmets, and this is in the middle of the day. And so I remember getting down and I'm I'd taken a knee behind um this wall and um other side of the creek and I'm I'm hearing rounds crack, crack, crack down the hallway, uh down the the road, and I said to this young guy, he must have been like 17 or 18, um, and you know, he looks scared shitless. And I said, like, where do you want us to go? Where do you s and he goes, Oh, we're copping, we're taking fire from this building here, and da da da. And I turned around to my team commander and I said, Are we going? And like, yep. So as we turned around, we went around the corner, and uh, because I was in the lead, I had uh well, most of my team behind me, Hanber was directly behind me. Um, and as I went around the corner, like there were kind of dudes all over the place. Um there was guys kind of down the road, there were guys on the roof uh kind of adjacent. Um so as I'm walking or as I'm running, basically, because as I walk around, there's like a like a 20-meter wall on this compound which we were taking fire from. Um, there was like a little gap. And so I'm assuming like that's a little walkway. I want to get in there to get some cover. Because where I was, it was basically like a big field. Um and so I walk around the corner, I've engaged a couple of guys along there, I got the engage a guy across on the roof, uh, and then I basically made a beeline as fast as I could to try and make entry into this corridor. And because we were taking rounds from that compound, I was a little bit wary. And so as I've turned around, it's like a big long hallway. Um, and there's this big massive timber, timber double door with like a, you know, if you can imagine out the front, um like a big arch. Um and I could see feet running away, right? And I could and I'd made the judgment caller that it was the guy, because there were no women and children at this stage, they'd all left the valley, so the only people that were there were obviously there to have a fight, because we'd been there for five days at this stage. And um as I've rounded the corner, I've made a split second decision, I've seen his feet, and I fired my 203, and so I had I don't know, it might have been 25 metres to the door, and it's hit the door and gone off, and it's just gone and the the door's flung open, old mates dropped down, and I've I've I'm still running at full pelt. I've put a couple of rounds into, I think into his back, but at that stage he'd run off and he's gone over the wall into the next compound. Um and we've gone through the little uh little clearing. Um Berggs talks about it because then I walked around, we made entry, went around and cleared the corner, and there was this cow. And this cow, you know, obviously I've just shot at two dudes, I've just blown up another guy, and you know, we're taking fire from this room, and this I I make turn around this corner and it's a cow. And it w I didn't shoot the cow immediately, but I scanned back and then it's moved its head and I've went and I've just double tapped it straight in the in the it was like a Brahmin and it had you know the big piece of skin. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. So I've double tapped him in the chin. Um anyway, it didn't bother him. He just sat there, he sat there. Anyway, we that we ended up turning that into our casualty evacuation point. So we uh um the JTAC, myself, my Oppo, my team commander, we then cleared that entire compound. Um uh we went inside. Um, we're taking uh sporadic fire over the top, you could hear it. Um, and then we basically used that as a casualty evacuation point. And so the American, so we brought all our guys in here, um, and then I think a couple of the American guys came in because they were gonna they were basically out in the open. Um and yeah, we sat in there for a couple of hours uh while we we looked after the guys that were casualties. Um there were some other teams doing other stuff, um, clearing other buildings and and securing the bit of the area where we were. Um and then I remember sitting up on like a precipice looking out over all the roofs, and I, like I said, I only had a baseball cap on, and I had two young American 10th mountain guys with me, and um around it's straight in the wall, like right there. And I'm I'm like, I ducked, and I'm like, guys, I'm not getting up there with no helmet. Do you I'm I'm gonna come back down, do you mind? And I'm like, no, no, that's okay. Um but uh in the end, some another team ended up uh engaging that guy from another angle. But yeah, that uh um that got me down into cover a little bit more, and then from there, obviously we wore helmets a lot more often than that. Obviously, this is very early on where uh we're not not expecting that much um full blow, but yeah, it uh very, very lucky, very, very close. Um and so yeah, so we we got everyone in there, we called in uh I think uh Sean called in an F-16 maybe, which dropped a massive bomb um very, very close to our position. And I remember I remember feeling at the time he's like, it's gonna be danger close, guys. Uh uh mouths open because um the concussion. And I remember my body feeling like my skeleton had vibrated out outside my body. That's how that's how close it was. It was massive. It was huge. Um and then from there things kind of quitened down, and then we got um I don't know, maybe half an hour, an hour later. I think we got something over the radio where one of the 10th mountain teams were um pinned down by sniper. And um so I I had a suppressor on, Hambo had a suppressor, plus there were a couple other guys that had suppressors on. So we went with Brett and Bergs and a few other guys from their team down to this location. It was basically down to the uh to the left, to the south, through the kind of around the back way of that open field that I told you about before. And we go down to this little area and it's it's very, very wooded. Um and that these guys are hiding behind like another little rock wall, you know, a little four foot, three, four foot high rock wall, and um Britt gets the briefing from them. Um and um yeah, we get it, we're taking um accurate sniper fire from up there. There's a little, there's a like a drain that runs into the river and there's a little bridge. So the guy's set up over adjacent to that. Can you, you know, we we don't have any suppressors, can you help us uh identify and um engage that target? And so we come up with a plan where um Hambo and Richard were both sniper trained, um and um Berggs, myself, Hambo and Richard would go and try and find a position that we could get overwatch and and target him because he's just letting off rounds basically over the top of this position. He didn't really know where they were, but he he had a bit of an idea. Um and so we kind of went around into another, there was another compound there, um, and we're we're clearing on the way, and we get into this little position where the guys there's because you know how there's flat top roofs in Afghanistan, and there's like a little like a ridge on one side, and so the guys could take good cover without exposing themselves. Um, and the sun's starting to go down at this stage, and we don't have any night vision because the plan was to move back to the high ground um at the time, but um yeah, we get up into this position and Hambo and Richard are are set up there and Berg's is kind of sitting up behind us, kind of watching our ass. Um, and they engage this dude and kill him. And you know, I've used the term before, but it was like lemmings because guys just kept coming like one after the other to try and either I don't know what they wanted, w who the why they wanted to recover this guy, but it was, you know, bang another guy come. Another guy had come in, handbowed hit him in the head, like one shot, bang, bang. And I I don't know how many, seven, ten, twelve heaps. Like I I I had um I'd shot a couple, um, but mainly the two snipers at the front. Um and they were just they just kept coming. And in in in the end, um I think Berg's got a call on radio to say, come on guys, we've got to have you engage them. Like, yeah, but there's more targets here. No, no, we've got to pull back and we've got to um go back to the position. And so we kind of skull dragged our our bodies back in off this roof. I think it was a roof. It it it definitely felt like a roof. And um, and then we kind of got back, um and then yeah, we went back to the went back to our position, and then that's when um I think it was just then that that's where Brett realised that his foot had been properly fucked up. Um but it was that that day, so that day was when uh Brett won his uh medal of gallantry. Um so you know that I mean that whole that whole week, I mean there was something in the war memorial, there was like a star of gallantry, eight medals of gallantry. It was fifteen honors and awards. It was ridiculous for that period. Yep, yeah. So yeah, so then that including Op Nile. Yeah, including Op Nile. And then um Yeah, and so we went back to the position where we had the Medevac centre. And my recollection was we went back to where we were, and then um the bushmasters came and dropped all our helmets off, right? And then the bushmasters fucked off, and then we um tactically moved back to the high ground um and established the the position on the high ground for the night um and kind of shut down. And then so that the rest of that night was fairly oh, I'll call it uneventful. Um and then the next I'm pretty sure it's the next night where um guys were uh there were some people getting engaged and we basically um came off the high ground. I took my 84 with with me and uh and my filled my pack uh with 84 rounds, and so as we went off we were getting pretty heavily engaged and um one of those little this is where it hurt my back, one of those little drains um um where um where the the water goes through the the um what are they called? Okay irrigation ditch, like an irrigation ditch. So I had the 84 over the top of my back and I I it came across in slow motion. An RPG came across in front of me on an angle and and impacted the ground uh about a metre, maybe a little bit more, maybe five, six metres. And the concussion, because I had the 84, the concussion blew me off my back, off my legs, and I basically folded so that my it felt like my shoulders had touched the back of my knees. That's what it felt like like a scorpion. Yeah, and I I don't think I've been in so much pain, like the pain was almost instant. Um and because I was carrying so much kit, like I had my I had my body armor, which probably weighed 20 odd kilos, 15 kilos, um, plus the 84 rounds, plus the 84 on my shoulder. Um yeah, and I was I was pretty I I was pretty hurt, but at the time I didn't think I'd done too much damage, and so I went back, I ended up getting back up. I got someone to carry the 84 on the way back after we finished cleaning up old mate. Um, and then yeah, we get back to the cars, and I I I'm like, man, my back, I've done something really bad to my back. Uh and the medic uh Jazz I was he's giving me some Macindole or Tramadol or something really quite strong, and so um yeah, I I started taking that, which was really, really good for me. Um the only problem was um I I we stayed out in the field the rest of the week was fairly uneventful. Um I stayed out in the field for another 10 days, eight days. Um, and then by the time when I got back, um all the drugs wore off and I woke up. I could not feel my feet, I couldn't bend over, I couldn't walk, and um they ended up I went for a scan and they'd said, Oh, you've you've got a broken back, you've broken your I think it's your L5, S1, basically destroyed the discs above and below um each one, and then yeah, I've got a whole heap of nerve and muscle damage uh in and around that area of my spine. And um at the time, I I didn't realise it, but at the time that had a policy if you can't get back in the field in a week, seven to ten days, then you go home. Um and so yeah, they basically organised straight away. Yeah, because we we took a whole we took a heap of y photos like team photos, platoon photos, company photos after op Perth. Um because we'd obviously had op Nile and obviously Opt Perth, and we'd had a few dudes get injured. Um and so we didn't really we hadn't really taken any group photos, and so we took some group photos, but because I was in the hospital, I'm I'm not in any of those group photos. You missed them. I missed them all. Um that was just I'm in one. I'm actually in one and I am standing up because I must be still full of drugs. Um there's a photo we took with the 10th Mountain guys and on our own the night we got back from Op Perth. Um but yeah, and so yeah, uh that was basically the end of my trip. I um they organized me a ride to I think I went to Qatar first, and then they linked me up with a medic. Um and then she she escorted me to Kuwait, then to Dubai, and then we went to Alm Almanab or whatever it is, and then yeah, I stayed there for a couple of nights just to uh and then I got a first class Emirates flight back to Sydney because I had to be in a lay-flat bed.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:08

So how how long are you in Afghanistan for four months?

SPEAKER_03 3:18:14

Four and a half, maybe five months.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:16

And those rotations back then were six. They were six, yeah. Six or seven, so you miss out on the last little bit. But uh yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:18:23

And it you know, the guys have said, you know, didn't really miss much. We went out they went out to uh Mirabad Valley, did a few clearances out there, but not really they didn't really get any op no op Perth. No, not not op no old perf.

SPEAKER_01 3:18:35

Um So there really there was a three-week period there where it was just Yeah fucking on. You did everything in your career in that three weeks, pretty much. Well, most things, yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:18:46

And and I I think I've mentioned it before offline, you know. I'm I'm very, very lucky in the fact that I joined the army at the right time. I went to the right unit at the right time, and I basically got to be involved in almost every key achievement of that unit took part in while I was there. Um, you know, yeah, I would tread on my dick every now and again, but I was very, very lucky to have served with a lot of awesome dudes um in a very, very productive period. And I think, you know, I watch on with envy looking at what the unit's become now and how much capability's been developed um and some of the some of the calibre of the people that I've that I've now hear about through friends and through other means. Um it's very, very good. I it's I'm very, very lucky that I um got to be there in that period. Um and you know, uh look, another thing that I haven't really talked about is that I'm very lucky that I've never had to deal with a dead teammate on target. I I felt a lot of guilt for a very long period of time when with um guys like Jason Brett and Cam and a lot of other guys. I mean Jason Brown was a very good friend of mine. Um but I never had to deal with that in the heat of battle. I only had to deal with it at the at the end. Um so I'm I feel a bit blessed but at the same time you know I've I wish I could have been there to help him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:20:21

Now this is 2006 yeah? 2006 2006 again there's been no de no deaths.

SPEAKER_03 3:20:27

No deaths no deaths at all you guys have been through what you've been through some of the most wildest gunfights that the Australian Defence Force has seen since Vietnam you've been uh medivact all the way back to Australia uh I guess it's it's somewhat uh like you said a bit of a gut punch as well because you know you'd rather be out with the boys banging it in but you've been medevaced because it turns out you've got two fractured fucking vertebrate minor you know muscle issues and nerve issues which is pretty serious and because you spent ten days outfield with with those injuries just banged up on um tramadoles etc back to Australia mate rehab process everything's still going on in Afghanistan what what's going through your mind because you've just gone from that experience now back to Hogsworthy back to the real world back to you know yeah I had um so I had a very good um I mean I've I've talked to a few people that had been injured right and they felt that they got really no support but when I went back because I there was no one in Delta Company there when I got back I basically went to rehab five days a week for like the first six to eight weeks and then we reduced it to three days a week and then to two and my number one goal at the time was to get back to a med class that allowed me to deploy. That was my number one priority and I I wanted to do anything to do it. I actually um I went through um a period of once I actually got out so I was in a wheelchair for a period to try and take the pressure off the back and allow it to heal. And I went through a period where I'm I'm just starting to walk normally and run and lift a bit of weights and I actually went to the doc to get a chip to get on the juice. I said I want I want to get medical permission to to start taking steroids to get my back and everything back to full health so that I'm ready to start ready to deploy. And it was and I I thought and I thought about this medically I thought about it's going to be the best thing to speed up my recovery and I'll be able to get back in in the rotation, provide support, blah, blah, blah. And RMO at the time was umming and Ring because it wasn't really you know it wasn't something to think outside the box at that time. And eventually it only really took a week for him to make a decision, but eventually he said, no no we're not going to do that. And so I went on with the with the rehab process and I ended up saying well fuck this, I'm gonna go and do it myself. So I went out and found a supplier who would give me um I can't remember how I did it, but I I started taking Susan on 250 um and training twice a day. Just to get fit again. Just to get fit again and I got like I got I got very very strong. I I didn't get like massive because that's not what I was trying to do. I was just recovered I just wanted to be fully recovered and I wanted my body to be good and I wanted to be healed and and I basically got to that point where I was um and so yeah so I uh sorry guys I I I've I broke the rules there but I had I had good intentions and then once I actually got back to full fitness I stopped it essentially straight away I um I was back I did a I did a BFA so early 2007 I did a BFA and a CFA and um I did a I did like a one hour forty CFA um 146 or 145 one minute uh one hour and 45 15k pack march um which then um Brigadier Ian Langford fucking beat me the next day he he got like an hour 40 flat I think um but I I was like fuck I'm back I'm back ready to go two things mate you've got your missus at this stage and obviously now now your wife what what type of chats are you having here and what what's her knowledge of what kind of what you've been through in Afghanistan? Oh she's probably probably surface level she probably didn't understand or didn't know to the detail um but she knew that I wanted to stay right and sh she was pretty she was pretty filthy on that decision if I'm fair she wanted me to um to get out or start slowing down which I didn't want to do I did not want to slow down I I wanted to stay um and then eventually we had uh she made me choose she said it's either me or the army and I ended up telling her that well then you can go um don't ever make me choose and so I she packed up all her stuff and she um she called a friend and uh they flew down here and they drove back to towns all together. Um and uh and so I was basically set on this course to go back to I think I might have been I was I was still in Delta um and I was prepping to go on another Delta trip.

SPEAKER_01 3:25:22

What's the drive here? I just want to I wanna just quickly break this down psychologically because you know we're we're we're going through this stage in the defence force, IG ADF and all this stuff but I you know there's a lot of backstory to all this and you know what what's the drive for you to get back on the job after being through what you've been through is it you know is it the the war junkie or is it you know with the boys you know you don't want to let like you said you've missed out on you know subsequent tours where you lost guys and you feel the survivor's guilt because you weren't there to be next them when they're fighting fighting the enemy so you know I'm I'm sure that's a lot a part of it.

SPEAKER_03 3:26:01

Yeah yeah well so at I think at this stage we still hadn't like Luke died in late 2007 um Luke Worsley. Luke Warsley and so like I none of that had really entered my mind but it was definitely about I I don't want to I don't want to miss out and I don't want to not be there um if someone needs me. Right because I felt like I I remember when I'm coming home from Afghanistan and I'm in a lot of pain and I'm basically strapped to a board um going through a lot of rehab but the whole time I all I was thinking was I hope nothing happens to my team because I've done a very good job so far of keeping them all safe. That was my mentality you know that might not actually be the case but that was my mentality is that I as a lead driver of that element I'd I've done my job to to the best of my ability. I don't want something to happen while I'm not there where I can't control it. So that was I think that was really my mentality. I think um as I said to you before like when I I had plans with my life before the army but I didn't really have any long term plans when when I was in the army except for keep doing this job as long as it'll have me for as long as I can and then when it came time for me to have this conversation with my wife now wife and I told her to basically take a hike um because she had threatened me you know she had threatened to leave because I wouldn't leave the job that I loved and the people that I love. These were my like I said before I left my family when I was 18 and these guys became my family for a long period of time and I I didn't I didn't see I couldn't see myself going and doing something else or finding another job. It was boring. I love what I did. I love what I did. It's it still is the best job I've ever had hands down by far. Of course yeah so that was really the mentality and it wasn't until you know I got back to pretty much full so from a med class point of view I because I had a broken back I can't get back to med class one. I can only go back to med class two. Yeah so med class two would allow me to deploy and I can do basically everything. The only restriction I had was that we would limit the amount of land para shoot jumps. That's what happened to me yeah same so I couldn't do um I could do as many water jumps as I want but we were going to limit how many round parachute uh land jumps I would do um which is good because it no one really likes jumping on the land I'd rather jump in the rather jump in the ocean.

SPEAKER_01 3:28:37

Um and so yeah I I had done I had done what I needed to do and I was gearing up and um you know and then geez I had uh I had uh an epiphany uh if I will if I would say yeah and how does this come about because your mind was so set yeah on getting back overseas, getting back on deployment get back in the thick of it but yeah well I mean in that so that whole period from when she left to that to this point.

SPEAKER_03 3:29:07

So I was a groomsman at my best mate uh Shory's wedding and um I was you know up to my old tricks, having a good old time, having fun, getting on the piss um and I'd watched one of my best mates and one of my favourite people get married and I kinda had this um I've been hanging out with the bridesmaids and you know um but I then I just kinda had this feeling at like three in the morning the next day um I was in the hotel and I was like fuck what the fuck what am I doing? Do I really do I really want to get rid of her or let her go f for me being selfish of doing what I want to do because even at that stage she she had given up a lot of herself to be with me in Sydney. And I'm not I'm not an easy person to be with but she had basically you know when I came back she looked after me she would take me to rehab she would push me around in the wheelchair. I mean when the guys got back from the GAN you know she got the shits because they would come and pick me up in the wheelchair and push me down to Northeys and all stand around me and just fill me full of piss right because that's what mates do. And and she kind of stood by me through that. It wasn't until she basically put the foot down and and I'd made the decision that I'd made but yeah I I remember waking up in this hotel and I was like maybe I should uh maybe I should try a different tactic and so I booked I was in Wollongong so Shory got married in Wollongong I was in Wollongong and I booked a flight Sydney to Townsville I can't remember if it was the next day or the day after might have been the Monday and I texted her and said I'm on my way sorry to Cairns because she was in living in Cairns with her mum and dad and uh I texted her and said hey I'm I'm coming and I'll see you soon. Can you pick me up from the airport at so and so time and she's probably thinking what the like what the fuck like because I hadn't really we had a little bit of contact but not heaps and um to cut a long story short uh hung out hung out with them for a while and she's like what what are you doing here? And I said well I I think I want I want you back. I I think I've made a mistake and you know she essentially said well I'm not getting back with you unless you marry me and I'm not fucking marrying you while you're in the army so you've got it's a very simple choice um and so uh I was yeah I basically thought well alright I'd better have a think about this like what do I want to do and um I spoke to her her stepdad her dad essentially um who's a X5 Aviation dude that 22 years in Army aviation um asked for him for permission like I'm thinking about asking Vanessa to marry me and um he's like yeah he gave me my his blessing and I rang her her real dad who lives in Brisbane and he did the same thing and I kind of thought about it and um in the end it was a very easy decision to make and then once I made it once I made that decision I then yeah I asked her to marry me very unromantically I asked her in the bedroom of the house because I was under time pressure and we were actually laughing about it the other day I was telling the daughter actually we went for a drive and I said that's that's the house where your grandparents used to live and I I asked your mum to marry me in that front room there. And um yeah it was very very unromantic but I was like look this I'm very deadly serious and the funny thing about it she laughed she because she laughs when she gets nervous and she laughed her ass off. She thought I was a freaking idiot and anyway so she said yes um we went down to local pub had dinner and then I came back and to everyone's surprise I said I'll put my discharge in on getting married and yeah it was a it I think it blindsided a lot of people um but I think um I think the the collection of a few things over a few years and my my drinking and a few other things that had kind of got into my life I I I kinda knew in the back of my head that if I keep going I'm probably gonna spar and sput in. I didn't outwardly think that but I think in the back of my mind I knew that if I keep doing this I'm I'm there's something I'm I'm not gonna get killed over there. I'm gonna get killed run in front of a taxi or something stupid like that. And so yeah so I asked her to marry me she said yes um through laughter and um yeah I went got back to the unit. Put your discharge in bought my discharge in and um yeah I had I had a fair bit of leave up and so yeah processed it. I it it was fairly quick from memory. I I don't really remember um it was fairly quick um most during this time you and Jason Marks uh so this is pre this is pre-Marsey um oh so before that yeah so during this time when I was preparing to get out um right idea yeah the uh uh the ADF had offered people um basically you get money for doing like a cert three or cert four and Marxie and I um were like well why don't we do a personal trainer's course I'm like fuck yeah like we'll do an online PT course anyway so we did a cert three in um in physical training um this is actually before I decided to get out so I was still planning to stay in and it was all about uh this opportunity was all about um giving guys options when they left when they left the botanic or when they left the unit and things like that and so um yeah so Marx you know I signed up for a cert three in fitness and cert three in personal training and so we did that together um and then yeah then I'd then I'd pull the pin and then um you know when's this like 2007 or was it this is very early 2007 it might have even been late 2006 um I'd I'd have to have a look it was early right because he went back on a the trip right and so he he would have been killed not long after that not long yeah I'm just trying to was that 2008 I can't remember so I'll I'll uh I like to always double check this but yeah but that's what we were looking at and we were we were kinda we said oh why don't we go and do a PDI course or something. He's like fucking 27th of April he was killed 2008 2008 yeah so it would have been middle of 2007 um that we were doing that um yeah yeah and so yeah we did it we got qualified we worked together we would study together and we would do all sorts of shit um but yeah we did our um searchery in fitness and that actually held me in good stead right because when I did get out first thing I did was work in a gym.

SPEAKER_01 3:35:55

Oh did you yeah yeah um so how was that yeah obviously you put your discharge in 2007 move to Cairns moved to Cairns so you moved to Cairns start your absolute new life yep just quickly like talk about that you know just separating yeah tier one operating to it was uh gunfighting killing people to now living in Cairns holiday destination it's it's probably it's probably as fucked as you would imagine it would be it was it was such I mean it was good in the fact that I was with a a wonderful woman who and with a good family and they looked after me a lot but I would never recommend that to a guy who's looking to get out.

SPEAKER_03 3:36:37

If you're looking to get out have a plan have an exit plan think about you know just think about the basics right like what are you going to do for a job where are you going to live where are you going to base yourself you know what's your short medium long term future like I I think when I said to you offline like for for years and years I was like well I'm not getting out I'm not getting out of the unit unless I have a job that's paying me XYZ and I'm doing this and I had all these caveats because it was the best job ever and I'm getting paid and it's you know every fortnight the money's in the bank I'm living on the beach in Cranola I had a good life and so the the speed at which I left um it was uh it was a it was a big shock right and I really wasn't prepared for it. I I thought I was and I probably held um I held myself in a way that I felt like I was ready to go um but I wasn't I wasn't I um and you know to be honest the the first I guess first ten years since I got out there was I probably suffered because of the way I actually got out right and the other thing was and all these guys will talk about it I moved to Cairns there's no operators up there there's no one I've got no friends I've got I've don't have any family of my own I've just got my wife and her family um which were brilliant you know and they are brilliant and they obviously they probably saved me but yeah I had no connection I kind of just severed the cord not not on purpose I didn't say I was going to sever the cord but when you jump when you jump off that freight train that's moving a million miles an hour like you'll never get back on at the same spot. Doesn't matter if you're you know you you're getting off for two weeks and you're coming back it's it's moved on right there there's so much going on in that period of time 07, 0809 you know um guys were busy like they you know they're not thinking about oh what's Bushy doing I might give him a call yeah you know they're they're doing other stuff. So yeah I I did that um you know we got married in uh 2008 we got married in 2008 um which again is another story I had I had 140 odd 160 people coming to my wedding and then one of the rotations got moved up so my wedding all of them all of a sudden cut to 80 so I I lost my best man I lost uh second best man um I cut my wedding in half essentially um because all my all the boys were like hey I'm where we're going so whoever that first trip in 08 was I think it might have been Alpha Company. Yeah yeah so it was uh so yeah got married in 2008 um and uh our first daughter was born in 2009 um Scarlet um and then you know at the time I was doing some work in I was working in construction and obviously working in the gym and um I ended up uh uh Energy Queensland or Ergon Energy which was a is the regulated power party up in up in Queensland in regional Queensland um they do an apprenticeship program and so I actually originally applied for a traineeship as a design as a substation designer um which I didn't get but the apprentice coordinator who was a massive military fan um recommended to me hey look if you go for an apprenticeship I can it's pretty likely you're probably gonna get one and um Mautrop was his name so he um he was the apprentice coordinator in Cairns at the time and so yeah so I ended up doing uh an adult apprenticeship with Ergon Energy um essentially working in the substation crew building and maintaining substations um for Ergon um and then yeah did that um I worked in that department for eight eight years so finished my apprenticeship uh worked on the tools for two or three years and then I started getting into um scheduling and works management um kind of by luck. Um our scheduler at the time um went to a different department and so they were short of scheduler. It was end of September so it's starting to get frigging hot and humid and I didn't really want to be in the field at that time and so I offered to actually sit in the um sit in the office for a few months and do a little bit of scheduling and then I loved it so much I ended up staying and doing it for quite a while before I ended up um going to Eureka which is uh a different um arm within the Energy Queensland group yeah it just sounds like I'm just trying to you know we gotta go back to you know just just quickly back to 2007 uh Luke Warsey's kill Jason's killed subsequent a few you know a few months later 2008 Fassel's killed this is where the deaths start coming.

SPEAKER_01 3:41:24

This is where and not just two Commando SS uh in the regular army surely somewhere in your mind you're just like and now you become part of the system with a public system where you're just waiting for a phone call. Whereas you know when you're overseas it it instantaneously you know who's been killed. So now it's you know you're losing mates. Like surely that's taking somewhat effect.

SPEAKER_03 3:41:47

Yeah. Yeah, I think look, I probably hit it um quite well, obviously with a bit of booze. Um, but I probably spiraled a bit in those years. I think um I think one of the worst was when Brett was killed. Uh Eddie rang me and I was at my daughter's birthday party. And I'll never I'll never forget it. I I um we were just doing like pass the parcel and things like that. Um and like I unfortunately, like Luke and I were very close mates at the time. We you know, we went on a talisman saver together, we're in the same team um prior to him going overseas. Um like I said, Marcy and I did a lot of work together, we're in the same um platoon in Delta Company. Um we obviously did our training together for the personal training stuff, and so we were kind of close. And then, you know, it wasn't really until when when Brett was killed, I yeah, that that kind of really like I've started a really spiral proper. Um and you know, I like I said, I probably hit it, I probably hit it pretty well. Like I I'm all right, but inside I was just you know, I I considered, I actually looked up getting back in. Oh, I looked at ways at ways of getting back in. I mean, my wife would probably have a heart attack if she knew that. Um because when I f when I first left, I wanted to go, I I got asked to go and get on the circuit and do the security stuff, and she was like, No, why would you jump out of that and jump into that? Right, it's the same. And I'm like, oh no, no, no. Anyway, so um but yeah, as as they I think, and that's the hard right hard thing is that because I know so many of them from various stages, like and then you know, Brownie, you know, when Brownie was killed, um, he was in my team for a for a period after the 06 trip. Um, another awesome, awesome guy. Um, you know, uh as each one kind of happened, especially in that little period there, where there were between like eight, seven, eight, nine, and ten, you know, there was quite a lot of dudes that were killed um very close to each other. Um, you know, we had Chucky um and the boys who were killed in a helicopter crash, you know. I got to go to the funeral up at the the dam because it's very close to my house where the Avenue of Honor is. Um But yeah, it was look, it was very difficult. It was a very difficult period for me. Um and I really yeah, I really hit it with uh hitting the piss. Yeah. Especially because I used to travel a lot, so I'd be away from home. I could work during the day and then just get shellacked at night, go back to the hotel, and then go back to work. So, you know, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 3:44:26

And no one really to bounce off either because you're up north.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:28

No one really to bounce off. Yeah. Yeah. I um it wasn't until Eddie and I kind of reconnected. So as you know, Eddie left to go do security, then he came back. It was when he was when he came back, that was when we kind of really reconnected again. Um and uh and yeah, yeah, so that was um very look it's a it's difficult for everyone, right? There's so many people that are associated with these people because they're such good people. I mean Betty, Betty as well, um you know, that was very hard for me to even consider, right? I could never consider that something like that would happen to him. Um and um Yeah, it's just uh I I guess it's hard to really put into words. Um you know, you for me, excuse me, I go I go up to the I went to the Avenue Honor um on the Monday after I got back from Canberra, just to go and sit there and just, you know. And you look at the number of names on that board um and how many people that I know and we're friends with, and then we add other people into like yeah, you talk about Nick, you talk about Mason Edwards, right? Poor ma poor Mason fucking killed in a training accident, right? We shouldn't be doing that. Um yeah, it's it's um it's heartbreaking, but at the same time, it's it's um it's very, very important that we maintain um some kind of remembrance and system so that we know that that that these people died doing what they loved, um with people that they loved. You know, I think some people might not s actually see that and might think it's a little bit um like a throwaway line, but it's it's not a throwaway line. Like we don't do what we do because it's a good paycheck. We do it because we we love the job and we love the dudes that we're doing it for. And we know we're doing something for our family that's at home. 100%. So yeah, that's a long wind long-winded way of saying that it was uh it was probably really hard for me. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:46:31

It's a ripple effect of you know what what what you guys were doing was keeping not only the Australian way of life safe, but every part of the world. So it's again tough time for the Australian Defence Force, but not only that, the members, because you guys were living that high charging life, and it's so hard to you can see why a lot of guys spiral, and we we still sit. We've got friends right now that are still struggling. Yeah, you know, booze addictions. We know plenty of guys, and guys have taken their own lives. It's it's it's still feels like it's never ending. And again, with all the OSI and IG ADF, just it's compiling. But you know, I guess they don't get it because they're easy to type their paperwork from behind fucking desks from the safety of camber officers.

SPEAKER_03 3:47:23

Yeah, it's easy to read, it's easy to read things, you know, uh in in the comfort of where you are without the knowledge and the foresight of what has actually occurred. You know, like I said to you before with my senses, when you get into a gunfight, a lot of people will say this is that that you smell things, you'll taste things, you'll you'll hear there's things like for a lot of for a lot of years when I was really struggling, little um little things might set me off, right? The where I I mean I play golf quite a bit, I I'm um I'm I'm a big into my golf, and where the golf club is, there's a guy who owns a local con contracting company who owns his own helicopter, right? And the his yard is right next to the golf club. And so um on a Saturday, I'd get to like the seventh or eighth hole, pretty much on on queue, he'd fly his helicopter down from his house, which is up on the m hills, and I'd watch my Apple Watch go from 80 beats a minute to like 140. And like I've got I'm not scared, I'm not worried, but I'm just watching this thing, and I used to joke about it with my friends. I'm like, oh, here comes old maintenance helicopter. You know, it's something I can't control. Um it's much better now. Um but people don't understand the like the triggers, um, what actually goes into it. I mean, the thought process for people, I mean, every person will be different. Um again, you know, op Nile, there was 28 plus all the JTF guys, there's gonna be 28 different points of view for every second of that night.

unknown 3:48:52

Right.

SPEAKER_03 3:48:54

I can't judge how another person felt, even if that person's standing right next to me, I'm never gonna understand what he felt when he's slotting that dude there, or there's that round bouncing off that car there, or you know, even if there's nothing going on, if you're on a helicopter and you see something, or you, you know, you're doing I mean, I fell I fell off the back of uh of one of our SPs when I was on tag, um, going flat out. And um I got back up and run and run it. But like, you know, that these sorts of things all form part of of your existence, right? And these people that are this is why I think social media is a disgrace, but you the these people that are casting judgment from positions of power, whether they be investigators, whether they be politicians, um, you know, you've got politicians making statements in public that they've got no they've got no knowledge about anything about what they're actually talking about, right? Okay, you can make a thing to say that um murdering an innocent civilian is wrong, which we would all say that that's wrong. But knowing what we've been through and where we've been, you know, is that guy really a civilian? Is he really innocent? Did we actually murder him or was he a combatant? Um, you know, people should just I I actually think in this day and age, people should just shut up and listen, right? You don't have to you get on a social media, you got people give their two cents worth. Everyone wants to have a comment. Everyone wants to have their say. Yeah. Um which look I'm happy for people to have their say, but they've got to take into account what they're talking about, they've probably got no fucking idea. Yeah. Right. So the more people would just go, you know, hey, we're friends. Um, what did you think of that? Oh, I thought that was horrible. Yeah, I thought it was horrible too. But you know, it'd be interesting to see if it's actually true, rather than, you know, jump into conclusions. Jump into conclusions, you know. Something you don't know of. You look at you know you look at so Shulcy's a perfect example, right? We all know the backstory about what actually happened, but someone has taken the a snippet of that with no context, right, and uh and and put it out there for the entire world to see. None of those people have got the context about what's what's occurred. No. Um and but yet people are free to make make a judgment and and and make comments and make hurtful comments. Um that's probably where I I mean I don't care if people want to judge, and and they can judge me if they want, but don't come to conclusions and say hurtful things about my family or, you know, I hope you die, I hope you're rot in hell. I mean, I couldn't care less, but you know, we need to be a little bit better than that as a society because, you know, our warfighters are really the one that are going to keep us safe, right? When the door when the when the devil's at the gates or when the wolf is at the gates, who's gonna protect the flock? That's it. Right? Not the blue-haired freak brigade that are wandering around with their Palestine flags. It's it's tough people that dedicate their life to protecting other people. You're exactly right, mate. Like it's just Yeah, I might have gone off on a bit of a tangent there, but it's true.

SPEAKER_01 3:51:51

It's true because when when when when the rough come knocking, there's gonna be guys like yourself that are gonna stand up and defend this country when it comes down to it. Because there's gonna be, you know, we're we're in such an unpredictable time in the world right now where who knows? The Chinese might come knocking or you know, the Taliban might reach our shores and it might land on our shores. Yeah. I think our our veterans are at that stage we're like, you know what, fuck it. We're gonna go to the centre of Australia, we're gonna go uh start a bonfire and we're just gonna hang out with the boys. Yep. You just can deal with it yourself.

unknown 3:52:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:52:24

In reality, we know that's not the case because the boys will stand up.

SPEAKER_03 3:52:27

Yeah, correct.

SPEAKER_01 3:52:28

So, yeah, mate, I get it, I get it. And yeah, all that, like I was trying to allude to was that you know, a lot of this stuff that's happening now is pushing guys to the edge. Oh, it's almost like the government is doing it to push these guys to the edge so they just do what they need to do and it shuts their mouth.

SPEAKER_02 3:52:45

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:52:46

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. I I've I mean I've only ever come close once. Very, very close. Um I felt dirty and ashamed afterwards, but I you know, I I feel sorry for people that get to that point because you know there's not a person that has done that that has ever afterwards not their family have been like, oh well, that's fair enough. Not one person has had that happen. Their family would be beside themselves, their friends are like, Why why did it come to this? Um, you know, people don't need to feel like they're alone, even though even though they may feel alone, they should they shouldn't. There's so many of us that have done so much shit over the last 20 years that um and I say this to young people all the time, or I've said it to so we've got a private group um that's full of ex-commandos and current serving, and and I've put my phone number, private phone numbers on there. Um that if anyone ever wants to talk or they come to Cairns or they want a place to stay or they need some cash, I'm I'm I'm here to help, right? Because um the worst thing the worst thing in the world is for someone to do something stupid like that when they feel like they've got no one, which is totally not the case.

SPEAKER_01 3:54:00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, exactly, mate. And part of the reason of the podcast is to share these stories and make it feel you know, if there's someone out there struggling, they realize that they're not alone. There's other guys that have been through it. Yeah, so reach out to them, reach out to yourself. You know, if you're in those commando groups, reach out. But that's that's what you what what what you're there for. Um couple of final questions, mate. Obviously, that we've come up to the last part of the podcast, but just you know, I was alluding on to obviously the mental health side of things, which obviously you've been through, like you said, you you know, you come close to it. First question is what advice can you give to people just to keep on, keep it on, complete any goal they set their mind to, and just to crush on life, but alluding on to the end of that mental health thing, what got you through what got you through your troubles?

SPEAKER_03 3:54:50

Um I'll I'll answer the the second part first. So I like I said, I I love the game of golf. I what I think what got me was I um I got invited to take part in a golf trip um with a charity um in St Andrews in Scotland and I got to go to I got to go to Scotland and play golf with um some Canadian, American and other Australian veterans, right? And that for me was a real turning point because and I think the guys will appreciate me saying this, that they were all a lot more fucked up than I was. But I came out of that trip helping some of those guys, right? So there's a couple of the guys there that are still here today because of what I was able to help them with. It's not all me though, but I was able to help some of them to the point where, you know, they got over those things, they then got into the game of golf, and then I then got to partake in other events with that same charity and help other people. And so that's kind of that's one thing that got me over the line to realise that, you know, it's there is no end of the road. I mean, the other thing I've really got to give credit to is my wife. Uh she is she is one of the she is the most amazing person I've ever met. She I would not be here today if it wasn't for her, no doubt, in my mind. Um the fact that I've got two two amazing daughters who um who still you know look up to me and and um have a lot of time and and I love them very much. Um but yeah, my wife deserves a lot of credit, yeah, because she's she's put up with a lot of uh a lot of stuff over the years. I mean I you know I still have occasionally I still have d horrible nightmares where I'm strangling people in my street in my sleep and uh so she has to live, she lives with that. And so we've been together 25 years. Um married 19 years in February, this February coming up. Um so she has a lot to um she has a lot to add to that. I think because look if she had left and walked out at any stage in the last 20 years, yeah, I don't know if that that would have been the trigger, would have been a trigger. Um but then in terms of what can other people do, look I think it's very hard when you're in when you're in that position, when you're feeling depressed and when you've got when you've actually got clinical depression and you've got a lot of shit going wrong, you know, the only thing that I and it's very easy for me to say, but the only thing I can think of is it's it's gonna get better, right? I mean Robert O'Neill talks about it when he talks about um SEAL training, right? Get to breakfast, once you get to breakfast, get to lunch, once you get to lunch, get to dinner, once you get to dinner, get to bed, get in your well-made bed, and then you just do that day after day after day. So when you're struggling, just got to get to just get to bed that night, right? Just get to bed, just get to the next meal, um, just get to the next sunrise. Um the the thing that's really helped me, um, and I still struggle with uh drinking alcohol every now and again. I shouldn't drink, but I I do because I enjoy it. Um and I can't really cut myself off fully. So this year I actually I said I'm not gonna drink all year. Unfortunately, I've had a had a couple, um, but more in a social environment. But PT, be physically fit, do some exercise, go for walks, get in nature, get up early, um, you know, the but more from a mentality point of view, it like you're dead a long time, right? Nothing is ever as bad as what you think, but you're all you're dead a very, very long time. And I think this is one thing where you look at, and unfortunately you look at like young kids that do that commit suicide and things like that, and I just think to myself, that this poor kid who as a kid you should be having the time of your life, you know, you should be get up getting up to mischief, you've got no stress, no concerns, you've got no responsibilities. Um for a kid to think that they're in that position that they can't do anymore, like that just that horrifies me. Um But yeah, that that that's that's really the the simplest way I can put it is is is look after yourself first and foremost and just and tomorrow is got tomorrow's a new day. That's it. Right? The sun will come up, um, things will be the same, and there's nothing. I mean, you think about the problems that we've solved as humanity, right? There's no problem that's too big that you can't solve. Right? I mean there's friggin' people launching rockets and catching them out of the friggin' sky. Uh our problems are are relatively minuscule, and there's nothing that we can't solve. And you know, I had a f I had a boss who used to say to me, uh a problem shared is a problem halved, right? So you don't don't deal with the problems on your own. Yeah. Share it with someone. Yeah. Like if and it's probably this might might be a hard thing these this day and age for people to find a confidant that they can rely on, especially us dudes at like 40 odd years of age. But I mean, I've got a guy, I've got a mate, my best mate, Tim. Um we are the same age. We come from pretty much the exact same background. He never served, but we we're exactly we're almost exactly the same. And we found each other through through our children, actually, and we we basically almost share everything together. We and we we leverage that as m as much as we need to and and as much as we want. Um we and we we're very well aware of the fact of the relationship that we have. Um and um like we do a lot of things together, like our families go on holidays together, you know, we have Friday night dinners together, we we do a lot of stuff together. Um our kids are all roughly the same age, he's got two boys, I've got two girls. Um But yeah, yeah, it I think that's another thing, right? Community, don't isolate yourself, um and try and give back. I think that's another big one, right? If you if you can find a place, like I I do a lot of pro bono, not pro bono, like um I volunteer, like I'm the president of my golf club. I've been on the board of directors for like eight years. I do a lot of um give up a lot of my time with some veterans' charities and stuff like that over in the UK. Um and I I I help out wherever I can. I think if you if you can feel useful, right, it doesn't matter really what you're going through, hopefully that'll help as well. I think that's another thing as well.

SPEAKER_01 4:01:19

Yeah, mate, spot on. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:01:20

I mean like what you're doing, right? Though this is a perfect opportunity. It's probably very therapeutic for you to hear other people's stories. I mean I I know for me, listening to like listening to some of my mates that have been on podcasts uh in history um all through the time, right, it's really good to hear like how they're feeling and and what they've been through and um The funny stories by Brett Wood Oh yeah trying to do a J Town and smashing the back of the car. Well, it's funny, right, because I've got another story about that guy is that w we were doing we were setting up because I was I was in a I was a driver, we were setting up for driving, right? And where the air where the runway is out there where the tag is there's this 90 degree like berm bend and um he took an SP out there and and tipped it on its side. Like a separate one. This is a separate instance to the other one. Like he's just uh I'm talking about talk about Renegade, he was a he's a proper Renegade, proper Renegade.

SPEAKER_01 4:02:23

Yeah, mate. Uh they're the stories that keeps his memories alive. Yeah. And there'll be another operator out there that might be having a shit day today. Yep. And they've just heard that and they're just having a little chuckle right now. Yeah. You know what I mean? That's all it takes to pick people up.

SPEAKER_03 4:02:36

Yeah, look, I think the I think the last thing is don't take yourself too seriously. Yeah. Like we're all gonna die one day. That's it. Right? It's don't nothing is so nothing is so serious that you need to to kill yourself or do something stupid. Um right, just lighten up. Like it's not life is life is hard enough as it is. There's no need to put external pressure on yourself. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:03:00

Yeah, that's it, mate. We only got one life. Yeah. Live it as long as we can, especially for our kids and our families.

SPEAKER_03 4:03:07

Yeah, I mean that's that's obviously, you know, the older you get, the more you realise how important it is, and um you know, like I think about my upbringing, how put me instead to do the life, have the life that I've had, but at the same time, I said I said to my daughter this week, we're talking about her QTAC and university and what she's gonna do, and she doesn't really know, and and I'm just trying to explain to her that like you don't have to know everything at your age, yeah. But just be a good person, have a bit of a plan, don't just don't just waft aimlessly. Um but um you know, go and enjoy yourself. Go go and enjoy yourself, find something that you love if you can find something you Love and you can turn it into a business, it's even better. 100%. Right. Um but be a good person, don't be a dickhead. I mean, there's there's some advice that so many people could take. Yeah. Have fun and don't be a dickhead.

SPEAKER_01 4:04:01

Yeah. Yeah, mate. Uh second question, what scares you most in life? What are you most afraid of?

SPEAKER_03 4:04:15

Um letting my family down, I think.

SPEAKER_02 4:04:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:04:18

Yeah. I um I think uh I guess in the same breath as what we were talking about earlier, you know, like I've I had a I mean my my my mum did what we what she could with the with the tools at her disposal. Um and by no means did I have a terrible childhood, but I we didn't have access to money and you know I remember playing footy as a kid and kids were buying these Puma King footy boots, right? And they were 200 bucks each and I couldn't afford that. I was wearing these plastic lotto things and mumma do whatever, but I you know um and then obviously my dad left at a very at a young age and you know that's a completely different thing. But I I don't ever want to let my my wife and my two daughters down, right? So that's that's my probably my biggest fear um is is yeah that I that I I do something that makes them either ashamed or or um or I do something that really lets them down.

SPEAKER_01 4:05:16

Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 4:05:17

Yeah, that's probably my biggest fear.

SPEAKER_01 4:05:18

I get it, it's solid, yeah. Solid uh well, hopefully your kids get to listen to this and they get you know get the get you know the stories they probably haven't heard. You know, get a full view of your life and career.

SPEAKER_03 4:05:30

Exactly. I mean like I said to you offline the um when we went down for the op nile, I I don't think they were really prepared because it was a little bit of warts and all and we were talking fairly openly. I mean, of course we didn't get the full allotment of time because the officers and the pilots they uh they they can talk. So our two hours uh was reduced to about an hour forty-five. But um, you know, the guys are talking about things, and my eldest daughter, Scarlett, um, was elbowing her mum in the ribs like with her eyes of like, oh, what the fuck? Is it serious? Yeah. Um that's killed people.

SPEAKER_01 4:06:09

Tell that's a tell that's your future boyfriend.

SPEAKER_03 4:06:11

Yeah, well actually, I'll um it's uh it's something I've always thought about. How how am I gonna get that out? And I I always thought about, you know, like you see it in the movies, but I thought about going and getting one of those military trophies, like getting an M uh like a painted up M4 and p and hanging it above the entry in the front door. Yeah. And then and I'll just like uh I mean I don't I've never kept count of any of this, but just put some like hashes. Oh, what's that? Oh, that's how many people I've killed. That's it. And just give a guy a big stare. Oh teardrops, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um look, I just hope I mean, I d I don't want the girls to think that I'm a bad person. I I just hope they understand that. Yeah. You know, I've I've done some things in my time and I've I've pretty much done it from nowhere. I haven't been handed anything in my life. I've been very lucky to be right place, right time, but everything that I've earned, I everything that I've got, I've earned myself. You've worked for. Yeah. I've worked my friggin' ass off for pretty much my entire life. From the moment I left uh Perth in ninety nine to where I am now. I've I've worked my friggin' ass off too.

SPEAKER_01 4:07:17

It's a good example. Good example set for the for the younger generation.

SPEAKER_03 4:07:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:07:20

Especially for the younger diggers out there listening.

SPEAKER_03 4:07:22

Oh yeah, but you know, and um all credit to them, right? All credit. There's something special about um serving something that's better bigger than yourself. 100%. So, you know, don't don't let the bastards get you down. Um, the the current um the current environment, you know, it'll pass. It'll pass. Yeah. You know, pre pre-9-11 was probably the same. Post-9-11. For sure, yeah. You know, look at look at what we did. It's probably we're just around the corner, right? We we start getting back into proper war fighting, there'll be none of this bullshit. It'll be tools up, tools on let's go. That's it.

SPEAKER_01 4:07:59

Mate, uh, third question, uh tell us something about shoe that people don't know. What's your guilty obsession?

SPEAKER_03 4:08:05

Um Red Red wine. But most people know that. Um that's I like dark chocolate. Yeah. Yeah, I do like I do like a dark chocolate. Um and I'm I'm very partial to like a caramel um what are they? The not the connoisseurs, but like a caramel magnum. Remember them? I'm very partial to them. And and it's yeah, like my wife does the shopping and forgive me, but she's a bit of a tight ass. She likes to be, you know, oh that's a little bit that's on that's not on sale. So she'll get the Coles brand Magnums, the white, just the standard vanilla ones. And they are terrible. And then Canbury all the way. Yeah. And then um there's these these other ones, and she only gets them when they're on special. But uh she just got me a box the other day, so either I'm doing something right or uh thanks, Coles. Thanks, Coles, for getting it on a discount. Um I reckon chocolate. I I I'm not a real chocolate, but I do like a dark chocolate and I do like a caramel chocolate ice cream.

SPEAKER_01 4:09:12

Now we're talking. Uh movies, mate. What's uh obviously you spoke about the younger days, Navy SEALs, bit of Black Hawk Down. What what is your go-to? TV shows.

SPEAKER_03 4:09:23

Um look, I to be honest, with my current work life balance, I don't have much time to watch um a lot of TV. I started watching a bit of Lioness, um uh The Night Agent, like they don't mind a bit of spy action, um, that sort of stuff.

SPEAKER_01 4:09:42

Um just because you're traveling a lot. That's generally what I'm watching when I'm in the plane or sitting in the airport and like Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 4:09:49

I I'm look I'm do I do a hundred plus flights a year. Yeah. Um so I'm I'm constantly traveling. Well I the I've just ticked off platinum, but I'm about to tick back on. But I'm I've been Platinum Plus, I'm Virgin for like 11 years. Yeah. And um I've been Platinum on Quartus for probably eight of those. Yeah. But um because our company has a corporate arrangement with Virgin, um I've flown less and less on Quantus since I've moved to this new company. Yep. So I just I just dipped back the goal, but I you know, I'm gonna fly enough this year that I'll get back platinum. I've been platinum on both for so long that it's just it's funny. I went into I tried to walk in the business lounge of Brisbane the other day just by accident, right? And she's like, Oh, can I have your thing? Yeah, and I showed her, she goes, I was gold, so you're over here. I'm like, oh you scared.

SPEAKER_01 4:10:40

She's like, get back there, you peasant.

SPEAKER_03 4:10:43

Yeah, yeah. So um uh but no, no, in terms of TV shows, yeah. I I I watch a lot of YouTube actually. Documentaries, I'm watching a lot, I'm doing a lot of work on um like I'm doing a lot of reading on technology, entrepreneurship, leadership. Um I watch a lot of science stuff, astronomy. I I'm actually fascinated by the size of the universe and all of these other things that go on and and how like I did physics and chemistry as a kid um when I was trying to get into uni, but um I um I'm fascinated by the universe and planets and life.

SPEAKER_01 4:11:23

I am too and like I like Tyson, maybe every podcast he's on, I'm watching it, watching it, listening to it.

SPEAKER_03 4:11:28

Yeah, and then e even other things like you know, I I think uh watching what Elon Elon Musk has been able to do across so many different parts of the business world, I think it's really amazing. Uh just picking picking up parts of how that gets done and yeah, and what some of the focuses are and you know how do they make these rockets and how they've gone from version one to the version that they've got now, and you you look at them side by side and the number of parts that they've reduced and they've improved reliability. Um and in in my field in terms of like building stuff, like that's I I find that really important, right? Because if we can if we can reduce um if we we can reduce the time for us to build something or do some kind of activity by a percentage, like that that's cost. That's cost, it's more profit, it reduces the cost under the client. Um we got a lot of um got a lot of good uh relationships with existing clients, so giving them a better service, making it faster. Um like they're all really important things. So I'm really fascinated in some of that. So I've had a I've had a YouTube premium. Yeah, me too. So I no ads. Yeah, no ads.

SPEAKER_01 4:12:33

And you can listen to music and all and you can download and you can turn your phone off, yeah. You can download it.

SPEAKER_03 4:12:38

Close the screen and it still plays. Yeah, it's it's it's friggin' awesome. So yeah, I I do a little bit of that. I try um yeah. Um see uh documentaries or something.

SPEAKER_01 4:12:47

Yeah, of course, yeah. Just the advancement in technology. Twenty years ago, you in Afghanistan, do you think we'd be catching fucking rockets with giant hands?

SPEAKER_03 4:12:56

It's funny, right? Because my my new boss, uh, he I won't mention his name, but he was he was an officer in Charlie Company when I first got to the unit back in the day. Um and we were talking about the plugger. You remember the big green friggin' GPS? And and uh we were talking about how when that first came out, like it had it could do all these things, like a 12-figure grid, blah blah blah, but it it chewed through batteries like it was going out of fashion, right? But at the unit, guys were just going out buying Garmin E-Trex, right? They were like five, six hundred bucks, they were one colour, right? And you would carry it. Now I'm what looking at the guys who got these things, the the Blue Force trackers or whatever, GPSs on their wrists, and and I look at like uh I'm wearing this watch now, but I've got like a Garmin tactics. I've got the tactics eight, and I look at what I can do on that, and you know, what like what phones can do now. I just you know, you think about what you know the progression of technology, not just in war fighting, but everything. Everything, yeah. I mean I'm looking at your monitor, I remember this like uh an iMac and it's like it's as thin as your little finger, light as hell, and that's everything. It's basically uh a super size iPad, right? I I just love all that. And I do too, yeah. And I love how and I love the thought process that some of these entrepreneurs, you know, and I think the the value of operating how they operate. I mean, if you were to put an operator and Elon Musk together, right, what do you think what do you think you could come up with in terms of um like and like the smartest people in the world? Because if you think about the way we get shit done, the way how resilient we are, our our thought press process for getting things done and coming up with decisions, if you mix that with some of the smartest people alive, right? I mean possibilities are endless. Oh, it's incredible. Endless, mate. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:14:45

I was just thinking about then, like back in the day, the remember the Garmin 101 wrist? Yeah, mate. That was if you saw someone walking around the team with that, you're like, fuck. Yeah, that's the forerunner. That's technology, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's technology right there. Yeah. And like I said, now we've got Garmin Tactics 8s that are solar charging and yeah. I love it. I love it as well. I love it. The YouTube rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_03 4:15:08

Oh yeah, YouTube rabbit hole. Oh, look, another thing that's probably uh I don't know how I I do know how that my mate Tim, he's uh he got me into this. I got into like Iron Man, and then I got into uh I did them, then I got into Ultras, so I started running ultra marathons, then I got into other things, um, like all endurance shit. Um and now we're signed up for a friggin' uh a cycling event in the snowy mountains next year called uh I think they call it the Peaks Challenge. So um it's like a 240k bike ride, four and a half thousand metres of climbing. Basically, you start at falls and then you go down and you go up, and then you go down and you go up, and then you go down and you go back to falls. So we're doing that next year. So that's that's you know, these are some of the things that I I gotta I find myself I've got to do because if I don't I get bored and I get fat and I'd you know it's funny say I'm I'm I've I've started I'm doing cocoa next year, so I've got I've got the cardio bug now.

SPEAKER_01 4:16:06

Yeah, I'm actually looking forward, I've always just thought about it before I'm looking forward to getting on my treadmill this afternoon. Yeah, doing quick 5K's.

SPEAKER_03 4:16:13

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 4:16:13

Which I'd never thought I'd ever fucking say. However, I did watch, I was on the treaddy last night, did about 5K's watching you know, uh, YouTube. Yeah, I was watching YouTube on it, and um the the guy that travels around the world and does all the eating. Oh, yeah, yeah. I was watching that guy. Yeah, but yeah, weird thing to be watching while I'm running on treaddy.

SPEAKER_03 4:16:31

That's uh I mean it's funny, right? Because I I I share an account with obviously the kids and the kids have got stuff that they watch. But my uh eldest daughter's been watching Man vs Food. Yeah, oh the beard beard versus food. Yeah, yeah, it's a rabbit hole. It could be that I have no idea how that guy gets it all down, but my god, it's amazing. It is absolutely amazing. But yeah, a rabbit hole, a rabbit hole. And of course, the rap the algorithm, the problem with the algorithm that next time you put it on, that's all you got. Bang. Yeah. Right? And then you're like, oh okay, I'll watch that. And then you just go further and further and further down this rabbit hole.

SPEAKER_01 4:17:04

But yeah, yeah. Mates, uh, final question music, what is uh what do you listen to when you so I listen to a bit of everything.

SPEAKER_03 4:17:13

I I I've got a very broad um sound uh taste in music. Um but I guess growing up where I did, I I a lot of classics, Eric Clapton, Rolling Stones, that sort of stuff. But um this day and age, I listen to a lot of the Apple Music um country radio station. Um just Apple Music Country and I listened to whatever. I'm an Ella fella, so I got some uh I've actually got some Ella Langley t-shirts and um it's been good. I took the girls took my youngest daughter to Luke Combs when he came to Australia, we went to Riley Green earlier this year, um, been to a few other things like that. I think um I just like I like people that write music and sing songs, and it just seems to be that yeah, modern country music is it's no longer country and western anymore. It's storytelling. It's storytelling, right? And I I I actually really like that, and um yeah, that's really because I'm an Apple music user. Yeah, country music or the Apple Music Chill, I'll put that on.

SPEAKER_01 4:18:13

Yeah, nice, mate.

SPEAKER_03 4:18:14

Background music. Glass of red. Well, yeah, yeah, yeah, glass of red. And it's funny, right, because I actually made a commitment this year that I wasn't gonna drink all year, except for some special occasions, which I haven't really been that good at. Um But because I'm a member of a few wine clubs, I've had like three boxes of red turn up. And so my fridge is overflowing, it's in the cupboard, it's everywhere, it's uh it's a good problem to have, but um But yeah, I I just I had a girlfriend when I was when I first moved to Cronulla. Um she's uh she was a lawyer, or she still is a lawyer, um, but she her she got me into red wine because her mum and dad were into red wine and he he was a very successful businessman and he was the one that introduced me to some really nice reds and so um damn her because it's an expensive habit.

SPEAKER_01 4:19:06

It is mate, it is, it is. Mates uh yeah, uh for whatever reason people want to get in contact with you, how can they find you? Social media?

SPEAKER_03 4:19:15

Um yeah, social media. Um I think my Instagram, I don't know what it is, it's Sierra Bravo Bushy Gulf Nut. It used to just be Bushy Golf Nut. Um but um yeah, it'll be on it'll be on there. Um that's probably the easiest way. Uh Instagram. Um I don't really do much. I I maintain a Facebook account, but only for admin purposes.

SPEAKER_01 4:19:36

Yeah, yeah, it's for mum and dad. Just take in contact with them. That's that's all I do it for. Yeah. Instagram's where it's at.

SPEAKER_03 4:19:42

Yeah, yeah, and um it's um it's actually really good. Like so for the op nile thing that we did, I um Reese um asked me to reach out to as many people as possible, gave me a list of people that they couldn't get hold of, and you know, the digger net and Instagram and a few other things. I got I pretty much got hold of every single person except for one. Um and it was really good because there were some of the guys who were over at the UAE who I follow on Instagram. Well, like we I I haven't spoken to these guys for 20 years, but I've messaged them on the gram and like, hey, we're having this event. Um, can I just get your email um to give to the people organising it? And you know, 90% of the guys were like, Sweet Bushy, good to hear from you. Um here it is. There's a couple of guys who are like, Oh, look, with this Buritan thing, I'd rather not. Um which is what one guy. Um but yeah, I I I ended up getting hooked up to most people. And I think this is really I think the best thing about it is that it it's a good way to get information out very, very quickly. Of course, yeah. Um unfortunately it's a little bit, it's still a bit gated, unlike um X or things like that. But you know, you can you can generally get your message out. Um and it's a great way for people to stay in touch. You don't have to sit on that all the time and flick, flick, flick and and message. And I I just use it to keep track of what people are doing. Um I mean I follow I follow heaps of people that I used to work with, and some of them come in and they come out, they come in and come out. Yeah. But I know what they're doing. Like I, you know, there's guys who I haven't spoken to for a long time, but we both follow each other, we both like each other's stuff, and we know, like I've just proven the other week when we went to Canberra, you go and catch up with these dudes, and it's it is exactly the same as the last day I saw it. It just picks up, yeah. It's exactly the same. We talk about the same shit, except now we're talking, we've got grey beards, we've got grey hair. Oh hey, these are my kids. Holy shit, how old are you? Oh, 17. Holy hell. Bushy, how long's it been since I've seen you? Oh, I haven't seen you since 2000, you know, it's um it's it's it is a good way, and I think that's another part when I was talking about before about guys to help this community, right? Yeah, I think we need to be using it a little bit more for the way in which it's intended, right? Which is to build that community. Um I think um you know, people get people get fixated on on the actual content of what other people are doing, and you know, there's a lot of things and it's just fake as it's bullshit. Um, but like the best thing about it is that you get to keep keep in contact with your friends. Yeah, exactly. Yeah, exactly. No matter where they are, yeah. Well that's it, anywhere in the world. Yeah, yeah, it's good. Maybe one day on the moon. It's always good watching you coming back from a hunt and with those guns and all thinking, oh, it must be good out on that quadgy quad bike.

SPEAKER_01 4:22:25

Say when come along, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, come along, mate. It's it is it is good fun. It is good fun. But uh, mate, really appreciate you coming in. Like, I know you're traveling around a lot and it just timing's worked out. You come in, see your story. Obviously, Berg spoke about Chill and uh obviously Fast Eddie and uh obviously Fast Eddie thanks thanks for uh I was texting him this morning actually, he's coming in next week. We're just gonna do a bit of a debrief. But um, yeah, mate, uh just appreciate you coming in and sharing your story because again, who knows who this is gonna help and who it's gonna inspire, and I'm sure it will because mate, this has been absolutely incredible.

SPEAKER_03 4:23:03

Yeah, look, I I again I want to really say thank you. Um the like I said at the beginning, I I've had a few people shout out, and uh I know that um I've been playing hard to get for quite a while, but um I'm really really glad that I did. And uh I hope look if it can help one person or you know, if if people get a laugh or um they can give give me a bit of shit or stick or if I fuck something up or um go for it. But uh look, uh thank you very much. You've been an awesome host, and um yeah, I hope my uh hope my daughters um one day get to listen and uh realize their dad's not just such an old farty duddy. Mate, appreciate it, and uh yeah, we'll stay in contact and come for come for shoot, mate.

SPEAKER_01 4:23:49

Jump on the cord. Thanks, mate. Appreciate it. Easy, mate. Cheers