Ep. 263 Evan Urlings 2/4 RAR Rwanda Kibeho Massacre - RSM Intelligence Corps

SPEAKER_00 1:54

It's time for the Zero Limits Podcast, hosted by Australian Federalist. Starting with high-charging humans with stories from around the world, we'll give you the motivation to take on whatever life throws at you in the kitchen to complete any goal you send your money to. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 2:23

Zero limits listeners on today's uh journalist podcast mobile studio. Actually, it's a really good studio. He's built this little uh garage garage part. Uh and uh it's got all the soundproof cladding, which uh but the guy I've got on today, we met each other 2015, I think it was, in in uh in Iraq, Baghdad, in the contracting world. He spent 23 years in the defense force reaching the dizzy heights of warrant officer class one, RSM of Incorps and the school. During his time, however, he kicked off his career in the defense force as an infantryman, joined the army in 1992, which we'll talk about. Back then it was 2-4 RL before they split. Deployment to Rwanda, and this is one of the ones I really wanted to talk about because it's um the the massacre of uh Cabello, uh where pretty much a whole platoon of blokes literally sat there and watched massacres going on in front of them and they could not do a thing about it, which is unfathomable to think about, especially being an Australian soldier, because you know, subsequently you deploy down the track, and our first role is to defend other people. It's that you guys didn't get to that, which we'll definitely talk about soon, and uh move to multiple other things, which we'll definitely talk about. And obviously 2000 he switches from inventory, moves into that intelligence world, works alongside SASR to commando uh on an SOTG deployment. But uh Evan Erlings, mate. How are you, mate? Brother, ten years, ten years, ten years since I seen you last. And I was talking about this offline. I thought about you a while back, no homo. You're only human, mate. You're only human, and it was all because I did know that you went to Rwanda, and I'm pretty sure we spoke about it in Iraq back in the day. And um of always getting people reaching out, like, can you get someone on that was in Rwanda, especially with this mask? I'm like, oh, it's hard because there's a lot of guys that have been there, there's a few guys that are not here anymore, and there's guys that just don't want to talk about it, obviously, because it's quite a confronting scene, and you know, PTSD and whatsoever, but made so I guess for yourself, you kind of stayed in the role, and I think it helps with people's mental health remaining in a role or staying constant, you know, connected. It's when you have those hard separations that you you know that PTSD can creep up, and again from that incident, you you can see why a lot of guys lost the plot and you know went off the rails, which we'll definitely talk about because you'll highlight exactly what you've seen and for sure the whole scenario. But mate, like I said, ten years ago we met uh yeah, 10, 10, 11 years ago in in baggers and good time it was.

SPEAKER_03 5:11

We used to sit on the balcony, I remember, and punch a dart or two before you shooters that go out and uh yeah, solve the problems of the world. So here you are, mate. Now you've made it. Congratulations, yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_02 5:25

Who would have thought? You know, who would have thought to be sitting here doing a podcast with you know Zero Lamas Podcast, which has now become you know a top hundred podcast in Australia? This guy. Congratulations, mate. I appreciate it, but I appreciate it, but also it it you know it's it's contributed to all the people like yourself that come on the podcast and share your stories, and again, it's to not only to lock these stories into history, but also share the stories with the Australian public and show them the other side, not the media side, not these journos spinning these warriors off their desk or some generalist sitting in Canberra. It's the boys on the ground that actually doing this. And we'll talk about your stuff with SATG because you contributed to you know uh you contributed to killing Taliban fighters that are obviously targeted by not only the Australian Defence Force but NATO forces. That's the job. Exactly right, exactly right, mate. I was just reading up here actually. You've got uh you know a plaque up on the wall. Uh whereas killing the enemy is easy, finding him is the difficult part.

SPEAKER_03 6:28

Yeah, that was a uh that was a nice little presentation that the guys gave me when I left SASR.

SPEAKER_01 6:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 6:35

Uh a usual thing, you know, put a nice plaque and things together. But that was one of the quotes that they found. Oh, yeah. Because obviously that's you know, one of the biggest parts of the, you know, they call it a kill chain now. Yeah, I don't know if I really like that term, but you know, that cycle, that targeting cycle is so dependent upon making sure that you have the intelligence.

SPEAKER_02 6:59

Yeah. And you know, like I said, the you know, the good part about having you on is talk about Rwanda, but also the intelligence side because obviously we're going through this stage right now, you know, Oliver Schultz, the Ben Roberts Smith scenarios, and you know, the people that they were targeting were all part of targeting packages as well. So this is what I think a lot of the civilian listeners need to understand it. They just didn't go out just targeting their own targets. They were these guys were on targeted lists on the Japel. Absolutely. Which we'll talk about. You can explain that whole because again, you you're part of that that's uh that structure, mate. But again, let's uh let's let's crack off to the early days, mate. You know, 23 years in defense, you know, you go back to the 70s and 80s, mate. Let's let's get let's get back to those younger days growing up. Where'd you grow up?

SPEAKER_03 7:48

So I grew up in Perth. Yep. Um and the 70s and 80s was an interesting time, I think everywhere in Australia, economically and demographically and all the rest of it. But the 70s and 80s, and in particular that period of time in the 80s when the recession happened, had such a huge impact on people's lives. You know, how it's been so long since the recession we had to have, and people have forgotten what that period was like, particularly for Gen X. And I'm not I'm not playing a Gen Z Gen X thing here. My my daughter's Gen Z and she faces many challenges. Way more, yeah, yeah, way more for the future, but she'll be fine, she's got dad, mum, right? Yeah, yeah. Um but so my family was classic. There was a breakup when I was young, remarry, Brady Bunch family, and we were living in a uh, you know, middle class family. Stepfather was a tradie, and then interest rates went to 17%. You know, we we lived in a house that had five kids, I think it was a four-bedroom, and it and we had an above-ground swimming pool. We were rich, right? And an old uh XG Falcon or whatever it was, right? And we went overnight, kicked out of that, into State Housing Commission building in Belgar, right? And life became you you you went from a safe environment to all of a sudden you learn how to fight. You either learn how to fight or you you're not gonna make it through. It will break you. So, you know, when I when I finally, as a skinny little kid, stood up to the bully and punched, you know, through a decent right one, that was the moment I realized, well, this is the path. Jobs are really difficult to get. As a kid, all I wanted to be was a soldier, and I'm very lucky, fortunate to say that I became one. But at the time, army sorry, just quickly, my first job, I've got to mention, I was, I'm pretty sure I was 12. Two buses into the city in Perth, selling daily newspaper, and that new newspaper no longer exists. Corner of St. George's Terrace and Pitt Street, winter, it was like something out of Oliver Twist, mate. You know, covered in black ink. I was a skinny little kid, you know. I've never I've never been a big bloke anyway, but you know, carrying those newspapers and then living through that in the middle of winter with short, you know, skinny little shorts on and the the red hat and the hand-me-down bloody leather shoes and all the rest of it, it prepared me. Whether it was whether it was a tough upbringing, sure. But I think in hindsight, years later, it was those moments as as a kid that helped me to get through not only army, but the experiences of the country. But as a quick sidebar, my so Army wasn't recruiting, they only had the ready reserve system. I didn't want to do that, I wanted to be a full-timer. And uh so I ended up getting an apprenticeship with the WA police as a motor mechanic. And I did that. When's this in the early 80s? Yeah, so I I only went to year 10, right? Because you only went to year 12 back then if if your parents could afford for you to go to university. And uh so I did an apprenticeship as a motor mechanic, the WA police, the last apprentice before they outsourced. So here's me as a skinny little 15-year-old driving around VL 308s and working on them. Yeah. Patrol cars.

SPEAKER_02 11:43

Now we're talking fun.

SPEAKER_03 11:45

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 11:46

Um brothers and sisters, yes, stepbrothers and sisters, yep, yep, yep, gotcha, gotcha. And family history.

SPEAKER_03 11:54

You you got any family history within defense or so I won't go too deep on it, but uh my father was a a pilot in the Air Force, caribou pilot. Um caribou's. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Uh and what's what's crazy is, you know, I'm very lucky that I got to fly in caribou's and fly in Huey's, and and I always reflect on that, you know. They they were the amazing platforms, you know, things flying sideways. Yeah, robust. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Um, yeah, my stepfather, he was in the Dutch infantry.

SPEAKER_02 12:31

Yeah, right. And um, like like you said, you say you're doing all this stuff out of school quite early. Again, 80s, a lot, a lot different, like you said. Uh where does the thought of you know, defence come in? Because you joined the army in 92, not much is going on in the world. Not yeah, not in pretty much in the world in regards to things. Everything's quite settled down. You know, there's obviously Afghans, the Russians were doing their thing, and you know, the 70s, uh, the Vietnam Wars finished. Australian Defense Force is absolutely just quiet. Where where does this come into your mind?

SPEAKER_03 13:07

So I think growing up, and uh you asked me before about family defense history, and I kind of apologies to my stepbrother and sister. Uh, my stepbrother was in 5'7 RR. He was the first one to join out of the siblings, and then my sister joined Signals Corps. So I think there was always there was always a subconscious influence around there. You know, I looked up to my stepbrother and didn't say much, but um there was always an influence, always an exposure. You know, there was a model of a Panzer tank on on the you know the lounge room coffee table. It was just the vibe then, wasn't it? Yeah, yeah. And and it's all I wanted to do. All I did was play with Toy Soldiers. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:54

That's um yeah, at different times. And again, you you know, you look back in the 80s, you know, I grew up in the 80s, and you'd see the the army guy walking through the street with his, you know, with his uniform on, sleeves rolled up, and it was just normal. It was a normal part. Or you see, you know, I grew up in Brisbane, so not too far from Monogra. So we'd see the the buckets cruising through the streets, and it was just a normal thing. Like you didn't think, you're just like, oh, there's how cool's out, I want to be that guy. Yeah. Different times, but now people freak out if they saw a an M113 cruising down the street. Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 14:26

I would too, actually. They're unsafe. Well, I tell you what, when I was in 5.7 and we used to do the runs from Sydney all the way up to uh Singleton, you just have a a line of 200 carriers and people just passing you.

SPEAKER_02 14:42

Yeah. Which we'll talk about that because obviously there was a rollover incident that a death uh occurred. Now that like you said, that 92 period comes up where you join the army. What's the what's the process back there, mate? There's no internet, there's no HP, you know, flat screen monitors like you got behind you now.

SPEAKER_03 14:58

Mate, there was no phones. You walk, you walked into to St. George's Terrace and Perth and you went up to level whatever it was, and you said, excuse me, um, you said, Hey, I'm here to join the army. But what's really funny about my experience is I just wanted to be infantry. That's all I wanted to do. And they turned around to me and said, Do you have any trades? And I'm like, fuck no. No. It's a trap. No, no. And I'm like, Yeah, I'm a motor mechanic by trade. And they're like, Oh, well, we need monomechanics. And I'm like, I don't want to do that. You're breaking my dream. Yeah. And this infantry full track came up to me and he goes, Mate, if you want to go to infantry, just failed your maths test really bad. And I said, Well, that won't be hard. And uh, yeah, so I ended up getting in as infantry, but that story came back to haunt me when I went to go to intelligence and I had to Oh, did it? Yeah, because I to do the aptitude test to get into Intel, my my maths grades had to go up. So I took two weeks' leave, got a cart and a VB, uh, a maths year 10 book, and studied and then passed it, and the the uh psych turned around and said, How come the grades like and I said, and I told her. She goes, Well, tick, you can go. Oh, did you tell? Yeah, right. Just have a laugh.

SPEAKER_02 16:28

Classic. Yeah, right. So, like I said, you've uh old school style, you've got to go into the recruiting office, you get all that um psychometric testing, medical testing, physical testing, uh, walk like a duck and and quack. Yeah. And uh from there, obviously you get your offer position as uh to head down to Capuga, mate. Run me through this process again. This is early 90s, political correctness doesn't exist. No, there's male and female toilets only.

SPEAKER_03 16:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 16:57

Different times. Yeah, mate.

SPEAKER_03 17:00

Uh flying to Melbourne, me and a mate were the only ones from Perth, um, who I ended up going through everything with up until switching to 5'7. Uh, you know, you get on the bus, they're all polite, you know. Hey, yeah, and you've got your little shitty Kmart suit on and and all that, right? And you got your bags, you get on there, and they're all polite. And then liter literally, as you go through the gate, Dr. De Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. It's on that full track, yeah. Just, you know, well we've got we've got a uh uh I've got I was gifted a uh an old Sergeant Lee Emery doll. Yeah, and you press it and it swears and carries on. That's what it was like, yeah. It was the screaming and yelling, and it was there was the box room, right? The box room was the place that if you really misbehave, you go into the box room. And uh um just quickly the so you know as a kid I did a lot of martial arts, Bruce Lee stuff and taekwondo. And of course they got that on your file. So when we first got in there, our section my section commander, um Nights Saltham, who's now passed away, uh he reads this out and he goes, Oh, you reckon you're a bit of a fighter, you know, and then ri rip it into me, right? Anything they can, anything they can, you reckon you're tough. Uh, what's this taekwondo? And uh the heave beam used to sit on two door frames, and um they're like, come on, come over here, and this is in front of the whole bloody platoon, right? Kick the heat beam. So I kicked it and it came off and landed on one of the other corporal's heads. So every day Corporal Southam would come in and he would go, Recruit earlings, yes, corporal. Do you want a shot at the title? And I'd be like, Wow. But it was it was it was tough, but it was good. It was where I wanted to be. It was I this is gonna sound sick, but I loved Kapuka. Loved it. Loved the mateships, loved the hard work. It's exactly what I wanted to do.

SPEAKER_01 19:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 19:24

It is an interesting place, isn't it? You know, as as basic as as it is, like you said, it you establish just it just changes, it flips your life from what you know to this now institutionalized life. But you're also doing it with like-minded people around you, so it also it becomes fun, I feel.

SPEAKER_03 19:46

I I would say the experience for me was slightly different because growing up in the household I did, I had to iron the handkerchief handkerchiefs to raise a blade standard at 11. I had to put smiley faces on the socks. So that's already happening. I had to polish my boots. And when I got to Kabuka, and you know, when you're in your platoon and it's like who's good at polishing boots and who's good at mate, I reckon I did 20,000 handkerchiefs and and did all the smiley socks and because it was easy for me. I mean, that's that's a bit concerning. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right. But um, no, that's the way it was.

SPEAKER_01 20:32

How long was Capuga?

SPEAKER_02 20:34

Three months. Three months. So three months, and like you said, you enjoyed it all. Firearms, you this is the first time you're using a firearm?

SPEAKER_03 20:41

Yeah, so I it's funny, all throughout growing up as a a a kid, teenager, and even in the army, I was never uh this is gonna sound weird. I was never a gun nut, right? I didn't go and buy myself some shooting glasses and you know, all the the the later sight and all that good gear. It just wasn't my thing. I loved soldiering, I loved tactics, I loved strategy, maneuver and all that sort of stuff. I loved mortars, mortars was great. Yeah. I don't know about now with there all the time in mortars, but um yeah, first time with a gun, yeah. Loved it. Loved it. Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_02 21:23

From uh from Kapuka, is it all infantry in your class or is it uh mixed? Yes.

SPEAKER_03 21:29

Uh there was one guy who had been three three RR and he ri he was a retred, he'd come back in, he'd gotten out, come back in, and he went off to int.

SPEAKER_01 21:41

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 21:42

And there was another guy who uh was earmarked for infantry, but because of his performance, he ended up getting sent to medics. Yep. And then later ended up in int.

SPEAKER_02 21:55

Yeah, here on. Uh yeah, from there, so obviously you go to uh what you call it? IET, that's it. Yeah, that's the one. The school of infantry. You're trying to get it. I almost forgot there, so far out, I forgot about that place. Mate, you get yeah, you head to the school of infantry infantry, mate. And then again, this is going from that basic soldiering now to infantry tactics. You know, we know for a fact that even back then infantry tactics totally different to what it is now, but that's you know, subsequently comes with the evolution of war and understanding. But you had to sing out, mate. How'd you find that process?

SPEAKER_03 22:31

Yeah, it was it was great. It was great. Um we came together as two platoons, um, merged from what was left of two platoons at Capuca, basically. We were merged. Um lifelong friendships. Um that's where the the you know that that infantry brotherhood thing starts to kick in because you you you're sharing the suffering, you're embracing the pain, you you're supporting each other, and you're you know that you're on a journey, this is it, you're going to get to go and become infantry. Yeah. Of course, you you you're an IT. It's like you're a baby.

SPEAKER_02 23:12

How long is uh single?

SPEAKER_03 23:14

Three months.

SPEAKER_02 23:14

So it's three months as well. Three months. What's that? Twelve 12 weeks. Yeah. I think it chopped and changed over the last probably still is chopping and changing. But and again, like you love that whole establishing now becoming an infantryman. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. At the end of Singo, you get obviously your selections go to a battalion there. What do you what do you got?

SPEAKER_03 23:36

So most of us were going to 2 4 R AR. I think there was a couple of positions in the world. 5.7. And at the time, 5.7, you know, there were 186 days' notice to move. Back then, we had this thing called the RPF, the uh RDF, the ready deployment force. I think it changed names a couple of times. Third Brigade, right? One RR, two, two, four RR. And that's where you wanted to go. Now, we hadn't been anywhere. We me we had our platoon just missed Somalia. And we were, oh my God, we've, you know, these guys are in Somalia. But we never had we never had any expectation that we were going to deploy anywhere because the 80s had been pretty dry. Yeah. There'd been the first Gulf War, there had been Somalia, there had been some random, really small stuff, and it was never an expectation. We just wanted to solve it. And that's interesting, I think, because you know, during the war on terror, as they say, a lot of people joined the army to deploy.

SPEAKER_01 24:46

Of course.

SPEAKER_03 24:47

And and that it's a slightly different mindset. It's a different motivation, I guess.

SPEAKER_02 24:54

It's it's it's different. It's really different.

SPEAKER_03 24:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 24:57

And it's been happening since back the World War days, you know. We had kids lying about their age to go to war.

SPEAKER_03 25:04

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 25:05

What m I don't know, I I'd like to try and understand that mindset, but it like you said, for me, I joined the military because 9-11 happened, and I thought, fuck, I want to, I want to go to war. Yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? Like it's I don't know. It's a it's an odd mindset. The game's on. The game's on. Fear of missing out. Yeah, well, that's probably one of the biggest things as well. Biggest thing as well. But uh, like you said, so you get 2-4, you head up to Townsville. Yeah, Townsville back then, definitely, definitely the Wild West. Mate.

SPEAKER_03 25:34

Townsville in the early 90s did not get the memo from Canberra. Let me tell you. It was it was full on, and I loved it. I absolutely loved it. Um discipline was tough. The training, mate, you know, we would go we would go bush for six weeks at a time. Six weeks, ration packs, get your ass out there, hump around, blow shit up, come back. Four weeks later, right? Off for another four weeks over here. And the training was see nowadays, and I feel for young soldiers, I do, and I and I felt this way probably even at the end of my career, that because of resources and because things changed into we're training to certify, we're training to certify, we're training to certify. And I was I was like, hang on, I've I've been on two operations here, Rwanda and East Timor. I know how to use my rifle. I I just marched 40 clicks the other day. Yeah, why am I spending six months at the wets to fire lasers to get certified? So I I feel really privileged in my career to have gone through that tough digger stage three and living it. Living it for four weeks. Or as a Mortiman, hump that tube. I mean, my neck and my back don't appreciate it. Yeah, but I appreciate that it was tough, mate. And you there was no if you were weak, well, you were, you know, we know what happened. You basically got sorted out one way or another. Um, your spree de core was fantastic, and in many ways, I'm grateful of for all that tough training because later when I went to Wonder and East Timor, I I 100% believe that that exposure and resilience helped me get through those moments.

SPEAKER_02 27:51

Yeah, exactly, mate. And that's the whole point of it. That's the whole point of the inventory life being so hard. Yeah, because when you go overseas, it gets harder 100% and more dangerous. Yeah. Now, like you said, uh the first Gulf Wars happened, they fizzled out pretty quickly. Yeah. Storm um Storm and Norman sorted that pretty quick, didn't he? Yeah. Um Somalia kicked off. One RAR went to Somalia.

SPEAKER_03 28:19

Yeah, interesting. One RAR went to Somalia, but they but the battalion was severely undermanned. So a lot of the guys that went to Somalia were actually from two from 2-4. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 28:31

Yeah, I've had one guy on that that was from 2-4 that yeah, backfield one RR to go, which you know they obviously had their difference uh differences over there in Somalia. But what's happening for the next couple of years? Because 92 you join, 95 is your trip to Rwanda, it's just exercise and just typical barracks life.

SPEAKER_03 28:52

Soldier, train, um, lucky in the drinking, drinking, uh fighting, uh surviving. And uh I ended up in mortars, I was pretty lucky. Mortars was one of those things, so I went there really early, you know, and I was a lid. Speaking of lids, I've got to very quickly tell you this one. When I first got to 2-4 RA, you know, the platoon commander and platoon sergeant are doing that interview, you know, what do you want to do? What do you achieve? Blah blah blah. And the office back then was pretty primitive, and there was a couple of senior diggers sitting around. And I turn around at freaking 20 years old, skinny little runt, and I turn around and I go, Oh, sir, one day I want to go to SAS, I want to do selection. And one of the senior diggers picks this up, and my nickname for 12 months was Sal, Special Air Lid. Special Air Lid. Yeah, right. It took me 12 months to get rid of that. Uh and of course, I never ended up doing selection. Yeah. Uh, no, so the uh mortar mortars, the mortar course was one of those courses where not many people wanted to do it. A lot of a lot of guys wanted to go recon snipers. That was the you know, that's the next best thing to special forces, right? So they would wanted to do that. Uh, and then it was like, oh, we've got vacancies on the mortar course. Right, okay, I'll go and do that. Enjoyed it, yeah, ended up in the platoon.

SPEAKER_01 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 30:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 30:26

Maggots. Death from above. Yeah, that's him, mate. Lock up your daughters. Here comes mortars, mate. I'll fucking love mortars. I'm a mortar man. Mortars for life. So you spent, like I said, you spend the next couple of years just uh living the barracks life. Where does the the talk of Rwanda pop up? Like where does this come onto the radar and you know, all your ears prick up and go, oh shit, we could be we could be on here.

SPEAKER_03 30:49

Yeah, to be honest with you, I don't remember when it came up in my mind or where I heard, but it obviously did that the conversation happened and it was like, right, someone's deploying and this, that, and the other. And what's I think what's interesting about that is that when you're when you're a 21, 22-year-old soldier, you don't listen to the Ian stuff, right? And back then we didn't get briefs or anything like that. You didn't watch the news, you didn't care about geostrategic, you know, blah blah. You just drank beer and shot shit. Yeah, when's dinner? When's dinner? Yeah, right. When's breakfast? Right. And um and so the context and the understanding of what was happening wasn't there. I I think in memory it was the massacre, the big, you know, massacre, and everyone was like, and we saw on the news all grainy footage of people, you know, in the streets, dead and and all the rest of it. And it was like, right now into the sport.

SPEAKER_02 32:00

Yeah, yeah. Um it was just yeah, no context in the state. No, like as sad as um not to say it's sad, but you're just like, I don't fucking care, it's got nothing to do with me.

SPEAKER_03 32:10

Yeah, yeah. And and typical soldier. Yeah, and you you need a little vacuum, a little bubble and with your mates, but obviously Alpha Company deployed first, and then it was like, right, is there going to be a second deployment? Um, I was I kind I wasn't in Bravo Company, I was in Mortars, so I was like, oh, I guess I'm not going, Bravo's company's going. And then they had a shortage of guys, and I got put back in, I got brought over from mortars, and I ended up in a section with all the guys I went through Kapuka and Singham.

SPEAKER_01 32:42

Oh, you're right.

SPEAKER_03 32:43

Yeah, yeah. So that was for me, that transition back into to my mates was awesome, but I think it was a really powerful thing later on.

SPEAKER_02 32:54

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 32:55

Really powerful.

SPEAKER_02 32:56

So let's talk about the process of getting over to Wanda again, mate. This is your first appointment overseas. Uh, you know, you've um you know, you're getting all your briefs, understand that there's been a big massacre, and that there's an actual threat over there, you know, tooling up for the first time, getting the you know, your bombs and guns and everything, and it's got to be, you know, I and I understand what it what it's like because I've you know I've done it on multiple occasions. So run me through that, mate.

SPEAKER_03 33:24

Like mate, pre-deployment. Interesting. So, yeah, getting all the briefs. Now, I vividly remember they sent over. I don't know whether these guys were from the embassy or they were from D FAT or they were from I don't know, I don't know where they were from. Like I said, I was 22 years old and didn't give a shit. I remember them saying something, so they brief us about Rwanda, and I remember them saying this. One of them turned around and he said, When you go in there, understand that the Rwandan soldiers and the militia, particularly the Rwandan soldiers, can smell fear. So don't look scared. And I remember when we landed, they had the Rwandan army had everything set up so that they could steal half our shit from our bags and take what they want and act as customs, so to speak. And I remember in my brain, they can smell fear, they can smell fear, blah blah blah blah blah. And years later, when I was down the path of being a human intelligence operator, I realized that it's not that they could smell fear, it's they could read non-verbal communication because they lived in a world where a flinch of an eye could mean a machete's coming out. Um, but going over there, Qantas wouldn't fly us. They uh they were defense's carrier of choice. What's the old saying? It's time to do warrior shit. Everyone loves doing warrior shit until it's time to do warrior shit. Right. Uh they wouldn't fly in there. So uh Tower Air, right? Um 727 officers up the top, enlisted down the bottom. Thank you. We smoked cigarettes on that plane all the way there.

SPEAKER_01 35:19

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_03 35:20

I don't know how all the all the guys, the shaved leg triathlon guys coped with it. Because recon.

SPEAKER_05 35:28

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 35:30

Your words not mine. Uh sorry, Brinky, if you're listening. Um, but no, we this that's what it was, mate. We smoked cigarettes all the way to Rwanda. And when we landed, it was night, pitch black. Alpha company were waiting for us. And I remember when we came through reality hit. Kigali does not have many street lights, my friend. Yeah, or it does now. Yeah. Does now, but you're just driving in the dark, you have no idea where you're going, you know you're about to replace these guys, and you're trying to look as confident as possible in front of your mates who have just lived horrible shit for six months. And that now your mates that you were in Kapuka and Singho with only two years prior are now veterans. And it's distinct.

SPEAKER_02 36:26

The different smells, the different just everything, you know. You know, you know, again, I understand that smell when you land into a country with all you know, fully told up, and you're like, fuck, shit, I'm here. You can smell it, the smells, you just and it the the aura, the feel is just different, you know what I mean? It's not like going a on a holiday to Fiji.

SPEAKER_03 36:46

Did you know it's funny, the the more deployments I so I did six ops overseas throughout my career, and and every time I went, and even when I went to Bad Baghdad as a contractor, you know, that ex that first baptism of first deployment, and it's in some cases fire, you it impacts you, right? But the more you do it, the more it desensitizes you to it. And I remember when we went to East Timor in the back of a mob coming out of Dilli to go to wherever, and we just got off the the Herc. And I had a mate sitting opposite me who had been to uh Cambodia, and we're looking at each other, and all the guys who had never deployed before, they're all like looking around, looking around, and their heads are darting and the smells, and there's like you know, everything's burning and all the rest of it. And I'd looked at my mate who went to um Cambodia and he goes, Just another shit old mate. Just another shit old because the the the sensors just switch back onto it. Yeah, yeah. You go, let's like when I arrived in Baghdad, and you know, ISIS was a thing. It was only it was only just getting kicked out of Fallujah, right? And you boys pick pick me up the the in pest. Yeah. And um I get in the vehicle and I'm like, hey, been here before, but I've never been there before. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, I get it. I get it.

SPEAKER_02 38:11

Once you meet up with the other company, are they uh obviously there's somewhat nursery stuff happening? Are you getting fed any information off them exactly, you know, what they've been through? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 38:22

So you know, standard thing. The dig the diggers, the diggers are doing the digger net thing. Hey, this is that and this is this, and don't get the cigarettes from Rwanda, get the ones from Kenya, and these the the kids that'll help you out, and and then you get your ink brief and all that sort of good stuff. Um But those moments, and I and I think only soldiers know this those moments when you're handing over with mates, there's a kind of a respect of I I I need to shut my mouth. They've been here. I don't know shit. We might be equal in terms of mates and and all the rest of it, but this dude here, he's lived it, and it's in my best interest to listen.

SPEAKER_02 39:16

And what what were they what were they telling you? Like there how long were they there for?

SPEAKER_03 39:21

So they were there for six months, they had a horrendous time um because they had to set up the hospital, which was one of the main things. The whole place had been ransacked, there were bodies all through it. Um the our accommodation was the old um or the previous Rwandan Army officers academy. The place had been mortared, so you know, the asbestos that they had to sweep out of the joint and set up and find their way. But they this a lot of their challenges for these guys, you know, we focus a lot of people focus on cabello in terms of oh, you you were in cabello, but I often remind people that you know there were other things that happened that particularly for Alpha Company, that first setup was horrific.

SPEAKER_02 40:13

Um, just quickly, can you just explain to the listener out there about what how Rwanda kicked off?

SPEAKER_03 40:23

Yeah, yeah. Uh so Rwanda has essentially three tribes. In fact, the area called the Great Lakes region, and this is important to understand to the story, the Great Lakes region of Rwanda, Burundi, partly Uganda, but the Democratic Republic of Congo, which was then Zaire, there are two dominant tribes, the Hutu and the Tutsi. What happens, and what continues to happen even today, is when one side is moved or displaced, the balance gets out of whack. So Tutsis will move into an area, all of a sudden there's more Tutsis, they then have the dominant power, and then they hook into Hutu. In the case of the Rwanda genocide, the big one, um, you know, people will point to a lot of things. People say, Oh, it was because of colonialism. Great, whatever. The Europeans, right? It was because of the minerals and the wealth. Yeah, sure. You know, the the key northern Kivu region and the area surround where Goma sits on the border has that much untapped wealth, right? So, yes, there's those aspects as well, but essentially what occurred in the leader was that so there was a uh a president's plane was shot down, but there was a a militia called the Interahumway, and these guys, even today, come into play. Hutu. The biggest issue for the Hutus unresolved was the fact that the Tutsis, who were in the minority, had most of the wealth. Okay. So they were able to, you know, live in the palaces and and get their kids good jobs in the public service, and they were all the officers in the army and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And the Hutus were treated like shit. That was their position. So the intra humway orchestrated an uprising which led through radio, was one of the empowering forces. Um, now's the time, because because the planes are gone down and two presidents are down and there's there's chaos. Now's the time we go. So that's when the big massacre happened. Now why didn't anybody do anything about it? This is the big question that that people ask, right? Even even from the cabello massacre, why didn't anybody do anything about it? Politics, domestic politics. America had just experienced Black Hawk down, they'd just been through the Gulf War, there was an election coming up. We ain't doing this. We ain't going to Africa.

SPEAKER_01 43:27

The French were there?

SPEAKER_03 43:28

The French were there. Now the the French they were predominantly down where the north the Kivu region is and to the south the southern border with DRC. And there was now, of course, the French have been involved in Africa for a long time. They still are, yep. Yeah. And we know that they are there for their national interests. Yeah, of course, yeah. Just as we go to everybody, right? So I can't be too critical of them. But yeah, there was there was us, the UN, and then there was the French. And they were very clearly carved out borders of patrolling and stuff.

SPEAKER_02 44:13

So And as soon as it got spicy, the French pretty much picked up and left.

SPEAKER_03 44:17

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. I tell you what, they don't they look sweet with their berets and their uh and their Ray-Ban sunglasses, they yeah.

SPEAKER_01 44:27

No French gold.

SPEAKER_03 44:29

So that's uh in a nutshell, mate, that's that's gonna happen. Yeah, then what occurs is uh into the lead up to the UN piece. So there was already UN there, um General uh Dalier, who wrote the book Um Dancing with the Devil or something, I think it was, um, who witnessed the big massacre and stuff, hotel Rwanda shit, right? Um then what happened was this balance of power shifts again because the Hutus have gone and done their massacre. So rolls across the border, Tootsies, military, called the Rwandan Patriotic Front. We're here to get you out. So what do they do? They start massacring Hutus all the way from the border into Kigali. This is 94. 1994. Yep. And Alpha Company deployed, I can't remember how many months it wasn't long after that. There were still bodies in the street. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 45:32

Yeah, I think they estimate up to anywhere between 500 to a million. Yeah. And you know, uh it's just it's one of those things, you know, these days we throw in that word genocide. Like it's you know, it's like calling everyone an NRL a superstar these days like the media. He's a superstar, so relax. Just stop throwing that word around too much, you know.

SPEAKER_03 45:49

I'm gonna ask you a question that I used to uh to ask my trainees at the in school to make a point. Which war since World War II has killed most people?

SPEAKER_02 46:06

Uh civilian populace?

SPEAKER_03 46:08

Yeah. It'd have to be uh both both.

SPEAKER_02 46:12

But both it'd have to be somewhere in Africa. It'd have to be one of those those conflicts. Somalia or or Rwanda. There was millions, millions.

SPEAKER_03 46:21

First and second Congo War.

SPEAKER_01 46:23

Yeah, that's what I mean. Millions.

SPEAKER_03 46:24

And the first and second Congo War kicked off straight after, in fact, arguably the Cabello massacre was the first shot in the first and second Congo War.

SPEAKER_02 46:36

Yeah, I've always known that the African, that as that African period between that 90s and early 90s was there was millions. Not only Duwanda, we're talking Somalia. There was a million plus. Yeah. It's like it's happening. The Stalingrad stuff. It's still happening. Yeah. 100% it is. Yeah. That's what I mean. Like we throw in that word genocide, like everyone the left throw around like it's like a dartboard now. Everything's a genocide. Ten people killed, that's genocide. No, we'll relax. We'll tell you a story about genocide.

SPEAKER_03 47:06

But don't worry, we can change definitions at any point in history that we want, right?

SPEAKER_02 47:10

Yeah. Which we'll, you know, we'll talk about this shortly because I find this interesting, and it's it's stuff that people need to know. Especially what Australian soldiers did. Uh like you said, um company's been through they've been through the setup, which like you said, they're they're getting there, driving through the streets, they've seen the damage, now they've got to set up this hospital. It's out of control.

SPEAKER_03 47:36

Yep. Some you know, a couple of the rooms were the the pricks put the bodies right up to the ceiling. So stacked them. Yeah, stacked them all the way up to the ceilings, knowing full well that that the UN were coming.

SPEAKER_02 47:54

So you guys do that hand over with Alpha Company. Alpha Company bug off, they go back to Australia. Yep. Now you guys are in control. What company's that? Sorry, what company? Bravo. Bravo Company. So Bravo Company's there now. What is your role from here? Like what what what's your so every day is uh we had these rotations, right?

SPEAKER_03 48:13

So we essentially had three responsibilities. So the infantry there, we had um the three three platoons, obviously. Uh one platoon would look after the hospital, one platoon would look after uh I'm trying to get my memory correct here, um, would look after the base, so the front gate. That's a drawing of the front gate that I did, by the way, as a sidebar. Um so that you would look after the Raven Pickett's uh mobility security stuff. You do that there. Yeah, mate. Yeah, that should be the pencils, they're the pencils that should be in the warm oil.

SPEAKER_02 48:50

That type of stuff should be in there. They got enough of my stuff in there, mate, including my mug shot.

SPEAKER_03 48:54

That should be there. But anyway. Um so uh yeah, there was security responsibilities both at the hospital and uh on the the base, and the other platoon would do a rotation of or the third platoon would have you'd they'd be on rest, rotation of rest, and which we all really enjoyed getting out of the base and going on protection patrols to um out in the field with the medics, right? Because remember, it was a medical mission. This is one of the things that people forget. It was a medical mission. And that comes into play and important when mental health comes into play about why we could or couldn't this or that later down the track, about putting into context what you're there for. So our job was there to support the medics.

SPEAKER_02 49:51

Yeah. So it's like, you know, like like a reconstruction task force, budgets for medics. Thing, right? Provide security for the medics while they do their That's it. That's it.

SPEAKER_03 49:59

And and you know what, like the going out onto the going out into the field was i eye eye-opening because you're going into villages, right? And um, but it was enjoyable as well. And if you'll indulge me, at some point I'll tell you about Madame Carr. Madame Carr lived on the base of the mountains where the Gorillas in the Mist were, and she used to have Diane Fossey live with her, and later Sigourney Weaver and the film crew from Gorillas in the Mist.

SPEAKER_01 50:33

No shit.

SPEAKER_03 50:34

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:34

Wow. Just quickly, mate, when was the first time, you know, you've uh I guess experienced um seeing the trauma, you know, yeah, seeing a dead body out there or uh seeing the carnage. When you know, when did you first, you know, you and the boys like, do you fucking see that?

SPEAKER_01 50:56

Yeah, the fuck is that?

SPEAKER_03 50:57

Yeah, so the first time, so we had our hospital, and then directly behind our hospital was the um Menaissance Frontiers Hospital. I'm pretty sure it was MSF. And they had an IC, they had a trauma triage room, which was a concrete slab with a pretty much a hose in it to wash blood out. And as infantry, one of our roles at the hospital was to, when the alarm went, go and get the wounded and bring them back down into the surgery so the Australian surgeons could do their thing. So we were one of our stretcher bearers. And so the first time I saw, and it's interesting you asked that question because as a young soldier, your biggest fear is not being shot. Well, mine wasn't being shot at. My biggest fear was failing at the point of something like that. And what I meant by don't, you know, it's like it's going through your head, don't vomit, don't vomit, don't vomit, don't pass out, don't just blah blah blah blah. And a couple a couple of the guys did. Human natural reaction passed out, and it's like, it's all right, mate. All young boys, too. They've never experienced anything. Never never, right? And I think the first guy from memory, and there was a big, big turnover constantly. Mines were a big issue. Um, this guy came in, and what would normally happen is if they stepped on a mine, they'd end up losing their other leg as well because their bone would penetrate and then there'd be infection and all the rest of it. Um, this guy was a mine victim, lost his lower leg, bone sticking out. Um, I think his other leg was was half chuffed off, and and um yeah, there's blood everywhere, right? So it was like ding-a-ding-ding-a ding-ding. Little Urlo runs up with his mates, grabs a stretcher, chucks old mate on, brings him down, and then it's like, welcome, you've been you've been blooded, literally. Rinse and repeat, go.

SPEAKER_02 53:09

And it was just constant. Pretty much, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 53:11

And you know, not just mines, machete attacks and machetes and gunshots, gunshots, and and all of that sort of thing. You've got to understand Sounds like Melbourne. Yeah. Maybe maybe Kigali could have done you know how we could have solved the genocide before it happened? Machete bins. In Rwanda. Imagine that.

SPEAKER_02 53:32

The the dark humour, sorry, for the listeners out there, but there's only there's only one way to get through, mate. That's exactly right. But like you said, mate, so this is where your first experience, and and the the wild part is you didn't train for this. You didn't Kapuga didn't teach you this, Singo didn't teach you this, battalion life doesn't teach you this. It's not it's not the infantry, it's not generally the infantry role. No, that's right. You know?

SPEAKER_03 53:55

That's right. It's like strap in here, boys. You're not there to fix the problems, you are here to assist.

SPEAKER_02 54:03

Um what month do you land into Rwanda? Early uh 95?

SPEAKER_01 54:10

I think it was August. I think it's written on that plaque over there.

SPEAKER_03 54:18

I'm trying to know which plaque. No, it was early. No, it must have been hang on. Uh Cabello was 23rd of April. I'd been there three months, say January. So January you got in, yep.

SPEAKER_02 54:30

So January you get in. As I said, the the mascara's uh late April. What's happening? Like like you said, you're you guys are doing a rotational system between the between the platoons, you'd either hospital front gate or head out and patrol with the medics. Romy to talk me through the the the patrolling out with the medics. Like this has got to be like you said, you're moving to these these remote villages. I'm I'm sure it's quite confronting getting out to even out there, like you've seen what you've seen in the hospital, now you're going out to so now you're out there and you're really feeling and smelling Africa, right?

SPEAKER_03 55:05

Deepest, darkest Africa, right? And um, you know, the kind of uh might sound silly, but Tears at the Sun, Africa. You you're going to villages, right?

SPEAKER_02 55:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 55:18

And there were some very interesting moments and times, you know, talking about soldiers getting too used to their environment, we were always told don't go when you when you get off the six by six, don't go straight off the road to to take a leak. Because remember, they put mines out there. And the number of times we'd stop, have a darry, and you're going, Holy shit, what are we doing? We just Johnny, where you going? Where you going? And you oh yeah. Um, we would find dudes, we would find guys who were uh remembering there was a lot of now that now that the massacre's over and the UN's here, we're gonna take a machete to the next door neighbor who cheated on somebody's wife or whatever and blame blame it on militia and all the rest of it, and we're gonna do this. So there's all that stuff going on. Absolutely. So we would find guys who were crawling along the side of the the road, and one of the preferred methods was um chop their Achilles tendons with um machete and just leave them. So it was like find a stretch of basket thing or something, and you'd turn it around to the locals going, get this guy up to the next village, that's where he's gonna live. You know, like we can't fix everybody. You there's too many. Other times where the so when you're out on these patrols, the Rwandan Patriotic Front at this point, they're in control, they've become the formalized kind of army, now the Rwanda Patriotic Army. And they would, and I get a giggle out of some of the scenes I see in some of the some of the Wari series and stuff, where you come to that checkpoint, right? And their checkpoint checkpoints consisted of two chairs, a piece of string, maybe a um a unimog with a with a um a 50 cal on it, and but they would stop, they would stop you, and they hated the UN, and the number of times what they would try and do is take your ID off you, and you literally have your Browning 9mm, have your Browning 9mm as a driver sitting there pointing just in case things went south, and it was just like a you know, it was a pissing competition, 100% pissing competition between us and them. And you guys obviously stood out with your big blue helmets and UN on the front of it. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Big white vehicle, UN. Yeah, that's it, yeah. And we didn't have we didn't have grenades, we didn't have any hem heavy weapons, and we had a very limited number of um magazines as well. So uh you were always conscious that de-escalation, de-escalation, de-escalation. Um but those trips out were really good in the sense that we were able to interact with the kids and the medics would do the do the inoculations and they'd weigh them and you'd play soccer with the kids and you know, just oh Easter. Easter we decide we're gonna put on this thing for this orphanage and we're gonna go there and we're gonna hand out Easter eggs and stuff. I've actually got a photo somewhere of me with one of the kids, but one of the guys one of the guys that's better. One of the guys turns around and he's got, you know, this Easter bunny outfit and the kids freak out because they've never seen a giant bunny before. So he takes the top part off, the kids freak out and start running because they've never seen a giant bunny take its head off. Um but the yeah, the the memories, the good memories of the kids, you know, most most veterans that were there remember that that good side.

SPEAKER_02 59:25

Now, up until the mask, you know, you'd like I said, you're just doing this rotation period. How was it like two weeks on, one week on? Yeah, something like that.

SPEAKER_03 59:33

Prince and repeat, two weeks. I think it from memory it was two weeks. So you take it. I could be wrong. It might have been one, but it was it was a rotation, and we had three days of R in the middle, and it was caught RR, not Rockle. Yeah. Um three days to go and get messy in Nairobi, uh, and then come back, and then you had like a eight-day, ten day in the middle to how messy was that Nairobi. Oh, mate. Just boozing, mate. And cheap booze too. Uh Carnivore's Carnivore's uh hotel still exists. Um sells gaming meat, or it used to. Uh, and every Thursday night they'd have what's called White Trash Night. And uh the uh yeah, the stories that come out of that place, mate. I don't know what rating you just madness.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:28

Sounds like Townsville. Oh yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Mate, yeah, right. So like I said, you were going through this rotation now. During this time, is there any scenarios where, you know, again, this is before the massacre, there's is there any scenarios where it's like fuck we this this could turn south quickly?

SPEAKER_03 1:00:47

There was an incident. Sorry, there no, there were multiple incidents. Um, and we had these alarms set up that you know, if if thing it was always there was always confrontation with the Rwandan Patriotic Army, and they were directly opposite the hospital. And on one particular case, there was an incident and there was a standoff, and you're basically sitting on the roof, or our position was on the roof, or a higher, higher balcony, it was, and you know, you got this this dodgy Rwandan Panard tank coming around, you know, six-wheel, four-wheel, whatever it was, jobby coming around and moving the turret, and you're like, shit just got real. This is this is there were multiple cases where we had standoffs where it was you're pointing your rifle at each other. And I I massive credit to particularly um a Warren Officer Scott, SAS guy, he was a uh medic, and he um was very good at at stopping or or deconflicting those standoffs. Very good at it. Um but when you're a young digger and you're you're looking at the rusty end of a K-47 and you're having a little little trying to have a peek at the safety cache, uh, and you're looking at these white yellow eyes who are extremely angry, angry and s and screaming, you're just like, well, I don't know how you're not even thinking. Yeah, I I I don't know how this ends, but if I shoot, then we're all opening up here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:33

Fuck mates, and then you know, moving forward, this is this is where it gets wild. Like we spoke about right at the start of the podcast, there's probably only a platoon worth of blokes that witch witnessed this, and you know, like you said with the after company, something similar. Now, 22nd of April. The RPF. RPF then the RPF, yeah. Now RP, RPA, yeah, RPA, Army, Rwandan Patriot, I done commit atrocities. Run me through this this this day, and obviously where you are, how it happens, when you get notified, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_03 1:03:14

So um for context of why and uh before the how. Um so uh after the Tootsis came back in, a lot of Hutos were kicked out of their home for good reason. You just massacred our people, right? So lots of retribution. These people couldn't go back into or chose not to, in some cases, go back into the then Zaire, Democratic Republic Congo. So they ended up in displaced persons camps. So administered by the United Nations and non-government agencies, um, big, big camps. Cabello had 110,000 people in it. The the AFL grand final was on yesterday, and that crowd was one person short of capacity, 100,000 people. And every time I hear that number, it reminds me of sh. And uh so the problem was that the interah humway were using those camps, big camps, as recruitment and human shield, right? And sustainment, right? So they didn't have to worry about food because they got it from the UN. They had all of these young people who are now displaced, and guess what? That perfect recruitment. Now, the Rwandan Patriotic Army at some point had said to the United Nations, you we want you to clear these camps. Now, the United Nations is a political beast at the best of time, but on the ground, because you've got multi-nations, they all get a say. And the decision was no, the UN is not going to clear these camps. And so the Rwanda Patriotic Army went, well, we're going to. So, you know, I recall the OC and um and others uh telling us it was bubbling away. The word the word was on the street that something was going to happen. And uh the section I was in, we had we were on rest, I think. And um two sections from one of the other platoons, plus the SAS lads, um, Churchy and Jordo and all those guys, great guys, rest in peace, Churchy, one of the best guys ever. Um, and medics were sent to Cabello because it was on, right? We we knew that something, well they knew that something was gonna happen. And as the OC said in an interview I saw, he said he knew something big was gonna happen, and he was like everybody was really concerned. And so we're like, oh, we're not going, we're on rest or whatever we were doing, uh, go and have a shower and um you know, clean my weapon, whatever. Um and then we started to get in briefs about it. It's like, okay, this is this is big, this is bigger than anything we've heard about before. So the two sections went off with the medics and they went up there and they were there for the initial massacre, the the start of it, the first 24 hours of it. And then we got sent as reinforcements about 20, yeah, about I think it was about 24 hours after the killing.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:48

So you get sent in as a reinforcement, mate. Like, run me through what's going on here. Like, how far are you traveling? What are you seeing on the way?

SPEAKER_03 1:06:56

Yeah. So we we drove from Kigali um in a packet of a couple of vehicles. I was a driver as well. Um, and um as so we're getting there, we know that something's going on because we're seeing people coming the other way. We stop at a little base, and from memory, I can't remember it was the Zambians, um, what we called Zambat or whether it was the Nigerians, but it was um we stopped there, we get a bit of a brief, and then we drive up the hill. And the first thing so as it was really muddy and the vehicles struggled to not get bogged. And as we're getting up towards the to the monastery to Cabello, all you can see is because the the massacre has started. And all you can see is these um what were um blue tarpaulin little humpy things, tents, right? Uh stripped of all the blue temp tarpaulins, the tarpaulins are on the ground, and then this wave hit the vehicle of death. Just hit the vehicle. Never forget it. Probably about 500 meters out. And you know that the guys are there and they're in the middle of this. And then the the first thing that really I noticed as we got drove forward, because obviously you got you know responsibilities of making sure you get your vehicle in the right place and what's happening and all the rest of it is the sight of a hundred thousand people pushed onto a ridgeline shoulder to shoulder just staring.

SPEAKER_02 1:09:52

Where do you have to go? Where where are you pushing to?

SPEAKER_03 1:09:55

So our role is to get there and to and to relieve to help to support right and so how many of the diggers are already out there? So there's two sections already there plus the the SAS blokes plus plus uh Carol Vaughan Evans the doctor another female doctor um uh SIG medics so this is your your platoon that's out there it wasn't our platoon it was is Irito Halloran's platoon but we were there to reinforce and who was like how many blokes with you? Is it a section or nine yeah so we've only got a platoon there of gotcha of infantry plus some some SAS catches the issue was that so the Rwandan patriotic army were saying leave but every time they said leave and the crowd would disperse the intra-Rahumway would come out of a building out of a roof in a building on the inside and start shooting the crowd shooting their own people to make sure they stayed so these people were damned if they did and damned if they didn't if they didn't you know they got there was mortifier there was shooting there was some shattering by the the RPA so people were told okay go take your children and go and then they go into a lineup and I remember vividly seeing this lineup of people who had said okay we'll leave and then like a scene out of Schindler's list a Rwandan officer or soldier he's looking at IDs and in front of everybody he just pulls a pistol out and blows the guy in the head boom and then everybody obviously stamped um the just quickly I mean they say we were there for 10 days right stretch a carry from hell this is why I say I I appreciate how tough Townsville was in the early 90s right 10 day stretch a carry I'll just go back a bit so so we get there what's our job guys we need you to go out and collect bodies or wounded wounded as a priority collect bodies this that and the other there's a photo in that book over there and you what you see is the crowd and then you see all this debris and tarpaulins but I can actually point at all the dead bodies on the way between the crowd and us where that photo was taken and you had to walk through those tarpaulins and you're stepping on dead bodies and then the the shots would ring out and what do we do run down crawl observe aim and if you've got the right rules of engagement fire you you you were hitting the deck in human feces you know dead like lying next to you and then you you get back up and then I I remember the first time it happened was when I went onto my guts and then I didn't do it from that point and just went no I'll risk just being on a knee thanks um so this killings going on the intra harm way we're like why don't we're infantry let's just assault the there's only like five or six of them and you'll see in the photos from the the book and in the war memorial there's there's where we're looking up and where our rifles are pointed fairly high and there's guys looking through the scopes we were looking for those intra harmway that were in that roof cavity there was discussion hey we can resolve this issue right now let us just go and assault that that roof and radio and satcom or whatever it was back then I I think it was just VHF uh no that is not in your rules of engagement that is not in your ability to do anything so our job became count the dead pace counter you guys are scouts go with Warrant Officer Scott and count dead bodies click click click click click click click at one point the Rwandan army came in and trucked a lot of the dead bodies away so that we couldn't they there wasn't a his like an accurate count um but if you look at the photos I mean you know uh the world was watching and um so so yeah do that count the bodies bury the bodies fix the wounded um and support your mates on a 10 day stretcher carry just in that first day or two you you said you obviously seeing these guys shooting down into the crowd what what else are you witnessing what else you like you said there's the machetes are they just chopping up people or there was hitting people with there was machete you're and you're witnessing this with your own eyes yeah and you just can't do anything. No so I'll give you I'll give you a classic example there was a guy that I call we called the running man right now this guy was trying to escape and it was very you can see from the the photos from Cabello that it was very acute ridgeline right very steep and our section I I don't know whether it was day three or four or whatever this guy decided he was going to run and so he's running and we hear this firing because as the days went on the killing became and the shooting became more sparse right so there wasn't as the intensity say if after an hour you heard an RPK going you were like right what's going on let's sort this out or not but so this guy was running and before his death before his death 100 meters away from the section I was with he ran down this embankment and he was rolling and they were firing RPK at him bursts of it and you could see it peppering and this is going to sound insane but we had reached the point where we were cheering him on like he was a winger for the Panthers and grand final right we're like go mate go yeah yeah and then he got to the bottom and he started to run up towards us and we're going I can't help you so we're cheering him but then there's this realization that oh shit don't come to us we can't help you and he kept running towards us and towards us and then it was like this all of a sudden I don't know I reckon the I reckon the soldier if we can call him that was 16 from the hip aka 47 first round went straight across his abdomen opened him up like the sausages um second one went through because it was just a three round burst uh second one um skimmed through his neck nothing major but I remember the third one went straight through his femoral artery and it was like watching an empty a bottle of coke turned upside down and just the bottom chopped out of it and he died 100 meters in front of us in fact I don't even think it was a hundred metres I think it was closer and that that kind of thing was happening all the time that was that was and then the the United Nations helicopter half the time wouldn't land to I'm gonna I'm gonna say something to you that will put into context the intensity of that situation in doctrine policy procedure whatever you want to call when you do triage of wounded you normally do it with those who have the least amount of time to live the goal now go first. They go first and then old mate who's just got an arm wound or a leg wound priority two or whatever how I don't know how they categorize it now they're always changing things they go second and then non-life threatening here's a cigarette and a pan at old mate there were so many casualties and no ability to get them out that we had to do reverse triage meaning you're walking around with a warrant officer who has the responsibility of people are holding their children out with a machete wound or a bullet wound or fragmentation their arm hanging off and they're like mazungul mazungu white man mazungal mazung and they're handing their child to you and you're like I can't take it next and then you go around hundred and hundred thousand people and you get back to that baby you're now taking it but you're putting in the pit so that's the level of um intensity of that situation in those casualties like you just spoke about with that baby you know we're talking men, women children. Yeah just dead on the ground and over that 10 days there were women who had had their breasts cut off there were there were uh there was um uh one of the casualties the machete because the this woman had her child on her back the machete had gone through the child's head and into her back right there were babies suckling on their mother's dead body right it was if you watch if you watch the movie Tears of the Sun and I use this only as a reference point not for the for for any other reason in the village scene that you see where there's the craziness of the killing that's going on multiply that scene by 200 3000 I don't know um fuck mate it's just I don't get it I just don't get it and how many how many of these um RPA guys are there? Uh so we were outnumbered massively there was I I I think there was about 2,600.

SPEAKER_02 1:21:51

2,600 causing this yeah just doing it honestly doing what doing what they want yeah because they can and they knew that you guys weren't going to do anything unless they shot at you.

SPEAKER_03 1:22:01

That's right but even if they did shoot at us even if they did shoot at us and this is where I come back to obviously when you're in that environment and for years after you know that Cabello in many ways led me into intelligence because I walked away from and in the poem that I wrote that that went into the book um of what I observed and what I thought um the big question for me was why? How? How can you you know I'm 22 years old how can how can this be happening? Where's all the where's all the tanks here to get these people out what what's this UN badge all about what what's what's going on um and it very much drove me I think later on down the track to to try to understand why these things happen in the world what's the answer why why was this allowed to happen?

SPEAKER_02 1:23:11

And again it wasn't just Rwanda so uh Somalia was the same thing other parts of the you know like they said the Congo was the same thing like what why why did conventional forces just sit back obviously we we know it's a lot of it's political but well that it doesn't make sense does it I I here's a phrase for you interlocking wheels of politics because you can say politics in the sense of the UN okay that's one level correct the UN then there's the internal UN piece you know there was an Indian armored response force sitting in Kigali that would not move would not come to help that's another level of politics then there's the politics of the then the Australian politics okay so you send us there with five magazines each four magazines each 200 rounds of minimi right no no heavy weapons you throw us on a hill and you go watch that shit boys and by the way can you bury the dead uh so there's that politics as well there's this and it all interlinks into this horrible soup of why shit happens every day right and then you can take all that back to domestic politics our politics is our government of the day of the time of the flavor willing to make hard decisions hard moral decisions if there's an election coming up if the demographic that they're elect they vote for agrees or disagrees with the conflict if you know what's the risk calculus are we going to lose 30 Australian soldiers here?

SPEAKER_03 1:25:09

Okay can we justify that over taking offensive action? What's the second order effect? Are we going to start a war here?

SPEAKER_02 1:25:18

Politics mate what's even the point of even just sending soldiers in you you're just sending you guys there to absolutely do nothing to the effect like heal a couple of people and then 4,000 people are massacred on that day? Yeah or yeah within that you know the first few days it was up to 4,000 5,000 people and you've seen the carnage not to mention like the like I spoke about early in the podcast the the mental effects that it this took on Australian soldiers like that's not out it's not an ethos to let this shit happen.

SPEAKER_03 1:25:53

So let's go there for a second right there's the mental health on the ground and you're in it and you're just getting through and you're there for your mates Australian digger wise let's do this let's go look after your mates rotate he's John o's tired have a cigarette mate I've got the next one da da da da there's all that the question of how do you come out of that and justify well you can't justify but how do you come through that and what do you focus on? And this is where I come back to the fact we were a medical mission. Our job our mission was to protect the medics in order to empower them to fix human beings mission achieved mission achieved yeah of course yeah right so that's what you know I used to have Cabello was a um a vignette at RMC for a long time right where it was like hey young up and coming officer which side of the shit sandwich would you take would you shoot or would you not shoot? So getting through that whole mix of both moral moral priority what's the mission and even and from a tactical perspective there was I remember we were talking amongst the diggers like let's just shoot back the Zire borders just over there will hightail it all frickin' all frickin' army movie style and we'll just do it because this is wrong I'd rather die than than watch this shit and then it's like hang on hang on hang on if we do that they'll kill everybody here because we won't be here to watch it so yeah there's a lot for a lot of people to unpack from Cabello of those who are there and I I think for myself you know we can talk about my journey in a second but in that regard but I think what's really important is that people seize on the fact that guys you did a great job your job was not there to help those people you were not fitted for or with you were not armed to if you can take away one thing you saved a hell of a lot of women and children hell of a lot could have been a lot more they could have sent battalions there.

SPEAKER_02 1:28:48

Exactly United Nations the biggest scam going around yeah well and they have been for a very fucking long time they still are and we've seen it in Iraq we've seen it in Afghanistan they're nothing but a scammy organization and they always have been look look at last week yeah right yeah yeah exactly last week everybody goes there including our leadership so called and and they go oh we're gonna do this and we do that and it's like you are just a mechanism for statecraft that's all you are and particularly the Security Council you are there as an extension of the people on the Security Council's national interest how do you how how do you give how do you give people the power of veto yeah yeah yeah in the hands of people who are invading other countries good plan yeah yeah mate just back to your story now like you spoke about there's all this death and destruction you know I understand the mission was just to protect these medics but now your mission changed you know and this is what defense does best they they tell you what your mission is but then your mission changed and now now you need to dig a bloody hole and throw those babies in it. Yeah sorry about that you know what I mean like well we couldn't stop them from killing those babies to start off with but now you want us to do this well I thought our mission was to do this you want to make up your mind here you know what I mean this is the problem with United Nations and obviously our weak gutted government here in Australia still is weak gutted and we know that. So just on your story you know like over that ten days you're essentially you know We've seen it with the boys in Smartly digging bloody mass graves. Throwing bits and pieces, babies, women, yeah, everything. And that was your job for ten days. Yeah. And and like how many are we talking you I couldn't tell you if you're not going to be able to do it?

SPEAKER_03 1:30:56

It was just not it was just non-stop. Nonstop. Look, the first three the first three days I would say were intense and and exhausting and everything else. And then it became a um it became this process. In the end, they did clear the camp out. And it would it became this this process of trying to coax them out. We starved them of water to get them to come out. This the the hygiene conditions in there were and the crowd got smaller and smaller and smaller, obviously. Um strangely enough, I I can't remember how it all finished because I'm I'm pretty sure I was driving back to Kigali after 10 10 days. Um a number of other sections were rotated through to to get a break for everybody. Um number of NGOs. I'm pretty sure it was when the media rocked up that the RPA stopped their shooting. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:32:14

You get back to the main base. What's the decompression like if you know, obviously the job's gotta go on. You still gotta go back to the hospital, go back to front gate, go back to going to other areas. What's what are the boys saying? Like, what's everyone going like that was fucking so that was fucked? So I know what diggers are like, so buckle up, yeah, buckle up.

SPEAKER_03 1:32:39

We're on our way back, and the Rwandan government accused us of inciting the killing the cabello was our fault. We went into a driving holding pattern around Kigali because there were protests out the front of the base which locked the base down. So they used our presence at the Cabello massacre as an information ops tool, a psycho psychological operations tool against the UNC. The UN were there, the UN did nothing, the UN this, it's those people, and then we ended up with this big mad protest out the front. So we're like, geez, I could really do with a beer, eh? Yeah. And a shower. And some decent feed. And this is where a a number of this is where I make a reference to how the journey for looking after soldiers has changed in the last 32 years, or however long it was. Longer. 40. Um no. Yeah, 30 30 odd years. The journey for mental health and supporting soldiers and all the rest of it has changed dramatically, and I've watched that change throughout my career and all my deployments. So when we got back, there was a from memory, there was a so first of all, we just wanted to phone home with our $50 Telstra gift card for two-minute phone call on a sat phone. We wanted to call home. You're not calling home. Nobody's talking about anything. It's a blackout. It's a it's a comms blackout. For for the media. We go uh we go have a shower. From memory, we burn all of our stuff. Sleeping bags, the whole lot. We burn, we burn a whole pile of stuff because of the diseases and the, you know, we get disinfected. And uh from memory we get we get a get a fee. And then now remembering this is a long time ago, so my timeline could be out here, and I'm happy for anybody who's listening to correct me and say, no, well, it was day four, whatever. There was they flew in. There weren't many sites in in defense then. Most of them were dedicated to recruitment. So they send this trauma team in, and they get our section, and they put it in a room together with our platoon sergeant, our actual platoon sergeant, because he ended up there, I think, the last uh five days, or I can't remember exactly when he came in. And they proceed, these psyches proceed to go down a path of what did you see, what did you see, how did you feel? You know the routine, what did you see, how do you feel, blah, blah, blah. Imagine putting your platoon sergeant, who's supposed to be the rock of the rock of the platoon, the big brother, the dad, that you could that that will just make the decision. Imagine putting him in a position where he's got to say in front of the diggers, I felt scared, or I felt disgusted, or I felt angry, right? And this is the way that they they approached it. Seven days later, to maybe two weeks later, I'm in Nairobi with my mates at carnivores, age 23, uh, having my 23rd birthday. Recipe for success? I don't know, mate.

SPEAKER_02 1:36:38

Yeah. Yeah, I I think I've spoken about this um, you know, uh further on down in the track, you know, Afghan, Iraq and sending people on Rockle to let them go to Europe for you know for two weeks and just turn it on. And I think mentally it was it was probably an absolute big mistake on defence's part, and obviously it's it was like it's drown your throws in in booze. But that's yeah, that's what it was. Yeah, it's like like defence fucking encouraged it, uh, which is costing them now fucking class A pensions. Yeah. Mate, like this is I I just can't imagine it. It's never uh you know, you know, again, and I obviously joined ten years or seven, eight, nine years down the track, but I didn't go through Singleton to do stuff like that. I I I went to Singleton and got taught to seek out and close with the enemy and kill them. Juty first, yeah, and same thing for you, 100%. And now you're doing this. And like you said, fuck boys, maybe we just take these guys on. Fuck it. Imagine if that happened. Well, international incident, obviously. You probably wouldn't be here. Yeah, I probably wouldn't be here. Taking on two and a half thousand strong fucking army with four magazines. Four magazines, typical defense force again.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:01

Yeah. But here's the thing, mate. I I experienced it. It changed my life, no question. It took me on a journey. No question, there have been negative outcomes associated with my service in Rwanda, but there have also been positive ones.

SPEAKER_01 1:38:20

Of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 1:38:21

And, you know, I a hundred I went through a period, you know, it's interesting you said at the beginning of the podcast there's a lot of people from who were in Rwanda or Cabello that don't want to talk about their service, and I a hundred percent respect that. Because we all have been on our own journey. Um to the point, even for myself, there were times, so when I left Townsville for 5'7, I and the and then later in the years there were Facebook groups when Facebook became a thing, and it was like reunions. I actively avoided my mates. I actively, and I'm and part of me is very ashamed of that, but my and I'm I'm in touch with all of them now, or most of them on a on a you know, sometime routine basis. Um, but they all understand why. And I've openly said that. I just wanted to avoid that part of my past. And then I think I got to the point where I'm like, hey dude, you particularly as I got higher in the ranks, I'm like, you've got a responsibility to pass on your knowledge because it's it's just a war story if you don't pass it on and teach the trainees about it. So I became comfortable talking about it.

SPEAKER_02 1:39:49

Yeah, so you shouldn't. So you should, mate. And again, it's um you know, you become a you know, a warrant officer and warrant officer class one RSM down the track, but all those experiences help you become a better leader as well. You know, I guess a lot of officers suck out there. They're not they're not all bad, mate. They're not all bad. 99% are that's coming from a digger.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:13

I tell you what, I if I was if I was a guy, if I was an officer from 3RAR back when you in and I'd be like, damn, he's back, he's hitting me again on that podcast. He's tapping me on that podcast.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:23

No, no, there was there was a couple of the ones we had, but um, yeah, like all that would have shaped your career and gave you that example.

SPEAKER_03 1:40:32

Sorry to interrupt. Just to pause for a second. Steve Tilbrook, platoon commander on the hill in Cabello. Yeah, mate. You want to talk about an amazing officer? Yeah. You you you try eating from either side of that shit sandwich.

SPEAKER_02 1:40:50

Yeah, oh yeah, 100%. I get that. And getting your men to follow you. Yeah. Wow. Wow. Yeah. Yeah, that would have been uh especially for an officer in the in that scenario, like it's his call, really, as well. Yeah, yeah. Damned if you do, damned if you don't. That's it. Putting a shit sandwich by by his his rank structure. Yeah, yeah. Big time. More officers, big time. Yeah. So let's talk about coming home. You know, you've just been through the most traumatic incident that you've ever experienced in your life. You know, and nothing else compares. You know, again, a lot of us have all been to Iraq. And nothing would compare. Nothing will compare. No, exactly right. Like I said, Iraq, Afghan, yeah, there's the atrocities that have happened in those areas, but not to this fucking scale. And where it's at the point where you can't do anything. Yeah. So you get back to Australia, mate. Again, you spoke about the psychological um treatment the defense tried to do. Failed. And you know, honestly, they're probably failed up until they're probably still failing now. They it's like defense just does not get it. And a lot of it does come from people that have never deployed. And we know that a lot of these psyches they'd they've read from a book, yeah, and uh it doesn't work. And a lot of guys find, you know, obviously the booze and all talking with their mates, you know, a lot more um fixing for themselves. But you get back to Australia, mate. How is it getting back to Australia? You've just been through what you've been through. Because again, you've been on other deployments down the track, this is totally different. So you get back for this first time, mate. Like, how how's everyone going? Are they just back soldiering straight on the piss in Townsville, trying to cope? And it like you said, everyone just shut their mouths.

SPEAKER_03 1:42:50

So it's a really interesting journey. So we get back on the plane and we smoke all the way back to Townsville. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Cheap smokes. Yeah, yeah, yeah. We get off the plane, we get some hugs and kisses and stuff at the airport. They pull us away from our family, they put us back on a bus because there's a politician out at Laverac Barracks at at Tuar R um O R's Mess who wants to hand out a medal and give a speech. Can't remember what time it was, it was dark. So we've just flown, you know, this is three months after Cabello. We fly back in, and you get to the mess open order open order march. Here's a little medal. By the way, it's not active service. No, no. It's not warlike service. There's no double ASM involved, mate. So it's just an ASM. We did not get it recognized as operation uh active warlike service until I think it was the 2000s. Our guys who were falling over mentally from their deployment rule wonder were being categorized as non-warlike servers. I'm sorry to say, but that comes from officers. No, no, that comes from public servants, but and officers. So they fixed they stop standing up for them. I'm not I'm not standing up for him. Um I'll tell you later about the time I I uh super glued platoon commanders sleeping bags zipper up in the J, and he fought to get out of it in the middle of a contact.

SPEAKER_02 1:44:41

And when I say officers, I'm talking like this general level. The one the squeezer level.

SPEAKER_03 1:44:46

The ones that that change, yeah, yeah, exactly. Exactly. Um so anyway, we go and do this, and I I remember vividly we come out and I'm looking for my esh bag amongst all the ash bags, and I get this camera in my face with a big light, and it's like, welcome back from one nowhere from channel 10. Um, what are you gonna do? And I'm like, I'm going to the pub and I'm having a beer. That was my famous line on the news the next day, right? That's all I could say. Um then it was come back in, do some admin from memory, uh, and then we went on leave. And that's when the journey starts. Because you when it when it comes to the mental health side of our service, I always say to to the younger ones in particular, and to dirty stinking officers, mate, I I say to them, you have to recognize that the way that you respond to things will be different at different ages. And that's really important to understand because we have this kind of sense that we go, are you okay? Are you okay? This is all great, right? All the mental health support now, I'm sorry, but I they definitely haven't got it, in my opinion, perfect, but I don't think they ever will, right? And I think that's just the nature of human beings, right? But I think that the effort's there, I think the support's there, uh, but there's not enough of it. Um so I'm I'm young, I go down to Melbourne where my father is, and my stepmother, who's an a nurse, she's a matron at a hospital. I'm like, I'm going out. And they're like, don't go to this nightclub and this nightclub because they're extremely violent. I got my got my 1990s stepping out gear on, and I went straight to those places. And you know why? Because I needed to be have my senses take me back to a place that had hundreds of people, loud noises, danger, so that I could calm. That's where you felt comfortable. That's where I felt comfortable.

SPEAKER_02 1:47:14

Because you're institutionalized by the defence, is what Kapuga and Singo does.

SPEAKER_03 1:47:18

Sure. And obviously training within your unit. Absolutely, right? And you know, the the book on killing, and he talks about an awesome book. And he talks about the performance arousal bell curve, right? If there's not enough sensitization, or if there's not enough happening for the sensors to then you perform poorly, right? And so I'm living living my best life, and I'm giving stink eye to as many people in a nightclub as I can, freaking 70 kilo ring and wet, because I need that that sense. But at the same time, it's you know, my senses are so pumped just going to a shopping center because I'm in this big crowd. But when you're 23, it's a bit like alcohol, right? You're you don't know that that's happening to you and the effect it's having on you, but it is happening regardless whether you like it or not. It's happening. You just can't recognize it. And things got things got out of hand, right? Uh, and so my stepmother turns around and she says, You need to go and see someone. Um I she's a scary lady, right? Matron at a hospital. She goes, pull your head in. You need to settle down and stop taking risks, and you need to go and speak to somebody. And this next bet about going to speak to somebody explains exactly how the world was in terms of mental health. I go looking for, I get told, go, go, there's some old blokes at the RSL, go and speak to them. So I go to them and I'm like, now this is like three months after coming back. Hey guys, these Vietnam vets or Cree vets, I'm having some, I'm having some dramas and I'm trying to work it out. You know, I just got back for a wonder. Well, where's that? Oh, it's you at UN, like UN mission. Oh, okay. All right. Yeah, come over here, mate, fill these forms out. So me blindly, I'm filling out these forms. And I'm like, then I realize I'm looking at the head, the head of it, the the title, and it's like for a pension or something. And I'm like, I'm not, I don't want that. What are you talking about? I'm in the army. What are you talking about? I end up going to a place which we which which is now open arms, but it was called Vietnam and Vietnam Veterans Counseling Service. That's what it was called when we got back. This is hilarious. I walk in and I'm sitting next to this guy wearing a polo neck t-shirt with his whatever battalion. Oh, it was it was 5RR. He had his polo neck, had his hat. I'll never forget he had on his belt stamped, you know, like that the impression stamping 5RR, tigers, blah, blah, blah, or um, whatever it was. And he turns around to me in the waiting room and he goes, Who'd your dad serve with me? And I'm like, oh no, my dad was Air Force, but he didn't, you know, go and do warshit. And he's like, So what are you doing here? I had a Vietnam vet judging me for being there when he probably should have done the same thing when he was 22, but he didn't realise. It was only because I got a kick in the ass for a scare from a scary matron who said, You're becoming a bit of a dickhead. Sorted out. I went in, told my story for an hour, the counsellor cried and said, I didn't know any of this was happening. And I'm like, Okay, fair enough. You're Vietnam Veterans Counseling Service, and from that point forward started a journey of it is clear to me that you must find the tools that work for you because not every single tool or environment is gonna work.

SPEAKER_02 1:51:44

Correct, yeah, mate. So you you you see your story there, but you know, you gotta go back to work, back to the boys. Yes, and you carry on being a soldier, yeah. Back to the infantry life, like you said, it's so young too. Your brain's not fully developed, you're on the piss, you're at the boys. As I said, life carries on.

SPEAKER_03 1:52:10

So I get posted to five seven. Holesworthy. Yep. And I I asked for the posting. I actually had funnily enough put in for a transfer to Armor Corps. And uh I got convinced, no, just go if you wanna get a taste of bash and track, go down to go down to five seven. I like, Oh, okay. Sounds like an idea. And I was happy because I was gonna get my little Rommelon, you know. Love it. Awesome. Mechanized, maneuver, da da da da. Right. And uh so I go down there, um, Delta Company, um, become a section commander, and then we move up from from Sydney to Darwin. And there's obviously a lot in between in that in that that period of time in 5-7 in Sydney, and that transition period. And one of the things that I would say is one of the side effects from I think being in Cabello was that there was a tendency to overprepare and performance punish both myself and my men. And I apologize to them to this day because I was, I think there was always this sense in the back of my mind, I'm preparing my section for they've got to be tough enough, they've got to be able to survive it, they gotta be able to, they've got to be good enough, they gotta be, and and I think I probably projected a lot of that on them, and even as I went through the ranks as well, but to a lesser extent as I got got higher.

SPEAKER_02 1:53:58

During this time, like I spoke about, this is where you know you're in 5-7, ramps down, pants down, and they're rolling around in the M113s, the old uh APC. Yeah. Uh tracked uh personnel crap carrier, absolute junker, yeah, great, great in its time. Yeah, yeah. 40 years down the track, not so good. Not real good at at 762, but that's right. Uh this is I guess this is where you encounter, you know, a a first accidental accidental death and uh you know, want a someone that you serve with.

SPEAKER_03 1:54:35

Yeah, so um when I did my my 113 driver's course, I did it with a mate who was in Somalia. And uh the rest of the guys in the section or on the course um had not be. In fact, it's an interesting point that he and I were one of the only, because we'd come down from Townshall, there was only like f I would say four people in the battalion in 1996 who had operational service. That meant that we had gongs and the warrant officers' senior and officers didn't, except for the RSM and maybe one other. Anyone that long there were plenty of parameters medals, long service, but there was and there was a high degree of resentment towards us because of that. And that's just as a sidebar, but it shows how the pettiness and and you know carnivorous nature of our own organization can be. Um anyway, we were doing our driver's course and enjoying it, and unfortunately, 113s, like all machinery, have a tendency to hurt people when things go really bad. 11 and a half tonne, you're doing 40k, 50k, whatever it was. And um there was a a road down the side of Holzworthy called Thunder Alley, and it's where we used to take the carriers and um test them and run and all the rest of it. And it was just quite literally a freak accident when they did the when they did the uh the testing to see if it was the driver, and the driver, by the way, um is a very close friend of mine, and um uh the accident was definitely not his fault. Um But one of the instructors, Brady Taylor, he was in the in the uh Coppola, uh in the turret, and the vehicle rolled over. And I'm uh out of respect for his family, I'm not gonna go into the details, mate. But what I'm going to say, I'm just gonna fast forward a little bit. Uh and when the counselling happened, um now Brady, I I didn't know Brady very well. Um from what I can see, he was a great guy, good good instructor, but I he wasn't my DS. And neither did my mate from Somalia. And so we're in this group session. Sykes back then, they loved a group session. And remember, this is we're only 18 months after I wonder. And this Sykes, like, how did you feel? And how did you feel, and how did you feel when you saw and this and that? And I get to my mate who went smile and he goes, I didn't feel anything. I've it's not my first casualty I've seen, and I I didn't know him, and I I guess I I feel sorry for everybody and the family and you know stuff, but I didn't feel anything. And this psych ripped into him I think you're not taking this seriously, I don't think you're being appropriate, blah blah blah blah blah blah blah and then I reacted. We had to have a timeout because I reacted and I turned around and said, Who do you think you are to tell somebody who has seen what they've seen what what impacts them? I didn't feel anything either, and I didn't feel anything when I went to East Timor and saw dead people. I was like, oh yeah. Same drills, right? So that that experience was very much one of oh, okay. Your your experience has changed not only your outlook but your sensitization and your your sensitivity and your should Am I supposed to be feeling something here? I probably should be. What does this mean? Should I be in tears? Because I don't feel like breaking into tears.

SPEAKER_01 1:58:54

That's again what a defense the inventory does best. Desensitize.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:00

Yeah, 100%. Again, you know, you revert back to Singleton or Kapuka. They teach you to stab a target and move on.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:14

But you can't have it both ways, mate. You can't have it where you put onto social media a picture of a a bronzed Aussie soldier stabbing a thing yelling in and out on guard and then and then turn around and give them a yellow and red card to hold up. Yeah, exactly. Because they feel a bit sad. Yeah. Because Corporal Daddy yelled at them. Yeah. It doesn't it doesn't work. No.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:47

I think they figured that out now.

SPEAKER_03 1:59:48

Yeah, I think they have.

SPEAKER_02 1:59:49

But again, that's what the military does. They make they desensitise you. Not even that, you you look in those early and you you would have been part of it. Early 2000 periods when obviously compute computers started coming in and the DRN, all those arousal videos. Remember, they used to call them arousal videos. There'd be some Chechian shoulder cutting someone's head off, be like, watch this boys. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:00:10

This is how cool this is. Well, they used to take us to the morgue. They used to take us to the morgue, mate, yeah, as infantry. Yeah. In Townsville. There you go. Not every platoon, but if if a platoon sergeant had a mate at the local pig works, well, guess what? You were getting a you were getting a a pig and you were taking it to the range so you could stick your finger in the hole of the rounds to go, that's what it looks like.

SPEAKER_01 2:00:33

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:00:35

Good and bad. Yeah. Yeah. Actually, that does remind me like when I went through Kapuka in 2003. We went on the range and the Seko he shot two or three kangaroos. Yeah. Gets it. Remember those little gay little knives we had? Yeah, yeah. I've got one. Have you? Yeah. Terrible knife. Blunt as hell. He goes up to it and just cuts it open. He goes, Boys, this is what bullets do. Yeah. And he was following track. I'm like, that's interesting. No, I loved it. I was like, that's that that is interesting. But these days and age, this day and age, they probably won't do that. But he was hacking at it to get through with this anyway. Mates, um, so that this incident has happened. But again, life carries on. Yeah, life carries on. The infantry world carries on, and then obviously this is where in a fet Timor kicks off. And as we know, there was, you know, quite large incidences in Timor to kick it all off, which included mass casualties. Yeah, yeah. So was that if was that was that flicking in your mind? Oh, fuck here we go. No, mate. Not not even.

SPEAKER_03 2:01:42

Not even. You just knew it wasn't going to be that. Not even. Yeah. Didn't even think about it. Because then I guess I was I was looking forward to InterFed because for me it's like, oh, we're gonna get a win up.

SPEAKER_02 2:01:52

Well that's and obviously the mission is different. This this is now infantry. Yeah. This is now you get shot at, you shoot back. Yeah. Yeah. Awesome. Let's go. You actually go out and look for the enemy. Let's go free. Country. Yeah. Yeah, exactly. Or make a country. Yeah. Yeah. So you get over InterFet, mate. This is with five, seven. How long's that rotation? Uh, six months. Six months. And how how'd you find that? Six months?

SPEAKER_03 2:02:15

Good. Loved it. Loved it. Loved it, mate. New location. Um flying up, flying up the valley between East and West Timor, then in New Zealand, Huey doing tack flying. That's what I joined the army for. Let's let's get the music playing. Um patrolling. The freedom that we had then under General Cosgrove, and I remember him saying, We've we've trained ya to the section commanders, you know, when you come and give a pep talk or whatever. And um we've trained ya, we trust ya, get out there, do your job, right? Um me and a sergeant cruising the streets of Dili, um collecting Intel, um, working alongside Austin Core a lot. Um Is this where you get your first exposure to This is where I get my first exposure to Intel. Like I there were Intel in Rwanda and the guys there I actually um friend uh you know friends with, but um this was this was where I'm like That's interesting I'm like oh wow who are these guys from counterintelligence and human intelligence and what's this and that and you know um meet some good people. We sometimes bumped heads because you know, like the Marine Corps in particular, they will assign some of their infantry ECN infantry um or what is it, M O E? Yeah um MOS MOS Infantry or Marine Guys shooters to intelligence roles because they understand that there's limited intelligence resources. So yeah, it was it was a great trip. Again, the United Nations encounter them, same gig, same lessons, new learnings, and I'm like you know, by this stage, I'm like, okay, I'm starting to understand how this happens in the world and why we're here and what the limitations are.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:19

Did you uh get exposed to anything death over there?

SPEAKER_03 2:04:24

Mate, I think I saw two dead bodies over there, to be honest. We got their third 3rd battalion hurrah airborne old stopping.

SPEAKER_02 2:04:36

But did they fly in and save the day? Of course they did.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:39

Um after you guys had liberated Dilly, along with two Cav who tried to run over you from memory. Remember that footage?

SPEAKER_01 2:04:49

That's yeah, that's classic.

SPEAKER_03 2:04:50

That's famous footage. Um, we came in behind you guys, pardon the pun, and uh we uh we took over Dilly because we obviously had the mobility and the and the firepower, so not that you know we needed 250 kals right. Um and then uh and then we made our way down to uh as as people started to leave it, just uh from memory it was mainly 5'7 there providing security, and we had everywhere from Maliana all the way down to Bob Bobogato and the kitten um Lakeisha and yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:34

Good old Lakeisha had some fun down there. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Bit of drinking down there. I actually that was the fur that was the first place I got sent to. Is it? Yeah. Yeah. It's a beautiful spot.

SPEAKER_04 2:05:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:05:45

Right by the water. So you spend us like you said, you spend six months there, nothing too crazy, just typical peacekeeping. Yeah, mate. Didn't run any there wasn't any Indonesians?

SPEAKER_03 2:05:57

No, not three RA did. One of the the main issues that we we kind of had to deal with was retribution and keeping particularly out near the border where you'd get someone come across the border and spear or shoot or whatever. And there was a couple of cases where we had things like that. Things got spicy and exciting in in the middle of Dilli, and we had our riot gear out when the Indonesians were leaving, and we had to escort them to the harbour, and the crowd were like, Hey, this is our chance. The Aussies are the Aussies are between us. Let's throw rocks at them and stuff like that. But no, I enjoyed it, mate.

SPEAKER_02 2:06:43

Yeah. From there you get back to Holesworthy, mate. Finally, you uh you get an ICB and you finally get your medals.

SPEAKER_03 2:06:51

Uh well, actually, it's funny because I remember I remember my OC turning around when he handed me my ICB and he goes, mate, I think this is about five years overdue. Yeah. And I'm like, yeah, got it now.

SPEAKER_01 2:07:03

Yeah, yeah, that's it's a shame, isn't it?

SPEAKER_03 2:07:05

Even better when you're a pogue, mate. You become a pogue, an int pest, and you're wearing an ICB. And people are like, I don't trust that guy. I'm waiting sometimes if I go to the RSL on Anzac Day or whatever, I'm waiting to end up on one of those imposter websites. How can this guy have that and that and that's it? I don't trust it.

SPEAKER_02 2:07:25

Be like, I don't trust that guy. I reckon he's rimmed my little cup, he's rimmed the cup of coffee 100%. His infantry has definitely done it. I trust him. And like you said, mate, this is where you get that first interaction, you know, full f interaction with the the intelligence side of things. You start, you know, you you're like, okay, like these guys, this is some Jason Bourne shit. Let's I want to I w I want some of this. So you put in your core transfer.

SPEAKER_03 2:07:49

Yeah, put in core transfer. 2000, this is the year 2000. So I I do my IETs not long after I get back from Interfed. Um and uh it's funny, I didn't particularly back then, they used to have this thing we used to call the the green curtain, right? And if you wanted to go to Intel, and even today I get people say to me, hey, tell me what the job's like. Now a lot of people, it's not so bad now, but back then it was like no one would tell you about what intelligence is, right? And don't come in here, and I'm like, well, this is why you're not getting recruits, Steve, right? Yeah, I I can tell you, I can give you the unclassified version of what I do or did. And that is not breaking security or anything of that nature. Go Google it. I'm in the army newspaper clown. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? Yeah. Um, but uh yeah, so I do my ITs and uh I didn't I didn't have any like mad Jason Bourne aspirations or anything like that.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:01

Was it like pharmacy?

SPEAKER_03 2:09:03

No, no, no. It was just I just I I wanted to I wanted to do Intel. Yeah. And at the time I I I wasn't leaning towards working with SF, I wasn't leaning towards whatever, I was just on a journey.

SPEAKER_02 2:09:19

Not much is going on, is there? Uh at there's there's no Iraq, there's no no Afghan. So you're yeah, that's you're going in blind, really, essentially just going, oh fuck, it's just gonna be Timor.

SPEAKER_03 2:09:29

I saw what they did in Timor, and I'm like, yeah, cool. We've got I got an exposure to all sorts of bits and pieces. And um, yeah, away I went. Away you went, you do your ATs. And there were there were uh honor IETs, because back then back then you had like one or two ab initios which were like come straight off the street or whatever. And but most of us were full tracks with with experience. Well, we all had experience in Intervet, the whole bloody army went to Intervet. Um but uh so I was there with with Scott Thomas and um you these guys might have been before your time, Scott Jones and some three RAR lads as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:10:18

Before we move on with your intelligence career, just give me a quick rundown. You know, we spoke about Jason Bourne, obviously nothing like it. Yeah, but run me through you know the canon intelligence, the human intelligence, like what what does the in core do? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:10:34

So in I'll I'll I'll wrap this into a summary if I can, right? So when people think about intelligence, and particularly today when we live in a world of cyber and in uh cyber and ausint and AI-driven intelligence, and uh but then you've got human intelligence and Jason Bourne and and all this kind of thing. What's important to understand is that there's really kind of two two broad parts of Intel. Actually, no, there's three. The first one is collection. So you'll have people or things that collect. That can be human intelligence, so running sources, electronic signals, right? No great secret, ASD, it's written on the can, it's written on the front of the building, they collect signals intelligence, right? Um electronic warfare slash signals intelligence, pick up radio waves and things, a la, you know, the Enigma code and all that. Uh interrogation is a form of collection. Technical intelligence, listening bugs and things, cameras, right? So that's collection. And then you have the analytical side, so that's bringing all those sources together or whatever sources you have available to you, which is an important point, because the shopping list may not arrive with all of the collection assets during certain conflicts. And then you've got your your your analytical side, and this can be everything from someone at DIO who does big hands, little maps, strategic, what is going to happen in 2032 between Country X and Y. Takes a certain kind of person and brain to do that. Then you've got like operational intelligence in a military context where the commander is like, right, third brigade is about to fight the 5th Missourian division, whatever, again.

SPEAKER_01 2:12:38

God damn Missourian.

SPEAKER_03 2:12:39

Yeah, I know. I've I've killed many. I know uh victory at last. We finally defeated them. Uh no, we're gonna we're gonna have this conflict, and I've got a brigade operational level intelligence where it's like, right, where's the tanks? Where's the anti-aircraft? Where are the drones? Where's this? So the commander can make a decision. And then you've got tactical level intelligence. And and I make the point that tactical and operational can bleed together at the same time and exist at the same time in in and strategic in synchronicity. There you go, big word for the day, mate. Year 10. Year 10. Um and they can exist together. And tactical intelligence, tactical operational can be, for example, when I was with the fusion of targeting cell, the specific mission was get all those sources of information, tell us where the bad guy is so that we can go and do leadership targeting, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat, rinse and repeat for for however long it takes. Um, so yeah, that's an important thing for people to understand if they've never worked with intelligence, it's um and there are other disciplines of intelligence and specialties. So, for example, you know, criminal intelligence, financial intelligence, um, you know, AFP have intelligence to support their operations, um and there are so many other agencies that have intelligence staff, but also in the corporate world as well, supporting big companies that want to know if the hey, is that Straight Hamas gonna open today? Yeah, yeah. Because I'm losing money, yeah. Or hey, I want to go and I'm I've just purchased a mine in in Namibia. Can you go? Tell me if the person I bought it off is actually legit. Legit. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. No, I totally get it. So that's that's in a broad sense. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:14:49

And obviously, you know, the intelligence in turn, you know, you work for uh, you know, on an S T G rotation down the track, your intelligence obviously helps the operator perform their job safely in a manner because your intelligence, you know, just shortly, there's a guy that's going to be inside this building, he's got three AK 47s, he's got a he's got a dog, he's got a and they go in there and it's exactly that, and they're like, oh shit, this just made our lives easier because now we can operate operationally fit what we need to take to deal with this job. Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:15:20

And that's where you want to get to, but it doesn't always work that way. Of course, yeah, 100%. And sometimes, sometimes the bad guy's not there, yeah, or there are 15 more bad guys there, right? And it it is a very, you know, and I'm happy to talk about it after that the pressures for combat soldiers and pressures for intelligence staff um are obviously uniquely different. Uh but as an advocate and a member of Austin Corps, I feel as though, particularly for our junior guys and girls who get put into environments where they are having to make assessments and the pressure in an environment where you get this wrong, kiddo. It puts lives at risk. People can die.

SPEAKER_00 2:16:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:16:17

And by the way, interpest support staff, go over there and study continuously all this really evil, bad stuff in the world on a daily basis, and then come back to me. Yeah. Yeah. Anyway, I go off on a tangent.

SPEAKER_02 2:16:36

No, I was good. That was a really good explanation. Um, does waterboarding work? What? Um I I got lost there. Didn't work on me. Interrogation techniques. It's not waterboarding if you use diesel. Oh, nasty. Now moving forward, now you you obviously move into this intelligence role. When do you hit your first gig?

SPEAKER_03 2:17:03

Well, interesting. Uh so when I uh back then, and I think this is important for people to understand as well, is that um about one quarter, one third of at least army intelligence was dedicated to counterintelligence. So my gig was immediate because you're doing the job actively in Australia. So let's put some caveats around that. Um we didn't have we didn't have a legislative ability to go and hunt down and and capture a spy, right? Did in World War II. Military did. In fact, that was one of their primary jobs. Uh but counterintelligence is um it uh it sits on a spectrum. Um and you've got the passive end of the spectrum, which covers everything from security briefs and locks and physical security through to assessments of vulnerability through to active counterintelligence investigations. So you we would work with other government agencies, we would work with military police, in fact. Uh and uh you are trying to um identify and basically uh interrupt the adversary, our adversary's ability to penetrate our secrets and conduct intelligence against us. Uh so that was the first job we used to have the security sections around Australia. Uh and you would go and you would, you know, it was a great, awesome job as a as a as a full track. I'm going to a base. Well, I did. I went to Holesworthy, Holesworthy Barracks, and I spent a week there doing a vulnerability assessment, and then I went and briefed the brigadier one-on-one, and my recommendations were my recommendations. Wow. Right? And you've got to write up the threat assessment for that. Um so yeah, that was that was my first gig. Gig. Yeah. Gig. But that was daily life, and then 9-11 happened. So 9-11 happens, game changer. Game changer. So over a period of time, it's the same for ASIO and and Burgess has openly said this that you know you have to when you've only got so many resources and you've got multiple threats to deal with, you've got to, you know, you've got to focus on one thing other than the other. So our CIA capability and and role in CIA very quickly got moved to counter-insurgency, etc., fusion analysis because we didn't have enough bodies.

SPEAKER_01 2:19:56

Just quickly on that counter-intelligence stuff back then. Was China on the radar?

SPEAKER_03 2:20:01

It's interesting that you say that. Uh they they've always been on the radar. Everybody is always on the radar. Just some more than others. Some it you know, there is no such thing as um a friendly intelligence service, only a friendly nation, right? We don't we shouldn't be in denial here that we you know, if I if I turned around to you and said that one of our partners thinks X, Y, and Z and that's of value to our national interest, you're gonna pass that on, right? You you know, we're all friends, we're all friends, but collection happens everywhere all the time. And uh, but no, to be specific, China obviously was rising. And uh, you know, we were all like, oh, that's great. Look at the t-shirts we can buy. Uh huh. What are they building in the South China Sea? Yeah. They won't put anything on there. Oh, they put concrete on there.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:03

And then now it's like a base.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:05

What's with the uh anti- uh SAM system doing over there? So uh so they they weren't obviously now they are arguably the biggest they are the biggest contributor and threat to our economy. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:21:23

Just ask Williamtown Airbase. Yeah, yeah. It's the latest drones at it. Tell you what. Drones are change of space, that's for sure. Yeah, and obviously for your intelligence, you know.

SPEAKER_03 2:21:35

Do you remember when we were when we were in Iraq, when you specifically when you were and I were in Iraq, was when the very first and remember they flew it into a base on a time delay, and that was the moment everyone went, they've worked it out. Yeah, they worked out how to strap a essentially roadside bomb on an exposure.

SPEAKER_01 2:22:00

Yeah, yeah, mate, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:22:01

I saw drones a couple times and fuck, oh, here we go. The AK's ready. Um like we said, 9-11's happened. The game has changed now. You guys obviously get busier. SASR are flipped straight into Afghanistan. They're on their first deployment no later than late October just November 2001, straight into the thick of it. 2003, Iraq war kicks off. I'm sure the intelligence is just going nuts. Everyone's going nuts. And obviously the defense force is like, fuck yeah. This is now our time revolving door to get back out and do do the job. When do you like again, when do you because you do RTF two with the infantry reconstruction task force 2007? So this is your first overseas deployment as an int analyst.

SPEAKER_03 2:22:58

So I go from CI to human intelligence. I put my hand up for the course and I become a human operator. RTF two, I get asked to be the um the sergeant uh overseeing the team, right? So I had a team of four and a lieutenant with me. Great guy. He lives in the um Middle East now, he's in Dubai, classic, classic in Dubai, living there. Um selling secrets. Yeah. Uh yeah, nah, nah. Um he's making it making a fortune, mate.

SPEAKER_01 2:23:33

There's a defence treaty. But hey. 2008, actually. I don't think that can be. There we go. Yeah, there you go. 2007, 2008.

SPEAKER_03 2:23:40

Um so I go there in a uh Hume Mint role uh to support RTF 2.

SPEAKER_02 2:23:49

RTF 2, 2007. This is the second rotation for regular infantry forces into Afghanistan, more specifically the the uh Uruzgan province uh area of operations. What what's your role? What is your role? Because obviously, again, we're we're talking the mission for RTF is the reconstruction task force, provide security for the engineers to rebuild schools, rebuild wells. I mean, they build a couple of bases here and there. Yeah, what's your what's your role and how fast are you developing because this is a brand new environment?

SPEAKER_03 2:24:23

So the so there's a couple of interesting things that come out of this. Our role was to support the reconstruction task force, as you point out. Now, from an from an intelligence perspective, and you know, our priority intelligence require requirements, first and foremost, was force protection related. They weren't target related. In fact, it was like this is not my mission. My mission is to keep engineers alive, as it is infantry and cavalry guys alive who are supporting this mission. So it was very much about force protection, but it was also about, and this is where you know, when people think about Intel, they go, Oh, you're getting tired, you're going after somebody, or you're you get you're trying to tell the Prime Minister, you know, is the straight Hummus going to open or whatever. It can be something as simple as how do the people feel about the barbecue you build them.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:24

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:25

Right?

SPEAKER_01 2:25:26

Exactly.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:26

Mission success or failure.

SPEAKER_02 2:25:28

Yeah, Mohammed's left one star, right? He doesn't like it, he doesn't want to buy it. But how good would it have been if we'd had a simple system like that?

SPEAKER_03 2:25:35

We've built you a school.

SPEAKER_01 2:25:36

Ping, ping.

SPEAKER_03 2:25:37

This is the reviews like a Facebook marketplace. Yeah, I liked it, but it was very dirty. The engineers stinked. Um but yeah, it was very much about that. But then because you've got a uh a cavalry uh cavalry element and you've got a infantry element in um you have to provide them that intimate security intelligence support of right, you're going up that that tangy valley over there, or you're going up to Chora, or you're going over to here, here's the situation, here's the bad guys, here's what to expect, etc.

SPEAKER_02 2:26:18

How cl obviously you're working really close with the signal core, because obviously they've got all the the technical capability, the bears have got that technical capability of you know, obviously listening in and all their Gucci kit that they've got, you guys are working with them, they're feeding you information back, and so this is this is where when remember I said before about there are collectors and then there are those that do the analysis.

SPEAKER_03 2:26:39

So the S2 cell are the ones that, you know, they're really the ones that are the voice of or should be, must be the voice of all of the analysis, right? So we're working to the S2. Even though we're we're a team of Humeint collectors and the and the signals guys, or maybe the G O Int guys are doing their thing. And even the recon guys who are out there taking photographs and things if you've got it, that's all coming into the S2, and they're going, Well, this is what makes sense. You build your picture from that. You build your picture. It should never ever be single source.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:25

Of course, yeah, 100%. Uh we're we're having it it could be some digger that's walked past the sometimes.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:30

It has to be.

SPEAKER_02 2:27:30

That's what I mean, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:27:31

Sometimes it has to be, but you know, um, you know, when the heat's on and there are incidents and people get excited, there is a real tendency. And I know, I know myself, having been a human operator, and I know the EW and the SIG guys as well, when the heat's on, everybody wants to be the first the first kid on their block to have the verified solution. Yay, we saved everyone. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah, but there's a bias in that and there's a danger in that.

SPEAKER_02 2:28:05

During during this deployment with the RTF, uh this what what infantry unit is it? It was one Run R. Delta one. D do you get out on the ground? Again, build those atmospherics for yourself? Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:28:19

So we would go we would go out on the ground, um, and because one of the other roles of Humeint is to assist the commander on the ground, but also to Talent Spot to try and find potential sources and all the rest of it. Uh but yeah, we would go out on the ground to support um 1RR when they would patrol with their armoured vehicles as well, with the bushmasters and everything. Uh or we would go into town where it was required to meet with people, etc. Or we in in some cases we would actually fly back and forth from from um Kandahar as well, if we had to have meetings there and liaison and all that.

SPEAKER_02 2:29:08

With the the human intelligence, like how did you find that, you know, again, uh 2011 you go back with SATG, how'd you find you know that that six to eight months that you were there with the RTF 2? How much did that change from initially to because again, this is only the second rotation for regular conventional forces. So it's I'm sure it's the evolution of it is just changing day by day, day by day. And like it did with not only intelligence but their the TTPs on everything.

SPEAKER_03 2:29:42

Yeah. I mean that when we think about Afghanistan and the twenty the twenty-fifth anniversary is coming up next month.

SPEAKER_01 2:29:48

Is it yeah?

SPEAKER_03 2:29:49

Crazy, crazy, twenty-five years since first boots on the ground. When people think about Afghanistan, they tend to take away the image of the time that they were exposed as the wider experience, and I don't I think it's I think it's a bit of a it's a bit of a misrepresentation of just how that journey went. You know, when you had those first special operations guys going in and they are doing what is essentially advanced to contact, recon to contact, right? Anaconda, right? All of those that they are essentially going in, they're doing some some things that special forces do to empower others to come in or to empower others. Um but you know they're patrolling and they're going out and the old beehut um the timber timber bee huts, they're not they're not concrete lined fob. They're they're doing a different form of special operations. And then of course government goes, Oh, we don't want to do that, we want to go a little bit softer on this, this isn't the answer. Let's go build barbecues, let's go do that. And then it was actually halfway through my trip that the first special operations task group came in, and I was handing over support to my number, my opposite numbers who were now part of that. So we end up on this this journey of transition, and then RTF 2 became MRTF because either they didn't like our pagolas and barbecues and wouldn't wouldn't resist and yeah, yeah, yeah. Apparently we did not win their hearts and minds enough, so we had to give them a smacking. And then and then it changed again, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:31:44

Were were you getting that intelligence? Because again, there's RTF one, RTF two, RTF three, RTF four, and then it turned into the mentoring. Were you getting that, you know, that picture? Obviously, you're away back in Australia post-is rotation. Are you keeping up to date on what's happening in Afghanistan? Yeah, yeah, for sure. And they're just like, fuck, yeah, fuck their barbecues. We don't we don't need this well, it's just stupid spots.

SPEAKER_03 2:32:07

Look, I I'm gonna I'm gonna say this about that specific issue, right? Because I don't want to I don't I don't want certainly the people that I worked with as a part of RTF or any of the other RTFs uh to feel that they their mission failed because it didn't. They did what they had to do, they did what they were told to do, and they contributed as a part of the broader broader thing. At the end of the day, the Taliban are now the government of Afghanistan, so we all lose, right? We all lost a piece of us in that regard. What I would say is this though. One of the things I learnt when I went before before we went, we were told let's use the standard Australian model, hearts and minds. We are in this together. Let's have one Afghanistan. Be proud of being Afghanistan and we will walk this path to your freedom and defeat the Taliban, right? 101. 101 You know why it doesn't work with the Taliban, uh sorry, with the Afghanis? They don't see themselves as Afghani. They see themselves as Pashtun or Durrani. They see themselves as any number of the however many subsets of tribe they are. But they don't you know this is this is Jerusalem in some parts, most parts, beyond the city walls. This is Jerusalem 33 AD with mobile phones. Exactly right and no toilets. They didn't give a fuck about a well. They don't hey they didn't give a fuck about a school. So you know, one example I went with with with a Dutch opposite number, and we went going to this village, and we had at our disposal, or he had at his disposal, a number of water pumps, you know. Great for hearts and minds, good for agriculture, economy. Why not? So we go into this village, we're sitting down, and my Dutch counterparty turns around and he goes, Um, uh, how many, how many water pumps do you need? And I'm like, Oh, you just walk straight into this guy's trap. This guy has got you. And he goes, I need four. And I'm like, okay. So the conversation goes on, and we're still maintaining rapport and being very polite. And I said, Oh, I have a question for you. What's that sound, that motor down there, since we've been sitting here? The one down there, and I point over to the left, and I'm like, and what about that sound down there on the right? And he's like, Oh, whoa, there's a water pump. And I'm like, you know, this is all through an interpreter, of course. And uh, I'm like, so why do you need four water pumps? You have water pumps. Well, he's like, you want to come here and you want to throw water pumps my way, I'll take them. I'll sell, I'll I'll sell them on Orisgarn Gumtree for however much and go buy something else.

SPEAKER_01 2:35:21

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:35:22

So um, you know, and I get it. I get it. And I I I'm all for it. Build schools, try to twist the arm of the local mayor if you can to get school girls to go to school, but recognize you're in an extreme Islamic country. Yeah, exactly. You know?

SPEAKER_02 2:35:42

Exactly. But it was an absolute you know, it it wasn't a fa it was a failure. It was a failure on behalf of the policymaker, aka the government, and again, our fucking officers sitting in their ivory towers, coming up this reconstruction bullshit. We should have been taking hearts and minds, not trying to make them, taking the hearts and minds of these fucking Taliban. They should have been putting inventory out there, doing inventory what inventory do best, seek and destroy. Like the Brits did in Hellman Province, like the Americans did. None of this building, like you said, they're simplistic human beings. They were fine before we got there. And they're fine now, after us.

SPEAKER_03 2:36:26

They were fine when the Russians were there. Exactly. So, yeah, but anyway, that's you know, my my little my little sidebar is that I reckon if we had have walked around door to door on day one. And handed each fighting H male a thousand bucks US as a down payment and then fifty bucks a month as as pay, we would have saved ourselves a lot of drama, mate. We would have just gone, hey, I gotta pay you. It's fifty bucks. Is it a thousand bucks? I just added to your economy. Big time. Where's Taliban?

SPEAKER_01 2:37:07

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:07

Where's where's biggest armor? Where's Biggest Armour, mate?

SPEAKER_02 2:37:10

If I was young Balau, fucking little Aussie soldier coming on the door with a thousand bucks, like, mate, you've got me. And if you I'm flipped, and if I'm converted.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:17

And if you shoot at me, if you shoot at my team, if you're really that, if you're really, really that stupid and you want to come and shoot at the team, yeah. Well, you're gonna lose your fifty bucks a month and you're gonna end up eating fish eyes. And we're probably gonna drop a thousand pounder on your roof, so choose wisely, son.

SPEAKER_02 2:37:34

But instead we gave them fucking pens that they turned into IEDs instead. I wonder how many soccer uh soccer balls are still over there. I remember telling them, I'm like, boss, what are we doing? Why are we giving these pens? And then like a week later we found one in an IED, like, boss, here's the pen we fucking gave them. It is now an IED.

SPEAKER_03 2:37:53

The poor lieutenant's like, why do my you were that you were that corporal, weren't you?

SPEAKER_02 2:37:58

I was I was only a private. Oh yeah?

SPEAKER_03 2:38:00

I was only yeah, the the the grumpy scene you dig a boss, but I was a boss.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:05

You've got these pens here, they got fucking metal in them, and then we did find one in an IED. I'm like, it's not working. The hearts and minds did not work.

SPEAKER_03 2:38:14

That that boss is probably now now because you're all over the internet, he's probably like, God, I hope he never raises me.

SPEAKER_02 2:38:20

I hope he never raises it. I think he no, he was a good boss, but he did raise it up high. I'm pretty sure he's up there. Did he? Yeah, I think we ended up we did stop ending up handing out these pens. Um again, that's that's the policymaker. That's that's the that's those brigadiers and generals, and you know, and they're sitting back in camera and going, Oh, that's a great idea. Let's let's give everyone pens and pens and notepads. That'll that'll solve the war. Absolutely. Not at all. Moving forward, you finish that first rotation, RTF 2. That's your first real job on the ground as an in analyst in a war zone. As a human operator, a human operator. In a war zone. Now you get the call up. The big boys. Like you said, when you got there midway through that, SOTG kicks off. Commandos, SASR, they come back. Their direct role is to target, support the infantry operations, do what they do best, seek out clothes of the enemy, and kill them. That's their fucking role. Yep. You head back on an SOTG rotation, mate. Talk me through this and the changes. Like we spoke about earlier, the Oli Schultz, the Ben Roberts Smith saga that's going on. You know, they're trying to throw these boys, multiple other guys under the bus for doing their job and killing bad people. So run me through this whole SOTG thing, mate. Let's let's let's get stuck into the weeds.

SPEAKER_03 2:39:56

So I get sent over originally as a uh I go down to Kandahar and I'm a part of a multinational team there for a short period of time. I get brought back into Uruzgan to be as a part of the SOTG. And I end up as the I end up as the uh OIC of the fusion and targeting cell. So long story short, this is a multidisciplinary, multi-agency team. Obviously, I have to think about my boundaries here uh in terms of what I can say and can't say, but well documented. There were fusion teams there, and they are multidisciplinary. So when we talk about before I was a human operator, now I'm I'm managing analysts. From memory, at the peak I had 12. Some analysts and some liaison officers from other agencies, Team Australia and America.

SPEAKER_02 2:41:04

So you're wire also at this stage?

SPEAKER_03 2:41:05

I'm a way to um so what's the job? Well, the job is really simple. It's not to solve Afghanistan, it is not to um do analytical work to determine what the Taliban are gonna do next fighting season. Sidebar. Got asked that a lot from Canberra. Uh, and my response was the same thing they did last year. Fight us. Yeah. Um so but the job is different, and I'm just gonna go off to a little sidebar piece here. It was uh it was during Iraq, uh, was it McChrystal? Um US Special Operations who understood that you know, in the early phases of Iraq, they were going and they were hitting and hitting and hitting targets, but the time between hitting a target uh and hitting the next one was sometimes weeks because they didn't have the ability to fuse the intelligence together quick enough. You've got to understand that when you hit a target, there is a cycle that unfolds rapidly. You know, an operator can go in, the guys will do a raid, they'll do a hit on a target, and they might pull out of there nothing, or they could pull out three laptops and 14 people that need processing, questioning, if necessary, interrogating, if necessary, preparing for incarceration, whatever. Uh weapons with fingerprints, IEDs with graphite powder. You name a signature or a component of a weapon system, and if it's pulled off a target, that is an intelligence process that has to start and finish. So, yeah, the team, the team was there, and the job was pretty much on a daily basis. Um every night, point at a map just before or after dinner at the commander's desire. Point at the map, say this target's gonna be here. This is the value, this is our assessment, this is what we believe's on the ground there. This is why it's important. Here's your top, here's your top five. The commander's going, right? I've only got so many assets, I've got this, I've got that, I've got this, I've got that to support the mission. He makes the decision, and then maybe twice a day. Or in the case of FE Bravo, it might be, hey, we got this job coming up in three weeks, and they're because each of the FEs have their own intelligence staff who sadly you know, pick a a corporal and a sergeant if they're lucky, and they're working their tactical cycle as well. So within the task force, you've got their guys and girls just chewing through on a daily basis, working their asses off to try and try and prep the mission.

SPEAKER_02 2:44:31

Let's just break this down a little bit. Every job that pretty much the force elements did were derived from intelligence gathered off, like you said, that you got these uh the collectors, the SIGs. Actually, break this down again. Uh just simple man terms, you're in or is gone province. Let's just say it's the Torah Valley. There's been uh you know uh two kids get their head cut cut off. That somehow gets back to you know the ISAF. That intelligence is gathered by the collectors, the SIGs. They go it could be or whoever, whichever collector. Yep, whichever collector.

SPEAKER_04 2:45:16

Whoever collector, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:45:18

They go, oh yeah, it was uh person A. This this guy was the guy that did this, he's a Taliban either sympathizer, we don't know yet, and then obviously it comes back to you guys, and then you go, oh shit, hang on, this guy is actually a Taliban commander, because all the intelligence from these collectors all come together and go, fuck, actually, this guy is a commander. From there, you build your int analysis of that guy, and then it's pushed through the chain on the SF side to say, we've got this guy, we believe that he's uh you know, somewhat a commander. Yep. Who makes the decision from there to go?

SPEAKER_03 2:46:00

So so you you raise a really good point, right? And I can see where you where you're going with this. So and I probably be should have been more specific in my description of daily, daily basis. So targets in Afghanistan or anywhere, anywhere for any reason, are not just chosen as a whim by Erlo pointing at a map, right? Exactly. And I don't I didn't choose those, I didn't choose those targets because I didn't like the cut of his jib, right?

SPEAKER_02 2:46:31

Yeah, he didn't like our wells. He's our target.

SPEAKER_03 2:46:35

I'll teach you. He's got four wells. He's got four points. Um I want them back. Uh uh, we didn't choose, so there's only two reasons why you would choose a target. The first reason would be because they've already been approved as a part of a priority effects list, which is approved and signed off on and checked at multiple levels all the way through to the strategic level. NATO. Uh ISAF. NATO ISAF. So there's this is top level, top, top level. There's a boss, there's a uniform boss, right? And they go, I approve that target. Now, so there's two ways that that can happen. First one is already on a list because the intelligence has led to a point where I we we, the team, turns around and goes, We believe that this clown with four water pumps, he's he's Al Qaeda. All right. And then we get interrogated by the chain of command and the decision maker, and they go, Do you have this form of intelligence? Do you have that? Do you have this? When was the last information? So it's a bit of a checklist. There's a there were right to say, yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:47:47

Yep, yeah, he ticks this box, he ticks his box, ticks his box, blah blah blah.

SPEAKER_03 2:47:51

Yeah, you've got to be a bit more than just Muslim Taliban and and mean and nasty to to make the list, right? Um so there's those legal and legal is involved. Legal is involved as a part of the intelligence process. They're like, yep, legal, over to you, commander. The other way someone can end up on a list is if they have been the one to initiate their own demise. So there is an incident and that person is not on a list. Like I just spoke about before, like as an example. So that example you explained before the person might have done something, and then it's like, right, do we have sufficient information and legal governance in place to justify targeting that person? If not, the gig's not on.

SPEAKER_02 2:48:43

Would they pass it off to obviously A or AMP, National Army or National Police?

SPEAKER_03 2:48:49

Yeah, well, ultimately you're there to support. We this is the other thing that people forget, right? We were actually there to support the right. Uh regardless of how um some of our experience were good, negative, positive working alongside them, and regardless of the outcome, the framework of operations and and and system was that we were there to support them. So, yes, the Afghan police and and national army had a say in what happened.

SPEAKER_02 2:49:24

Um was it a requirement to hand over that information to because we know how corrupt those organizations are, especially the the AMP, could be more corrupt than the the army itself. Just to did you have to hand it over, or we could just go, no, fuck, we're gonna hand this over because we believe that this could lead to So there was definitely a framework for information sharing, right?

SPEAKER_03 2:49:50

And you've got to understand it worked both ways, right? We relied on them for intelligence, and they relied in many ways on us. But we kept, of course, our own national and in some cases coalition um classification sensitivities where it was deemed that handing the information over was because of the way it was collected or something of that nature. And that that's not unique just to Afghanistan, of course. It's it's our relationships around the world, you know. We share with some and we don't share with others, and some we share with others, but with a caveat, and and that's just the way the system works.

SPEAKER_02 2:50:38

What's you know, just rough turnaround times here? You know, let's just say you you you build a bit of a package on a single person. What's what's the time frame here? Can can that extend out to one, two years, or could it be like we got to hit this guy now? It just really depends.

SPEAKER_03 2:50:54

I observed people that stayed on the the list, if you like, uh as a targeting uh as a target of an international terrorist organization for ten years. Shit. And then they popped and they didn't come back. They were targeted. You think about Osama bin Laden he was on he he was number one on the list. Remember old Saddam Hussein, he was he was the ace of spades, what was it, ace of spades, ace of diamonds, whatever? Ace of spades, yeah. It took took a while to get him. Yeah. But Osama bin Laden, he's no different well sorry, probably bad way to describe it, but his story is a classic example of the targeting story, right? The greater their operational security, just like us, right? They want to remain clandestine. At the beginning of Afghanistan, if you were help holding a satellite phone and you were wearing dish dash, you're dead. I don't know if it was a good idea to stand right uh overlooking Bora Bora and and make a call to mum. They adapted. They learned, right? They went, oh, bad idea. Maybe I should use a courier. Maybe I should stay off the internet. Like Osama did.

unknown 2:52:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:25

Use couriers.

SPEAKER_05 2:52:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 2:52:27

Which eventually fucked him. Yeah, exactly. Same as Saddam, it was his chef that's rollover. Imagine being that guy. The chef. It's funny because I had the Delta guy, just a quick side story. They had the Delta guy on that found the chef. Yeah. And obviously they're just like, bro, like, why you got like a thousand pounds of fucking fish? That's right. And he's like, Humdullah. Humdullah. Inchula. He's like, uh Saddam. In hall. Yeah. Flipped juz like that. But um, yeah, that's interesting. That's interesting.

SPEAKER_03 2:52:57

And then so someone can be someone can remain a target of and we're not just talking about the SOTG context. Of course we do. We're talking about the international, international context, the five-eyes context, right? And um I you know this is well documented. It's on the internet. Of course it is, yeah. Heggs, don't get angry at me, right? Yeah. It's well, we're not on signal, so um, but uh yeah, somebody can be, they they don't just disappear off a off a system. They stay somewhere. If you if you are a bad guy, meaning harm to the national interest, and your government um has the mandate, will, legislation, and imperative.

SPEAKER_02 2:53:40

Hmm. And and just on that, let's just say you've got person A. He's he was operating in the in the Urisgan province, however, he skipped to Hellmann province, or would you hand that over to, you know, whoever's operating in that process.

SPEAKER_03 2:53:57

Yeah, so obviously everybody has their own um their border, and there is a number of ways of getting around that. One is to allow others to come into your AO. So if somebody's chasing somebody, think let me give you an analogy. Cops are chasing evil, evil, bad drug dudes towards South Australia from Perth, right? And they get close to the South Australia border and they ring the the South cops and they go, Can we come in and and get these bad guys? And they're probably like, Nah, because you're not covered under our legislation. That's alright, we'll set up a checkpoint and block them at the border. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So that at that in the context of in Afghanistan, yes. Same, same. Same, same. Yeah, gotcha. Now or you might be like, they've gone into this place, let's give it to the our brothers and sisters over here who we have a partnership with, and they can go and do it.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:54

Now let's get to the juicy part.

SPEAKER_03 2:54:55

Oh, yeah. This is where it gets juicy. Okay.

SPEAKER_02 2:54:59

Is this an ambush? There's no ambush. I just want to hear some dead television. Okay. Um you've come up with a package, you've handed it over to SATG commanders, they're like, fuck yeah, this is ours. They're all on their whiteboard. Yep. Old mate's name's up there, you've passed all over your stuff. Cats are fucking loading up on their helo, they fly out there. Run me through like uh, you know, one of those objectives that we've, you know, maybe spoken about in the past that's uh been successful. And you know, you get the call back and they're like, Yeah, mate, Ali Jan's been uh he's been kicked off a cliff. No, I should use that one. Yeah. Bad example. Bad example, Ali Jan uh he's been he's been shot, he's been killed, and do you get on your whiteboard and cross him off? He's like, Yep. Um tick. Thanks, boys. Practically, yes. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 2:55:51

What else are you gonna do? You're not gonna leave him up there. Close the file. Um look, uh so the the cycle is continuous. The cycle is continuous. So when when you've given the intelligence, everything's approved, the guys are going out, the and they're on the HLZ, they're they're they're they're on their way, the um ISR is up to support to support those activities. Um you're not your team's not sitting there, you know, celebrating for the day. And no, because guess what, you're gonna go and do targets tomorrow. So they're preparing things for the next day. For the next one, until the guys come back. Uh there were plenty of successful ones. In fact, I think from memory our trip had, you know, one of the things with with SO guys, and I love the way they captured this in the movie Rogue Rogue or the TV series rogue heroes, they're highly competitive. So they they like to write down the number at the end of the trip, and I think it was like 260.

SPEAKER_02 2:57:02

On your rotation.

SPEAKER_01 2:57:03

Hashtag quotas.

SPEAKER_03 2:57:04

Hashtag quotas. Um uh but of course those targets were, you know, if you hit a hit a location after a particular leader and there's 12 guys there, well doesn't jackpot, right? You you've you've got something else. Um I guess the example that I would give of how it unfolds where somebody and the example that you gave before about the people were macheted or whatever in Jorah, and uh there's an immediate reaction. We had an objective um who will remain nameless. Uh and he it was it was an afternoon on my own business, we're in the Fat Cang. One of the one of the um outposts, little command post place, Australian infantry A soldiers uh out to the east had towards Mirabad had been uh this A soldier got up onto the high ground f which was actually the the observation post and shot up Australians and killed Afghanis, right? Whilst they were having their freaking breakfast or uh or prepping dinner or whatever they were doing. So we went from nothing to chase this guy for 11 days. And the cycle was was immediate. And there's a couple of interesting things that come out of this, right? So as the as the manager of the cell, I knew straight away that there were three things that were guaranteed to happen. One, every collector, whether it be human, etc., would be not knocking down the door saying, I know where he is. I know where he is. And it's not their fault. I've been in that place. It's because you're in that, you're in that spin cycle and it's like people forget that, hey, we've got to bring this stuff together to determine what is real and what is rumor. Because when these things happen in out out on the ground, the population all of a sudden start talking. And a rumor can very quickly be like that's the truth because there's 20 people saying it. Well there's only 20 people saying it because Muhammad down on the corner whilst he was having his shisha went, oh, the bad guy's up there. And now 20 people are saying it. You know, do you know what I mean? So discipline in that moment from an intelligence perspective is critical. Because you are the one that if the commander loses trust in you, if all of a sudden you go he's over there, he's over there, he's over there, within 24 hours the commander's like I'm not talking to you. I don't trust your intelligence. You've sent us to the wrong place so many times. This is a critical situation. Find me someone that can tell me where he is so you so that's very important. The second thing that was really important is when there's a crisis on and you've got your team they need to be able to concentrate they need to be able to do their job with one voice protected because what will happen is from the mess hall to the skiff everybody will be saying oh what do you know when do you know give me an update give me an update give me an update so it was my job then to set the conditions where I was like every we will give you an update every 15 minutes for the next two hours then every however long however long until it was a routine and I was like that is when you will get your information my people have to work. They have to find this bastard so that becomes a challenge but then there's also the management of the team I'm like this could be this could be all done and dusted in 24 hours and we'll all you know have a have a Mr Whippy from the mess and and celebrate or this could go for a long time and there's also the real world is happening as well right there's still other targets there's still other things happening so I'm like right a team little tiger team right you guys are on the target until I say rotate and you guys are going to bed because I need you fresh tomorrow in case we have to work through the night right so there's the management of the team there's the management of the intelligence and there's a management of the expectation uh and I made a decision very and I used to teach this as well as a teaching point is I would only provide advice on information that had been corroborated validated meaning if I had five reports saying he was to the West and one that had been confirmed from two different forms of intelligence, two different collectors we would follow the one that had been validated not the other ones. They would I wouldn't ignore them. Yeah but the two separate collectors pointing it that one direction correct fuck that's the one that's the one right or wrong we're following because if we just follow our passion because John O from Humeint he's a great guy or those SIGINT fellas are extra special or these GO guys are talented or the whiz banger on Ozint he he's really good he found his Facebook page and blah blah blah no no I'm not interested I will only send our guys into danger sorry it's not my job that's not my decision I will only advise the commander on what I know what I don't know and what I'm doing about what I don't know. So yeah it went on for 11 days um it was probably two sometimes three ops out a day it was like he's here right the guys would go out and then sometimes they get a tack tip off on the ground or they they'd get some information from us while they were in the air and then they would bounce and then they would bounce and it was I think it was about day five and I turned around and went we we understand that we're chasing him we understand that we're close how do we how do we bring him up through the ISR threshold so just quickly what I mean by that the ISR threshold means you remain hidden under that intelligence surveillance reconnaissance threshold until you do something which raises your head above it i.e use your phone stand stand out in the desert and look at satellites uh whatever it might be use the internet so we had to bring him up through that so that we could detect him and the way we did that was advise the I suggested to the commander who was actually my OC back in Australia hey don't go to the next village go to the next village after and tell them that you're looking for him and then what that enabled them to do was to then get him talking yeah just carry on we just had a quick break so just carry on where you left off there talking about five days yes uh about five days in change of tactic try to get him some sort of sense of where he was we we felt we were on the right track the reports were indicating we were following in the right direction but time's getting on right five days your reporting's going all the way up to to prime minister and cabinet people are like why haven't you what are you guys doing why haven't you captured him your job is to capture him he was our mate as a part of MRTF what are you doing so the pressure's mounting so recommended and the commander put a team forward into the next village and um things rise rise up as a as a signal and then all of a sudden dissipate so by day 11 we're like how long can we keep doing this before he just becomes another target but what does that mean for the Australian soldiers that have been shot up and the and the A what does that mean for SOTG? What does that mean for MRTF and the lads down there who've s sent home a couple of their mates with shrapnel and you know injuries um and very quickly the the um the crumbs ran dry so you know pretty this is this is a part of being Intel right you can celebrate the wins within your team internally but reality is the reality of being an intelligence analyst contributor whatever your wins are not your wins your wins are the shooters' wins hey they're on the ground as I always say to Int staff because I've been on both sides of the fence I've been infantry and I've been Intel if you if you don't like the ops plan or you want the recognition go do ops right be satisfied that change it change it right you be satisfied that you are there to support and be proud of the fact you're an integral part of that process anyway so he he disappeared and then we were pretty dejected and I'm like how am I going to manage the team because morale just dropped you know everybody thinks we don't know duh da da da we lost him how did we lose him why did we lose him is it something we did wrong and then he popped up on TV in Pakistan and he's like I did it you know praise be to Allah I made it away from the Australians and da da da and uh rookie error on his behalf rookie era right uh and a couple of people were angry and I'm like yeah I'm angry we didn't get him but thank you Ars clown for confirming that every piece of intel that we had was correct because he said oh the Australians were on me every day many times a day and I had to run and I that I had to change direction and I did this he corroborated what the team had been doing and I'm like sometimes you just don't get your guy but that doesn't mean that you don't follow the right process and the and and do it right.

SPEAKER_02 3:09:49

Don't second guess yourself back yourself do do the governance do the checks do the the the validation but have faith in your training and and believe in yourself and and if your assessment is X then tell the boss X um from what I understand he came to a demise some time later yeah good good but like you said mate it's really good rookie era in his bar but it also established and I guess for you guys your TTPs because then you look back and go that that that process worked that process worked that he just confirmed it. Fuck we gotta stick to that process or use those scenarios in future analytic scenarios.

SPEAKER_03 3:10:43

Yeah for sure and you know beyond that I think one of the one of the big I talk about the pressures of intelligence and it sounds like I'm a whinge in in in pest right but I say this with a with an ICB on right ha having context of both realities in a kinetic world you uh your feedback is usually immediate the validation of the success of your planning approach and tactics is validated immediately come HR come door open breach whatever hellfire missile fight in the intelligence world it doesn't work that way you don't know always whether the way that you've done it the the value or the validity of the information that you've collected is correct until maybe never maybe you were right about where the bad guy was all along and just because the guys went there to collect him doesn't mean that three minutes before the bad guy the bad guy's mum called and said can you go to the grocery store right so this is one of the things that that particularly young analysts until they become comfortable with in the skin of yeah yeah okay operators say I got it wrong we'll see maybe maybe I did get yeah yeah but if I start second guessing myself and not trust my training well the we we just go kaleidoscope then really don't we?

SPEAKER_02 3:12:35

We're all over yeah yeah right she's just going down to pick up fucking a liter of goat's milk yeah yeah bing bing hello mum Ali go pick up gold milk I'm an idiot no I like that I like that just I wonder how many I wonder how many were asked to do that and they got had a bomb dropped on them. Oh that's it yeah yeah that's it oh yeah ambushed and everything that was really good mate I really really enjoyed that opens the understanding opens the understanding of because you know I know for a fact when you know when I I did uh Afghan the Intel was poor and I it was only poor because I think it was poor on our behalf of not disseminating that information down from the platoon level whereas I think it is very valuable that every single foot that is on the ground should have the full picture of the in pitcher for your purpose of we become also a collector.

SPEAKER_03 3:13:37

100% do the one of the biggest issues that we have today across in modern militaries across the board we view intelligence as a top down thing we have been absolutely institutionalized because of mainly Afghanistan that those whiz bang kids with the green lanyards in the skiff they know everything we only know what somebody has reported from the ground up from the ground up yeah exactly right and that do you know in many ways when we're in interfet there was a collection culture you know young diggers running to their in staff right hey Sarge Corporal I found someone's talking about milisi the militia here and I found this ID card it was it was ingrained but that that's a very big danger that we face now where it's like I will be told no you're the eyes and ears you tell me you I I don't know until you tell me and I confuse it and I go oh thank you that's it thank you that just corroborated that that's it exactly right private Johnno from Alpha Company saw this and private exactly private smith saw this oh shit there's yeah there's a direct connection there they're two separate platoons from two different locations but they got the same information that's weird isn't it passing up but yeah no I definitely saw that in my time in the military but you know hopefully that's that's changed which probably not but uh you know we did learn a lot through GWAT obviously which is uh great TTPs you get back from your operation with you know special operations you've done the special special operations inside you've done the regular forces inside you've done your time as an infantryman comes up to you know 2015 well the war's done Iraq has kicked off again though Mosul Mosul's in swing so I'm sure you've got some analysts uh deploying over there however your career's getting on you become wo one step it up a notch from there generally once you reach those levels you know the operational side starts to come back you become more of a desk jockey you know when does that start coming in when do you start when do you when do you get promoted to wo one? So I got promoted to Wo One the day I left SA uh 2013. Yeah I think it was 2013. So your career changes on that you know look I it was actually quite controversial amongst some in my cohort and I copped a bit of bit of spray for it and I'm I'm I still stand by my decision. So I got promoted to Wo One I wasn't offered the the pay stick at that point and I and I didn't want it I actually didn't want to be an RSM only single only reason was because with the way that the system had changed with new tiers for and and processes for career progression it meant that they had kneecapped my career if I took the stick because whilst I believe I could have been competitive maybe or not blah blah to be a Dib RSM or RSM army or whatever not that it was ever a dream desire or in fact you know something I'd want to do there was potential I could have been competitive amongst my peers but I was still an int dude regardless of the infantry history um and what I didn't want to do is then end up going from what I loved which was training and mentoring intelligence soldiers and officers to a reserve unit in Wangabak Radarat right and doing a training program for a rain chute on a Tuesday night. Now don't get me wrong that's a respectable thing to be doing and great service to your country and and enjoyable for some people but I built this career and I wanted to stay in the game and unfortunately I didn't have to take the stick I did not have to take it but I was encouraged to and I said and I was encouraged to bring my experience and do the best I could for the school and the core I believe I did that and um but I had to make a decision about the future of me and my family and it was like if I if I don't leave now I will be too old to go and do X Y and Z. And that's why I came to play in Iraq yeah so 2013 like you said promoted to a warrant officer class one 2015 didn't get out so where where's the decision made there you're just like uh no well I was I was open and honest with with with both head of corps and and the CA that I supported I was his RSM and I'm like there's never going to be a good time right and I caught some flack because people like yeah you shouldn't have taken the stick if you weren't going to stay and I'm like stop so when do I get to choose after my service my years of service when do I get to choose what's the right time because if I wait until posting cycle then guess what? Yeah the new CO is going to be why aren't you coming now I have to get a new CO. If I say that I'm leaving so I chose to leave halfway through unfortunately it didn't work out for the core the way that anyone had anticipated because they then put an a signals core RSM in that slot which upset people greatly because you know you want your so things changed but that was why I made the decision and it was like okay handing it over I've done enough I'm walking you're done you're done ish done ish.

SPEAKER_02 3:20:30

So now you thought you move into the private contracting world what again where does this come up well

SPEAKER_03 3:20:39

The contracting thing with you know going to Baghdad there was I still needed the juice, mate. I still needed I had a need for the for the the itch. For the job. For the job.

SPEAKER_01 3:20:54

Yeah, of course.

SPEAKER_03 3:20:55

And it was just a quick way of getting back over. ISIS was Isis was there. The money was pretty reasonable. I wouldn't say it was it wasn't the kind of money that contractors were making back in 2003, but then there was the the danger was different. Um and I was like And a trip to Iraq.

SPEAKER_04 3:21:16

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:21:18

Let's go and do this. And I said to I said in in some ways I cheated, right? I cheated I cheated the system. I I cheated God's great path for soldiers and contractors. Well apparently what I was supposed to do is go and get an APS job or go and get a job at KPMG or whatever, and then make a rough transition as a soldier into civilian life and somehow morph into a polite APS six or something. Or something. Right? Or go and do an MBA and start my own company or right. I think deep in the back of my mind, I'm like, if I'm gonna leave the army, I'm familiar with that environment. Yeah, I am comfortable in that environment. So that's what I did. You know, I will go and do this. And then I remember walking into you know, you guys picking us up at the biam, and I'm like, I don't know this boy with a British accent, but he sounds like a freaking parrot to me, right? Yeah uh the smells, the you know, the weapons, the the embassy staff. I understood the characters and the interplay and the the the politics and the losers and that stuff.

SPEAKER_02 3:22:55

There was so many losers in that embassy. Absolutely they hated us too, didn't they? Well, mate, I inspired they would they just looked at us like we were just and we were disgusting human beings.

SPEAKER_03 3:23:06

Well, mate, I've got I got it look I gotta say this, right? I I've lived in in the beautiful world where I've been a stinking mortem, yeah, right, and I've been a person that's had to sit at a conference room table and and try try to understand or use and or use big words in the appropriate place, right? Because you you have to influence and walking in with a a darry in your mouth into into an embassy and you know being a gunslinger or whatever and going, I don't care if you want to go here, you're not going there, and this is where this is what we're doing, and shut your mouth. That doesn't quite work. Yeah. And you you know that very well from your profession as a as a CPP operator, you know that you've got to be a chameleon sometimes and adjust. So yeah, oh we we didn't care.

SPEAKER_02 3:24:01

They'd be like, you gotta go here. I'm like, well, sounds cool to us. Let's let's do it. Let's rock it wrong. Good times, mate, absolutely uh brilliant times. And like like you said, like you would have, you know, you obviously there was a whole bunch of Aussies at the embassy, you know, obviously the the shooter side, a lot of us were Aussies, commandos, a couple of cats, yeah, yeah, a couple of infantry guys. Yep. And uh you mate, you just fit straight in, come out the back, have a daries with us, yeah, have a dart. What's going on? And the intelligence was always good. It was always good.

SPEAKER_03 3:24:32

Thank you, mate. It was always good. Do you remember um I was reflecting on on the job there? And uh do you remember the the week couple of weeks where it was constant where Mukhtara Al Sada and and Sarah El Salam kept invading the green zone?

SPEAKER_01 3:24:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:24:49

And you remember I at one point I was just constantly briefing about you know what what they were doing, and then when they eventually did, and you remember they actually made it to the embassy, and they kind of it was weird, it was like we weren't there because they were like, This is it, this is the moment. This is this is our Benghazi. Yeah, and I'm like now I hope I hope these freaking shooters can actually shoot, yeah, because otherwise I'm grabbing one of these AKs. Yeah, and uh, and then they all went straight past us, like it was I know, and I'm like, oh that was yeah, we were like that too.

SPEAKER_02 3:25:24

That was that was a lot of hard work. This is our time, our time to shine. Yeah, good times, mate. But um obviously still the embassy's still going. Not there's obviously no embassy at Kabul anymore, but uh yeah, baggers are still going. I think it's predominantly British now.

SPEAKER_04 3:25:40

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:25:41

Uh then just on there, the Australian government's special because the British are cheaper. Isn't that funny? So you're gonna risk Australian lives because the British are cheaper. Not saying that, the British they've got some absolute fucking gun gunslingers there, but Australian Embassy, you should have Australian veterans there. Open tender, my friend. Open tender. It's embarrassing, isn't it? It shows you how corrupt and how stupid the Australian government is, my words. Yeah, right, mate. So obviously from there, this is where you you you know you continue on with your contractor life, do a bit of defence contracting with SOCOM. Uh, and then now, mate, you know, new beginnings. I've actually just seen this pop up on uh on socials in the last couple of weeks, mate. Talk me, talk me through it. What's what's the latest?

SPEAKER_03 3:26:30

I literally six months ago, I was with a company and I'm reflecting on the fact that I've done a lot for Queen and Country. I've done a lot for other companies, I've done a lot in in support of the national interest, uh and it's been a long, long life, right? It's been a busy life. And I thought, no, you know what? And I had a discussion with my wife, and I'm like, I'm 54, I've got all this experience, I haven't got anybody killed except for uh the bad guys. Um it's time for me to go alone. So I've created Arcana Intelligence Insights, and it's it's all the offerings that that you would expect from from my background. So it's um intelligence, um, insights for corporate or whoever. It could be a local council that wants to know when the the Straits of Humor's open or whether or not the Houthis actually fire on ships in the Barbel Bar Strait. Uh so intelligence analysis, but security risk management. I'm very keen to share my message in res in regards to resilience uh and getting through experiences like I've had, particularly from the cabello thing, but also that journey and helping out leadership and organizational structure and consulting, mate. So that's it. Yeah, right. Because I've grown up and I'm 54. So the light is at the end of the tunnel, so I better make my move now.

SPEAKER_01 3:28:22

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:28:23

All right, mate. Well, so if I get into a road raiding incident and I can get you a a registration number, you can build me a targeting package.

SPEAKER_03 3:28:33

Is that how it works? I'm pleading the fifth on that. I'm not saying no and I'm not saying yes. That's all right, mate. I've got people already. I I can't imagine you in a road raid situation, mate.

SPEAKER_02 3:28:45

Yeah, you know what? Um I've been in a few in my time.

SPEAKER_03 3:28:50

I I have to say, when I reckon in my 40s I peaked in terms of not in terms of road raging, I do that every time I go to the shops, right? But I peaked in terms of my capacity and skill set to actually pay the check I signed when I do road rage. Yeah. I did it the other day and I went, I'm going off. And you know how hilarious it is, right? All they can see is this screaming head with no not with no noise. Yeah. Like a cartoon. Yeah. This old guy bald, and then they're and then I I'm like, I look and it's a car full of, you know, some pretty, some pretty big Pacific Islanders, right? And they're like, really, bro? Really? And I'm like, I just need to go home and have a coffee and a little lie down.

SPEAKER_02 3:29:47

No, this is where you build that intelligence package. This is what this is this is my later. Get them later, 11 days later. Send the seals. I know I know people, you know what? Just give them a water pump. Yeah, do it with the defense stars. Give them a pen. Absolutely. Some pens, guys. Mate, it's been absolutely awesome to get your full story, you know, especially at your level. Uh, I had Mick Albright on. Uh you might you know Mick, yeah, Mick, I know Mick uh well. You served together in 3 AA and in Chocks before three. He obviously moved into that Intworld world as well and did a lot of work with SOTG and absolute stellar dude. And you know, he's obviously at that corporal lower level, but then now I'm getting that picture from someone that's above that, where it's upper echelon level and working with the commanders of SOTG and you know, commanders of RTFs, etc. So it's been really good to build the full picture of exactly what Int does, you know, that the collectors and this and that and this, and it's not just Jason Bourne with a fancy fucking watch that can uh I wish that presses a button and so does my wife.

SPEAKER_03 3:30:56

My wife wishes I was Matt Damon, I'm sure. Um mate, it's been an absolute pleasure, and thank you for the honour of having me on your podcast. Um when are you gonna change your name to um Rogan?

SPEAKER_02 3:31:12

Oh, you know, probably a little bit less PC than him. Yeah, yeah. That's probably well, then we get that big. But you know, yeah, again, not to mention the the Rwanda stuff, mate, it's just unfathomable what you guys went through. It's just such a different, especially being an infantryman. Again, yeah, our job is to seek out and close with the enemy to kill the capture, but you guys literally sat back and watched a massacre happen and then have to clean the mess up. Yep. And then get blamed for it. Yep. It's a lot to take on. Then again, I can see why a lot of guys shut their mouths and just moved on with their lives. But this is the type of stuff now that we need to bring this shit to light, especially with all the war crime stuff and allegations and the hate against defence now and all these Anzac memorials getting destroyed by all these fucking leftist weirdos. This is the reason why we need these stories out, because this is what Australian soldiers go through.

SPEAKER_03 3:32:12

Absolutely, mate, and thank you for giving the opportunity to get that voice out. What uh the last thing I'd say to you uh before we go, in regards to that issue of a lot of guys won't talk about cabello, a lot of people won't ask questions about it. You know, it's like one of those things. If you turn around to a civvi now and you say, I was in Afghanistan, they're like, oh, well, I don't know if I want to talk about it. Thank you for your service. You know, there's this there's this perception. Say if you meet somebody who was in cabal and you're curious about it, ask them. And if they go, I ain't talking about that shit, then fine. But maybe they want to tell this story.

SPEAKER_01 3:32:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:32:56

Maybe they want to share it. Yeah, or if they are out there listening, which I'm sure they will be, yeah, reach out to me. I'll happily have you on and have your again, everyone's got their own point of view. Like you said, there's timelines where you probably were wrong. But maybe one of your mates goes, Oh no, bro, like that this is how it was. Yeah, this is what I remember. For sure, for sure. Everyone's got their own aspects and own visions of exactly their time. But uh mate, before we do, you know, a couple of final questions. What advice can you give to people just to keep on keeping on completing any god they sit their mind to and to crush it in life?

SPEAKER_03 3:33:32

I am going, oh I'm going to I'm going to relate that my answer to that question on a from a mental health perspective, and because I I there was a gold nugget that I was told by counselor, and I think and I've shared this with lots of mates and soldiers, and and they've they've come back to me years later saying, I remember that. This counselor she turned around and she said, Do you know what? Men are like bottles of coke, and I'm like, I don't know what you're on, but you better hurry up, right? She said, if you take a bottle of coke and you give it a tiny little shake, and we'll call that shake someone stole your car when you were 20. And then we get it, and then we just put it down and then we pick it up and we give it a medium-sized shake. That's losing your first girlfriend, right? And then we really give it a hard shake, that's your first deployment, right? Or we shake it for a week, that's your Rwanda, your Somalia, your Afghan, your first deployment, your thing. We just leave it there. And then we just keep doing that. Eventually, the top comes off that bottle of coke, regardless of how tight it is, the pressure builds up in it, and what happens is that explosion is so shocking and sh so dramatic that everybody's running around going, Oh my god, and it takes weeks to get the stickiness off the floor, and and the bottle's empty. We've got to fill the bottle back up, right? And then we do it again. The easier approach, and I say this to I used to say this to soldiers all the time. The easiest approach is to recognise you're gonna have those shakes are coming. Just release the lid a little bit, a little bit at a time. It doesn't don't wait until it's dramatic. Do the little bits at a time, you'll get through life, everything will be fine.

SPEAKER_01 3:35:41

No, exactly right. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:35:46

That's probably an easy way of putting it, really, isn't it? Well well, it's it's mental fitness as well. Yeah, you know, work on your mental fitness, which is part of that releasing that pressure.

SPEAKER_03 3:35:55

And and and you know, I think it it in this is gonna sound really absurd, but in many ways I was lucky to experience cabello and the extremities of it because I was enabled to learn very early what my experiences were doing to me and recognize them. And that empowered me to go, uh uh, okay. You need to go and have a you need to jump on the bet bench, we winger. You need to, hey, center, you need to go and sit over there for a little bit, right? Just a little bit, right? Release the bottle of coke, right, back out you go, run as hard as you want. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:36:36

Yeah, exactly, mate. Uh said question Tell us something about you people don't know. Guilty obsession, pet hate, I don't know. Oh what do you I've got a few pet hates, but we won't go. Oh, you're a typical warrant officer. Yeah. Well, that's hey, there's that basic. Get off the grass. It's got blood on it from diggers.

SPEAKER_03 3:36:55

Get off the grass. Uh something people don't know about me. Well, I did. I told you that, and I pulled myself out there and I I I I I'm questioning whether I should have about my original nickname Special Airlid. Oh yeah, yeah. It's out there now. Yeah, it's coming back to me. I know it. I know it.

SPEAKER_01 3:37:18

But uh most people Yeah, food, drink, what's your what's your go-to?

SPEAKER_02 3:37:24

The poison. You know, when you're just sitting there watching red. You're watching the notebook and you're crying.

SPEAKER_03 3:37:32

I'm a cheeky cab salve guy, mate. Oh yeah. I used to be um, I don't know, I kind of transitioned in my twenty it like as life went on. It was beer, then it was just bourbon and coke, and then as you lose your hair or get grey, you start wandering like a wino down with a it's the greatest thing Jesus ever did.

SPEAKER_02 3:37:55

What a legend. Turn water into wine. What a mad dog. He's the original brewer, isn't he? Mate, uh next question what scares you most in life?

SPEAKER_03 3:38:08

Ooh, I think the answer to that for me change changes, has changed over time. I think when you get to for my cohort in particular, you start to see you you start to hear uh stories about your mates ending up with cancer or passing away or heart attack.

SPEAKER_01 3:38:32

Yeah.

SPEAKER_03 3:38:33

When you're 10 foot tall and bulletproof, right, and you've got your shooter socks on, nothing can stop you. And you don't fear anything, yeah, right, except your own failure, probably. I think most people but as you get older, you get closer and you see your kids grow up, and you see other people like parents get old and you're like, shit, I'm on the clock. Yeah. So I don't mean that in a scary lie in bed and and worry. You're right. You're all dying.

SPEAKER_04 3:39:08

We're all gonna die.

SPEAKER_03 3:39:09

Well, we are. Um at least you're Jesus. Uh, but you know, I I think you become more aware of your mortality than the call your joints ache.

SPEAKER_02 3:39:21

Yeah, no, 100%, mate. 100%. You definitely do as you get older, that's for sure. And you start aching in the morning, like, oh fuck. I wish I wasn't like this anymore. I wish I was, you know, when you look at your kids, I sometimes go to my kids who are nine and seven year old, I'm like, you don't know how good you got it. Not a worry in the world. Yeah. School, and they're like, Oh, I hate school. I'm like, school's the best time. You no responsibility. Even if you failed, I failed. No responsibility, no bills, no pressure, no business, no nothing. Yeah. Just no lunch was made for me.

SPEAKER_03 3:39:54

I mean, you've got a free run, I say, right up until you're 29 and a half. Yeah. Because everything during that time is reversible. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Right? You you're a clean slate, especially health. Go go to jail, and as long as it's not too big, you'll be out by the time you're 30, right? Oh, at least day and age, you'll be out in a couple of years. Yeah, or melt murder someone. Um, most things are reversible in the 30s, big consequence, right? You've got there's kids, there's stuff, right? There's maybe mortgage or not, whatever. Credit cards, yada yada. There's consequences for action. Um and but yeah, as you get older, it's like, yeah. Yeah, well, if I screw up now, there's not much time to do that.

SPEAKER_02 3:40:41

So saying if you want to murder someone, do it when you're younger.

SPEAKER_03 3:40:44

No, don't take that, don't take that on board. Mate, last thing I'd say to you is the is this I want to know what the sweet spot age is that you can go into a shopping centre and yell obscenities, crazy, crazy man shit, right? Really offensive stuff, yep. Really non-woke stuff, right? And people look at you and go, oh, he's just an old man. He's just an old man. I want to know what the sweet spot is, because I I reckon if I went in and did it now, I'm going in a paddy wagon. Well, let's do it, let's try. I'll do it first. And you do it next. I I think I r I got I've got a funny feeling it's around 70. You'd have to be, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:41:35

Yeah, I don't know.

SPEAKER_03 3:41:37

I'll get there first, mate. I'll let you know how I go.

SPEAKER_02 3:41:39

Yeah, I don't know. Dunno. Dunno. Because Lancy Clancy killed the three kids and everyone's just fucking said that's fine. Yeah, well then, yeah. So it might be. Could be. Yeah. Let's go do it. Where's the closest shopping center? Just put your pants around your ankles. People fuck he's nuts. I don't know this guy. Mates uh next question, two final questions. Favourite movie, TV show? What's uh what do you watch?

SPEAKER_03 3:42:03

Oh, I have to be Platoon. Oh, yeah, classy, absolutely too too many hours spent in a guard room on that one to to walk away. Uh about the intelligence gathering one. Ooh. I recommend a couple of recommendations for um for close to truth, Syriana. Good one. Good one. If if you if you're into Hume Mint, spy game, despite the name of the movie, which I was like, come on, you you made a really good depiction there of Hume Mint, and then you went and wrecked it with the name. It's like spy kids. Yeah, it's like okay, you got Brad Pitt and but it's it's it's interesting. Um yeah.

SPEAKER_02 3:42:46

I thought that Zero Dark 30 was pretty good. It was good. That was really good to paint that picture of that uh that analyst. Um music, you know, when you're cruising down the freeway, got your goldilocks hanging out the window, your arm hanging out. Might not Metallica.

SPEAKER_03 3:43:05

I I go in roundabouts, right? So I'll be I'll be for a period of time into my old stuff like Huda Gurus, which the Mrs. Hate's Huda Gurus, Hotel California, bit of Elvis, all the all the you know, staple diet stuff, cold chisel. And then I'll I don't mind going down a little bit of country. I went through a period of uh a bit of garth, and now they've got some really great country playing on the mainstream, and I'm like, yeah, I don't mind a little bit of someone stole my dog and took my wife.

SPEAKER_02 3:43:38

Yeah, that's the problem with country music, though. It's always about losing their wife or just about their dog, yeah. Country music. I don't mind it, yeah. I don't mind it. Depends what I'm doing. But uh mate, again, really appreciate coming on the podcast. If people want to reach out to where can they find you? LinkedIn socials, mate.

SPEAKER_03 3:43:57

LinkedIn, hook me up on LinkedIn, uh Akana Intel's the website. You probably probably won't remember that, but hook me up on LinkedIn. Uh I'm available to say hi, chat, work, anything you need.

SPEAKER_02 3:44:09

Yeah, well, that's it. If you need a targeting package, use your man. Um well, I wouldn't go that far, but if you need if you're a government agency, you need some extra hands.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:19

I tell you what, if you need if you maybe if you if you need me to do something in the Middle East or Africa in particular, I'm I'm here to help. Can travel.

SPEAKER_02 3:44:29

Afghan.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:30

Sure.

SPEAKER_02 3:44:32

Reach out, Taliban. Reach out.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:35

Sorry, I don't have any more uh water pumps left.

SPEAKER_02 3:44:39

Yeah, just take a few over with you. Yeah, you'd be fine, mate. Again, appreciate you and uh yeah, we'll stay in contact.

SPEAKER_03 3:44:44

Cheers, mate. Absolutely. Thanks, mate. Bye.