THE DEBRIEF #26 War Crimes/Mental Health/Alternate PTSD medicinal therapy hosted by Zero Limits Podcast Matty Morris with guest Nico Seedsman SASR former guest EP. 95

SPEAKER_00 0:13

Time for the Zero Limit Podcast, hosted by an Australian veteran. Chatting with high-charging humans with epic stories from around the world, we'll give you the motivation to take on whatever life throws at you in the game to complete any goal you can get your money to. Let's go.

SPEAKER_02 0:41

Zero Limits listeners. Today's debrief. Joined in the studio by a SASR veteran. Before joining the SASR, he was in the Navy. And uh, if you want to have a listen to his episode, episode uh 95, this is below the 100s, 95 at Nico Seesman. Cracking story, absolute cracking story. Spent uh his career within SSR in the notorious they'd call it these days, the notorious two squadron. Notorious notorious two squadron, uh, now since been disbanded by the Australian Defence Force, which now has also turned into the Australian Fairy Force, uh, which uh we've seen over the past few years, which we'll we may we we may dive into because we're gonna talk about uh well first of all, Nico, mate. Welcome.

SPEAKER_01 1:36

Good day, mate. How you doing?

SPEAKER_02 1:37

Yeah, good, good mate. Uh last time we caught up, obviously your podcast, but then we caught up in Shrio de Janeiro.

SPEAKER_01 1:46

Rio, Belmontche.

SPEAKER_02 1:48

Yeah, cracking place, mate. Yeah, that was a good really good bar. Great bar. Really good bar, and yeah, we caught up. I was in town with a certain touring artist, and I thought, you're perfect. You're in town and you're like, come out for a drink and let's let's relax.

SPEAKER_01 2:06

Yeah, it's a good spot there too. It is, yeah. Ipanema.

SPEAKER_02 2:11

Yeah, yeah. And when we say notorious too, it's one of those notorious areas that can be quite dangerous.

SPEAKER_01 2:17

Yeah, um, look, I I know I know Brazil pretty well. I know uh I speak language now.

SPEAKER_02 2:22

Like oh do you?

SPEAKER_01 2:23

Yeah, I taught myself all the languages for this shit. Um and if you go around the corner in Copacabana, you'll just you'll get jacked. They don't care. And it's not some other countries, it's like vindictive, like they'll stab you, they'll take your shit, right? Argentina or or Colombia, something like that. Um you know, it's and it's not as violent as you think, right? You go to the wrong place, wrong time. It's vindictive theft. Um, they'll stab you, they'll take it. Whereas in Colombia, it's like they'll grab it in an opportunity. Sorry, not Colombia in Brazil, they'll grab it as an opportunity and and run, like run for their life. But they're not gonna harm you. They're not interested in harming you. It's like, hey man, you're rich, I got nothing. I thought I can take a shot here. And it's not there's nothing vindictive about it, it's just you know, you had your phone and and there wasn't there was an opportunity for this bloke. So even though there's crime, yeah, you're not exactly gonna get stabbed.

SPEAKER_02 3:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 3:10

Um Ipneema's pretty safe just around the corner from Copacabana, Ipanima and Leblon, and they're kind of like the you know, like real middle, upper class, so you and and a nicer area, and there's something wild there between Copacabana and Iponema. You could draw like a a line, like like one of those Korean parallels, and as soon as you cross it, it's a completely different atmosphere for crime. Yeah, it's like there is less tolerance by the police there for crime, so they know they can get away with more shit in Copacabana. So yeah, Ippanemas, Ippanemas, Ippanema in Lebanon, good to go.

SPEAKER_02 3:46

Yeah, and just just on that, obviously, what made you move to that part of the world?

SPEAKER_01 3:53

Um go into it a bit more today. I think we're talking talking earlier about some of this, but I don't know why. I I traveled the world, I've traveled Europe, I've traveled pretty much everywhere, done all Asia, done did a bunch of Asia in the Navy when I was real young, like like 18, 19. Um and then I've traveled a lot of Europe, like a shit ton of Europe, spent a lot of time there. Same with North America. When I got to Latin America, there was just infinitely more like love and passion and femininity in the girls. And it was just it was just funner. People just had more of an atmosphere for life. They weren't just like working and existing to work. There was actually like a this this this culture in the air that was um just drawing me to them. And then since then, the more time that I spend there, since I've been living, I've lived in Colombia, I've lived in Brazil, I've I've you know spent a lot of time in but years in both of them. Um yeah, it's just this this flair and passion for life that's addictive that you just actually, you know, and then it's you know, same goes with the with with with the girls there. They're infinitely more um feminine, feminine. They're like wear dresses, flowy dresses, and loving. And they'll go be doctors, they'll go be whatever, and then they'll come home and they'll just they'll just like drop into like just being super feminine and loving and caring and passionate, and then they've got these like feminine daughters, and and it's like the feminine is still sacred there. Um and God forbid, as a man, I'm attracted to femininity. Um, disgusting.

SPEAKER_02 5:26

That's that's toxic.

SPEAKER_01 5:27

Yeah, not into the not into the um the the modern faggotry, I guess, would be the term.

SPEAKER_02 5:34

That's yeah, just and and you've come back to Australia. Obviously, we'll speak about the reason why you've come back to Australia. Yeah. And uh but before we do, mate, I just want to touch on I'm in the SASR. You know, we're going through a bit of a a crazy period right now. Obviously, the Ben Roberts Smith saga, uh Oliver Schultz obviously still waiting upon his uh trial. Just broadly, what's your thoughts on this whole scenario? You know, again, you serve time in the specific squadrons and yeah, mate, I gotta Christ, I got a lot to say on this, right?

SPEAKER_01 6:13

I could talk about leadership and like the difference between enlisted and officers is accountability, is responsibility and there's fucking none of it. And that goes all the way to the PM, right? So once you get to the point of lieutenant colonel onwards, probably never seen two officers that are actually worth their weight in integrity. Okay, and I I mentioned to you, I'll name them. It's like Bernsey, who's my first CO in the unit, and then Simon Stewart, which was actually my first CO in um in 8-9 R A R. Um, and everyone else is like does everything they can to avoid and tap dance and fucking scheme from responsibility across this whole country. Like, name one fucking politician you'd follow into the cinema, hoping that they'd get the seat right. Like they're they're there's they don't want to take any responsibility for anything. So they they squirm and scheme their way through all their leader responsibilities. So coming right back to the core of this whole situation, there's no like the fact that they wrote themselves out of the equation and and and hypothetically, if I was to measure this backwards and the plausibility of of this these investigations, you'd be like, okay, cool. Well I would start measuring it from leadership. I I I would be like, cool, well, then you know, if you're a leader you'd and you knew this was going on, you'd you would have stopped it immediately. So just by that nature, then it then it's not going on. But if it was, then it's like then a leader and accountable.

SPEAKER_02 7:51

In in terms of that, now you say they shouldn't know and should be aware of what's going on. Now, for example, you're in Afghanistan, two squadron, Bush Ranger, kicking in doors, in after kicking in koala doors, shitty doors, blowing up, blowing up as well, doing the job, getting in there, killing Taliban, coming back. The boss knew exactly what was going on. The boss knew exactly what happened on that job.

SPEAKER_01 8:13

It's their job to know. And it's their job to know all the way to the top.

SPEAKER_02 8:18

Like there's your boss knew, their boss knew, and then like we said earlier, you know, we said offline and I've said on another podcast, from there, their boss, there's going to be a patrol report that gets submitted, boss signs off on it, sends it up to NATO or wherever it's got to go from there. So it's it's it's reaching level to level, brigadier level, colonel level, there is general level.

SPEAKER_01 8:38

There is leadership accountability up their chain of command. Exactly right. Like it's not just this rabble pack of sergeants and below out on the field getting up to tomfoolery. It's like there's accountability, right? So it's like so if RS is culpable, then it's like, then it's fair to say that every single one of those fucking commanders, all the way to the near top, would know or at least heard something and decided to ignore it. And the chickens are coming home to roost because I and now what is an article yesterday or today we're talking about where they're talking about international criminal court having some involvement. It's like, cool, man. Well, everyone's in action, or everyone's well not everyone, the leaders in in in action from taking responsibility, which is what they're paid to do, is really gonna get a a lot of egg on everyone's face in Australia.

SPEAKER_02 9:35

Oh yeah, definitely, definitely. Yeah, I don't wanna I don't want to dive too deep into this, but yeah, there I think this is gonna it's opened up Pandora's box now, especially with the International Crime Commission looking and seeing all the immunity that's been given now, but you know on the international scale, it's just opened up the box.

SPEAKER_01 9:55

And dude, and the worst of it is like, and I spoke to a politician the other day. Um, I'll go into this part, it's like, dude, that the guys just want to go home from the war, and I'm not even talking about SAS, I'm like literally anyone who went there. They just want to fucking go home.

SPEAKER_02 10:10

Move on with that.

SPEAKER_01 10:11

Holy shit, is it outrageous the amount of guys that have killed themselves. And even in these investigations, I was telling you, I'm not even sure the objective actually at this point of wasting this much money and and not getting a mark a marked record as a as some legal fancy legal counsel. That I'm not even sure their objective isn't actually to make these guys kill themselves. I went to Melbourne to check in on a friend of mine, he got arrested at his at dropping his kids off at school. Like you literally just do it in his fucking garage, but like you you're doing this. Like there's malice, there's hate. At that point, they fucking hate you. For for Ben, they fucking hate him to do it in that environment. It's been it's vindictive.

SPEAKER_02 10:52

How they did it for Ben as well, you know. Like again, we'll we'll touch on quickly the the ISIS brides, you know, they've come home and had a bit of a, you know, this is only the last 24 hours by the time this podcast's out, you know, probably a week. But they've been that were sheltered. Whereas you look at Ben Ben Robert Smith, man, it was put under the it was tipped off, you know, AFP tipped off the you know, if that's how it's happened, ATP's tipped off the media, the media's been there, they've just televised the whole lot. And again, like put him as a spectrum.

SPEAKER_01 11:19

Dude, that's not an accident. One media group turning up is like a leak. They're putting everyone getting the same fucking chain mail is is vindictive. It's targeting.

SPEAKER_02 11:30

Yeah. And for him, for them to do it in front of his kids and in front of people, like and we know for a fact that even his solicitors have basically said, if you want us to come in, just give Ben a call, and I'm sure he'll just rock up to the police station.

SPEAKER_01 11:44

They offer anyway. Exactly. Every time they offered. Like even my mate in Melbourne, he's like, dude, I I literally told you to your face that if you wanted me. So they turned up to grab him.

SPEAKER_02 11:54

And OSI.

SPEAKER_01 11:56

Uh I don't know who these guys were. Yep. When it came to arrest him.

SPEAKER_02 11:59

Obviously, connect connected with OSI.

SPEAKER_01 12:00

Yep. So they turn up to grab him and they arrest him at dropping his kids off at school. Anyway, and he's like, Okay, cool, guys. So you've you have I've seen you tracking me and following me and doing all this. You know he's counter surveillance, so if he's like, I'm not stupid, he goes, I've seen you do it, but you also have a you also have a car out the front of my son's daycare. He goes, each day. And they're like, Yeah. And he goes, Cool. Then those guys should have fucking reported that my kid is still in the back seat because he's sick. So what the fuck do you want me to do with him? And they're like, Oh shit. They like panicked. He goes, Are you guys this incompetent? Um so he ended up having to drive with the police in his car, trying to explain to his little kid why the police are there and wanted to like cuff him. And he's like with a sick little boy in the back and he's trying to take care of his son while they're going through his home. And this the kid's trying to not the kid's gonna grow up with those memories. It's like it's hateful, it's vindictive. Literally, like it's actively trying to destroy guys. So at this point, I'm not sure if you're like if if they're they want them to kill themselves, because I'm pretty sure that that's why I went down. I want to check on this guy, but I'm pretty sure that's the objective at this point. It's like, fuck, we might not win these cases. The only way we might get away with this without blowing 300 million of the Australian government's money on this and looking like fools is if these guys successfully kill themselves. Which circle and right back is what I told Pat. I'm like, for fuck's sakes, Pat Conroy. Yeah, MP. Yeah, and he listens well, man. He listens well as an MP. I'm like, I'm like, because I I told him about the DVA challenges. I'm like, hey, overseas, is a if I file for DVA, there's a six month waiting list to be reimbursed for my medical expenses, and I have a catalogue of fucked injuries, like catastrophic shit. Just fuck my life. That's okay. It's part of the deal, right? But it's like getting reimbursed takes six months, and then I might not even get reimbursed for some random loophole that that that I don't even know. Right. Or if I come to Australia, I get I get um, I can't even get treatment here for a lot of my injuries because every time I try to go to a doctor or a chiro or a physio, they don't want to take me because they receive half the amount that they receive for for a normal treatment from DBA. In fact, most of them are asking for my Medicare card. They're like, Can you just pay Medicare? I'm like, cool. So what the fuck is the point of getting covered by DBA if everyone just wants my Medicare card anyway? So I told him this. And then I went and told him, I'm like, look, he goes, is there anything else you want to say? I'm like, actually, yeah, there is. Dude, stop killing my fucking mates. Like, and that's all the brethren that I went to war with or wasn't there, or was doing a handover with, a passing of the battle, and the guys in the battalion, all this, stop fucking killing them. Because it's getting to a point where it's like it's gone on too long. The guys just want to go home from the fucking war, end it for the love of God, stop dragging this out because at the end of the day, these guys can't go fucking home. And it's like, hang whoever the fuck you're hell bent on hanging. And if you don't have enough inf evidence at this period of time, you're not gonna fucking get it, but end it. Do whatever you need to do, but fucking end it. It's like it's gone on too long. Like telling you about my other friend from 2 battalion, just with him on Anzac Day, and I knew I knew 13 of his dear friends had killed themselves.

SPEAKER_02 15:12

And I've spoken to this guy as well. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 15:14

13 of his dear friends have killed themselves. Pretty fucking horrendous, right? Two of them. Four military guys. Oh no, yeah, like all military from the battalion. Yep. He goes, two of whom he was living with. He came home to like basically cut them down. So he's he's he's had and he became the the basically the grievance counselor for the whole fucking unit. They're all coming to him, trying to go through the grieving process, trying to understand why they're made, like hundreds of them. Then people would call him to talk to him because they thought he was the best person to talk to, had the most emotional intelligence for such things like suicide now, qualified, right? Grossly qualified. So then he was just getting all the fucking calls from all the guys in the battalion when they were thinking about like taking their own life. It's like, well, clearly there's no other support fucking anywhere else. So he gets to 13. I then find out on Anzac Day, his other mate had he just found out I was with him, he had killed himself. And he's like, fuck. And I'm like Anzac Day just killed. Yes, Anzac Day, he's like, I'm like, man, is that 14? He's like, no, actually, it's 15. One of the other guys killed himself in the last whatever, and I was like, for fuck's sakes, man. And I'm like, I'm like, guys, that 15 dudes in your battalion. He's like, no, it's up to like around, probably around like 30 in the battalion. These are just 15 like good friends. He's like guys that I wouldn't spend a lot of time with or like lived with or roommates or like near best friends at the time.

SPEAKER_02 16:29

Um and the these are veterans of the Iraq-Afghan conflicts. Yeah. I just like I just want to. A one-day server is now a veteran, you know, under the DVA Act or whatever they call it now. But you know, I just want to, you know, just just ensure we get this right. These guys are Iraq Afghan veterans.

SPEAKER_01 16:54

For the time that he was in, he was definitely Afghan. Yep. He was definitely, definitely Afghan, his whole battalion went to Afghan.

SPEAKER_02 17:00

Yeah, of course, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 17:01

Um, interesting enough, the it came one of the things that that because you've got to ask at this point, where the fuck is the leadership? Hey, dude, you you went overseas, you commanded these men, you're tied to command these men for the rest of your life. Get your fucking shit and your integrity as a leader together and check in on your fucking guys. Like create a system to check in on your guys. This goes for SAS too, by the way. I've never got a single fucking email from those cunts. I'd be pretty blatant about that. And I asked some other guys, neither do they as well. You're like, you commanded these people as an officer, as a fucking leader. That that puts you in a position of responsibility. You're somewhat tethered to them for life. So their commander came back, and within like a week or two of coming back, I don't know if it was a strategy to whip the guys into line, or it was, or it was his him dealing with his own psychological challenges or his own, you know, um insecurities. But he basically turned on the battalion, the commander, turned on and said, You're a bag of shit, you're a bag of shit overseas, you didn't fucking do your jobs well, all this. And I don't know if someone came down on him and he decided to take it down on them. And that set off the path of suicides. And then once guys started seeing that as the road out and the option on the table, they all started fucking doing it as well. This one commander, he's a he's a fucking senior member of the Australian army now. Of course he is. Fuck that guy. That's that's how I don't even know his name. It's find that guy's name and fucking name your shame. Fuck that guy. I hope he loses his job.

SPEAKER_02 18:22

100%, mate.

SPEAKER_01 18:23

Find it fucking 30 suicides in your fucking battalion, you piece of shit.

SPEAKER_02 18:27

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 18:28

Yeah. And and then where the fuck is there Townsville politicians to get on top of that? Like at this point, I like I tell veterans, I'm like, dude, like trying to hang all the fucking SAS dudes or doe dudes, like commando dudes, and we're not the only ones in this circus. And it's like, as well as constantly talk about the military, not taking care of any all the veteran stuff with DVA, anything, it's like um constantly shout on from every angle. Like, you know, they they talk about the dawn services where you know they only talk about DEI successes. There's no actual like acknowledgement of like your ordinary soldier who goes and fights the war. Um, your new chief of army, the chick who's never been in any combat, was chosen because she's female, which I'm pretty sure is sexist. It's like, no, I want a female one. You're like, she's never been to a war. I didn't care if you're female, I didn't care if you're whatever. But at the end of the day, if I fight in a trench with you or do whatever, it's like I didn't give a fuck what color or gender you are, and that's what the army's like, right? But I'll call a spade a spade. She was chosen because she was a chick. And it's like, so you've got these, you've got these DEI announcements, and if and and then they want to talk about the the opening come welcome to country ceremony or whatever they got in Australia here. I don't live here, but it's like I've seen enough of this stupid shit now to be like, yeah, guys are guys are pretty fucking off it. Like they should be off it. Like it'd be at this point I'd be like, fuck you. They fucking hate you. They clearly just hate you. They hate you for for your, you know, whatever whatever identity you are as a warrior. They fucking hate your archetype, they don't give a shit before, during, or after service.

unknown 20:08

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 20:09

You're exactly right.

SPEAKER_01 20:11

It's um call a spade a spade. You wouldn't do this, you wouldn't do this to someone unless it was your enemy.

SPEAKER_02 20:16

No, exactly right.

unknown 20:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:17

You wouldn't do it unless you had you'd had to actively coordinate all of this like with intent.

SPEAKER_02 20:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 20:23

You couldn't it's it couldn't just be an accident.

SPEAKER_02 20:26

It's it's not an accident. It's it's it again, we track back to Bondi. For example, the Prime Minister. They've done nothing but just dodged dodged the bullet the whole fucking way.

SPEAKER_01 20:40

Of course, we have we have you know systemic cowardism. Well, that's the big thing. Our leaders are cowards. Yeah, yeah. No, our leaders are cowards, they're scheming cowards, and it comes from the top. So, of course, all these other fucking officers in the army that start becoming sub-politicians around Colonel, of course, those guys become cowards too, because they're just you dude, when you're when you're a 2IC and you've got a commander in charge, you you emulate yourself based on him and every other commander you've ever seen. That's how you understand leadership, right? That's how you learn. Well, if you could only learn from a series of fucking inbred cowardice, how the you can't learn fucking anything. You're like, well, other than cowardice, right? And that's what we've got all the way to the top. Yep.

SPEAKER_02 21:21

And it's sad, it's sad because you know, we speak about the officer special investigations, you know, uh, old mate getting arrested down in Sid uh in Melbourne with his kids, etc. And then, you know, like you speak about the two Kamana guys, you know, that not not just recently, in the last couple of months, and you know, a two Kamano guy had his door knocked. And I I've seen the CC TV of how the officers approached his door. They approached his door like they were going to get into a gunfight. Vests on, uncleeping pistols. This is what's pushing guys to the fucking edge. Yeah, they're being treated like they're dead set fucking criminals when nothing's been proven, nothing's been done. They're just Just automatically treated as they're guilty. Yeah. You know, how would you feel if the police come to your door ready for a gunfight and you're just like in your jocks, open the door, hey guys, come on in, come and have a tea. Let's have a chat. What do you want to talk about?

SPEAKER_01 22:15

It's just like we've we've normalized it. They have, yeah. We've normalized to be treated like like scum. And like, and this this bloke in Melbourne, as he talked about, he's like, he's always friendly. He's the happiest, smiliest, most gentlemanlike character. Like he had these guys rummaging through his house, and they're like, Can you get a cup of tea or anything? And then at the end, like they mentioned they're like, Look, we're not used to this. We're used to going through bikey's houses and like like like crack dens or whatever. Um, and they're like, We're not used to houses being orderly or clean or amicable people or whatever. They didn't even know what to do with it, I guess, is part of it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:59

And he's a medal for gallantry uh recipient as well. So you know he's a he's a warfighter.

SPEAKER_01 23:05

Here's fucking one for you. Yeah. Here's here here's leadership. The unit basically tell him he's getting his his medal, and they gave him no time for it. Deliberately didn't want to go, they didn't want to support him while he was under investigation, even though I've now talked to him and he's like, Yeah, no, they're all green-lighted by his lawyers to be fine. He goes, they don't have anything, they're all under the rules of engagement. Everyone there's ever killed, any blany bloke who's ever killed. And he goes, So he's fine. So he's the calmest I've ever seen him, thank God, because it wasn't looking pretty last time. Um, and he went, so because of that, the unit didn't go to support him, didn't send anyone to support him, didn't send not only that, didn't have any time to even ask anyone to even come. So then I was at this craut crate foundation gig in Sydney, and I I wasn't do I wasn't doing it as such, but I was there. It's like this is a foundation organized by one of the guys to as a to basically get the guys from the units because they're so wound up for war and whatnot, which you fucking want you need warriors, you know, you it's it's a duty that's necessary. So they would try to help him after doing 15-20 years of this to go back into into the the um civilian world, right? And find jobs and and and kind of get all their shit together. And as a bit of a course they run over, I think about a week. Well, when I found this out, he was down, he was whatever, and I was just like, that's fucked. He's like the mates that went to war with him, the you know, the unit that's supposed to have his back wasn't there. Like I think he was able to go with his with his with his missus, she came along. So I went and got a I went and got a replica. And during the the first um first evening, or one of the evenings there at the bar, I actually got out there, got a replica and I blinked a glass and got everyone to gather around and I presented it to him. And he's like, dude, and he told me this week, and he's like, mate, that was more special to me. That medal was more special to me than the one I got from the government by far. He's like, like, the fact that I'm like, hey man, and I remember saying and I was like, I think you deserved to have your mates around and the members from the unit well when you receive this, and just a little bit, I actually think they deserve to be here as well. Yeah, you're exactly right. Because it wasn't just you, you might be the representative getting it for that incident, but they were by your side as well.

SPEAKER_02 25:28

And you know, I I know there's a lot of operators out there that are you know probably well deserving of such high gallantry awards, but to get awarded or be recognized for one of those awards, you've done something pretty pretty. Pretty wild, man. Pretty special.

SPEAKER_01 25:41

It was a Tuesday. There were gunfights every fucking time we went out. It's a Tuesday, man. Like it was just it was just another fucking day to us almost all the time to have those kind of incidents. Like literally, we were landing in deliberately into it. And it was just, it was like chaos. There wasn't no organization, there was no structure. It was like you didn't know to what direction someone would be shooting at you in the helicopter and when you landed from what direction they as well as trying to circle in really quickly on some guy. It was like complete chaos in the dust of absolutely everything. It wasn't, these were like really fast, intense missions with barely any planning. It was it was it was and it, you know, and every time we went there, there would usually be a bunch of dead cunts at the end, guys that had that that had been killed in combat. And it was like, and then we'd just get up and reset and move on to the next, and so on. Like we're always landing on like Taliban leaders and their and their their bodyguards or their soldiers or whatever. Like always, and every now and then we'd hit a Taliban hotel, be like, oh fuck, and there's like 20 dudes trying to fucking shoot, and so you're dropping in bombs or patches or whatever, and it caused absolute shit show of chaos in the area because it they're not necessarily just in their Taliban hotel for you know whatever colloquial word we want to use for it, but they'd be they could be anywhere else in the area, so it was like it was always a bit of a shit show.

SPEAKER_02 27:01

I've just I just did a podcast with Eddie Robertson uh from Two Commando. We spoke about the Japel and the jobs that you guys were getting, uh Two Commando SSR. Again, to get onto that list, you're a bad fucking motherfucker, you're a bad human being. Yeah, so for you, when you talk about heading out to go do a job, you're heading out because the rank structure, the officers, NATO, whoever has compiled a list of these names of these people, created a targeting list for that individual, they pass it down to the bottom levels of you guys. Here's your guy, go get him. This is where he was last at, go find him. So I'm just just trying to paint a picture for the civilian listener.

SPEAKER_01 27:46

Yeah, if you if you were on that list, you already had been directly correlated for sure for for killing um soldiers.

SPEAKER_02 27:53

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 27:54

Soldiers, whether it's Afghanis or American or Australian or war crimes in general. Yeah, you've definitely done some. You've you've either created bombs that have killed people and you're still creating them, um, or you've you've legit coordinated attacks as a commander to kill people or and just and and likely kill people directly yourself.

SPEAKER_02 28:16

And like I said with Robbo, fast Eddie, I should say, um, you're not just you know, basically the way he put it, he goes the boss wasn't just getting his tough book out and saying, Oh, I'll just go target that that village there. It was there what you were targeting those villages because you're targeting individuals.

SPEAKER_01 28:34

Dude, we were tr we were tracking them with drones and surveillance aircraft like constantly. I was, I was literally a JTAC as well. So I would sit on this desk because we didn't trust anyone else to do it as diligently as we would in the command center. Plus, when I went on the ground at night, I knew where they'd been fucking around in the ground. So I'd be like, hey, when I was monitoring ISR earlier and we'd do a night mission, right? And I'd be like, I'd I'd be like, I've seen them dig in on this line every night. And I and I and it's they're and I don't know if it's a remote detonated or it's like, you know, plank based, which is like, you know, you step on it, you basically blow up a portion of that whole road and compound. And I'm like, so let's go around that. Like, and it's it was really, really helpful to do that. So the amount of diligence and assets that were on this site to coordinate this person being there and and you know, um interarching intelligence as well, whether it be human or communications or whatever, like we were damn well sure what we were going to land on and who was there and their and their bodies, like you know, like, and then plus it'd be ought to find caches there as well, based on things that I'd seen on the ISR. Like, we were tracking them diligently, like this wasn't just an accident, we're just turning up to a friendly village. Friendly village was a waste of our fucking time. Do you know how much like money and time and effort and distraction it would take for us to be sent to random villages? Dude, everyone we went to was because there's some fucking bad dude there.

SPEAKER_02 30:01

Yeah, well, you don't have to convince me. Yeah, but you know, anyway. Uh, and just on this, so this is I guess we'll kind of segue into that mental health. You know, it's kind of what we wanted to do this uh debrief about, you know, moving into psychedelics. And I know for a fact, you know, I had uh horse on uh, you know, a few podcasts ago. He went over and did uh the ibergame treatment in and changed his life, you know.

SPEAKER_01 30:24

He went from Yep, a friend of mine actually said that.

SPEAKER_02 30:27

He went from the glass barbecue, yep, you know, just constantly like bad drug abuser to doing the ibergame now coming good. And I know for a fact uh Pillars for Pilgrims, uh Andy White and uh Adam Slot have now sent a few other guys uh through their uh non-for-profit over to uh Mexico to do this hyper game treatment. And it's become not only within the the military world, you know, first responding world, it's become an absolute game changer. And we know the fact that DVA and Australia are slowly starting to grasp the concept and uh other parts of the world, even even the US, it's some parts, it's illegal. Uh some of those states uh uh Mexico for this treatment.

SPEAKER_01 31:11

America's a bit of a mess, right? So I came out um I came out in 2017. I in 2018, I 2017 I I met a guy at the end of the year, and um, and I I got to know him, and he was a good American bloke. And I'm like, dude, why are you so calm and centered? Like I've like everyone else around you've like varying degrees of you know anxiousness or whatever, just as human levels. Like, why? And he goes, Well, I did this thing called ayahuasca and uh did it a couple of times, and I've just been like this ever since. And that was the first guy that mentioned it to me. And since then, there was starting to be conversations and American He wasn't. He wasn't just he just wasn't, he was just so fucking centered beyond anyone that I'd seen centered, and no matter what the environment was around him, he was just he was calm and really, really present and had his whole life in order too. It's another aspect, right? Like all his all these ducks in a row for all the aspects of his life. And uh ended up, you know, that was kind of someone always plants a seed in this psychedelic realm, right? And anything I I should should say this at the start. Like I'm not I'm not a medical medical advisor, not allowed to be or whatever. I'm just gonna speak from my experience and what I would do. So anything is hypothetical from my point of view, and I I should say that right. Like I think it's I think it's the the right thing to say because it's, you know, for for liability purposes and all that nonsense. Um I then 2018 started meeting, I met a ranger called Jesse Gould that was building a foundation called Heroic Arts Project, which is really big in the US now, very successful, but they focused, they were focusing on ayahuasca. They've since worked, gone to psilocyber and MD May and helped get all the veteran congressmen to start pushing this and driving it, right? Um I then in 2000 and and uh it was 19, I went and did like he was just like, look, a slot opened up. Would you like to come do it? Now, when I first left, my autoimmunity was so intense that it was like I just trying not to die, really. It kept getting sicker and sicker and sicker, and I it was too risky for me to take it because it was such a drain on my health. You know, I was on bed most of the time. Um well, I did this, and I'd done probably 250 to 300 hours of of psychologist therapy at this point. I'd done all the shit. I'd done antidepressants I'd done before. Antidepressants are the only thing they're good for is like a bandage.

SPEAKER_02 33:38

Masking.

SPEAKER_01 33:38

You're bleeding, triage, bam. Stop. It breaks this spiral that you're in, maybe. And I think maybe, and there's also a chance it'll amplify the speed of the spiral. So it's a fucking hit and miss. But it's the idea is to break it in some degree, so you're not just kind of in that same loop. You might get worse or stay worse, but at least you're not going anywhere else. You're slowing down. Um, that's that's it. It's not sustainable to live on, it's not good for you, it's destructive, it'll mess you off completely. It's it's absolute bullshit. So that's about all a psychiatrist is really good to put you on. Then they've got all these other courses that are pretty clinical. Psychedelics, I do Ayahuasca. Uh, I'd done mushrooms in 2018, I should mention. I did mushrooms then. Um, because at this point, you when you realize you've got all this mental, then you find out you've got a spiritual and emotional health, you've got all these other sort of health fragments. It's like you're you're in a world of fucking hurt to recovery, right? Like I can't have healthy relationships. I don't even have a healthy relationship with myself, mentally like challenged. It's like we've got problems. And to be honest, let me point out that if you if you've gone and fought in the war and you came out and you thought you were fine, you're you're not 100%. Okay. And that's okay. Even just by the conditioning you've had by being in the military, you're you're you're not like on baseline, you're not in homeostasis. And on top of that, if you're going to war, you're very far from homeostasis, even if there's no massive warning signs. Like a normal person could probably see you and be like, that guy's a little bit weird and on edge. Your wife might have normalized it to such a degree because she just thinks you're that crazy bloke. But for the most part, when you come back, they're like, you've changed. And it depends if it spirals to a degree of like complete catastrophe before you do anything. But I would say that everyone has to some degree has had some sort of not that lit would have, it would have been an impossibility not to have been affected significantly by what they've been involved in. So I did I did mushrooms in 2018 once. And there is this moment in your life where you're like before and after, and it is realer than the world you're in. You're able to feel and see and be present and connected and process all these aspects, all these deep things that are sitting in you, all this stuff. And it's like, so there's who you were before and who you are after. And ultimately it came out of that experience, it came out of that experience, and I felt like that that was like a seed there to be able to go to do ayahuasca, which is more associated with like a deep healing, right? Um so then I went and did it in 2019, and I would say each one of these ceremonies as they called them or sessions, whatever you want to call it, but they call them ceremonies because they did them with a full shamans was probably the equivalency of doing 250 to 300 hours with the with a with a therapist in one session. I did four of them in one weekend. Now imagine if there was no gaps in the time frame and it was like all exponential growth compounding, like the results you would get. I would be dead if I hadn't done it. I was for sure on this path to death. Like living wasn't good. It was like pretty damn challenging. These things here were the one.

SPEAKER_02 36:46

You're talking from uh mental aspect. Yeah. Your PTSD was I hate the word PTSD, but yeah, it was completely fucked.

SPEAKER_01 36:53

Yeah. Like I was also fucking I was a circus. I was able to stop it with traditional, you know, clinical medicine. Of course, yeah. Just stop dying. But if you'd said I was in a quality of life, like the the choices I'd make, the recklessness, the things like that, I just didn't care if I died. Like there was no like there was no pursuit for life, you know.

SPEAKER_02 37:11

All of these things which was noticed also by your friends as well. Yeah, 100%. Because before I had you on the podcast, I reached out to a few people and get Nico and I'm like, oh fuck. This that could be interesting. Yeah. Yeah.

unknown 37:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 37:23

Because you were in a, you know, I think you're at that stage you're coming good. Yeah. But before that, you were off off the rocker. Dude, like that's what the boy said that like he was he's he's the burning man. He was he was the burning man.

SPEAKER_01 37:36

Yeah, but but it's like my life's always been relatively adventurous. Of course. I've kind of gone, I've kind of gone after it. And now these psychedelics, because we can talk about the reason I bring these up, right? Because Australia's way behind the eight ball. Where like, again, leadership doesn't want to take responsibility. So even our medical authorities are pussies, cowards. They they won't do what is the right thing for someone if it's a risk to them in any capacity, right? They don't take any risk, which means we you get the things last, which means all these people have to successfully die before eventually you'll get a medicine in there that the rest of the world's using. So America, you know, we recently with Joe Rogan driving and the governor of Texas, who went down and did Iber gain in Mexico himself, which is what these guys did, the regiment dudes are going to do or went to do. Um, they got together with Mark um Latrell. I can't remember his first name.

SPEAKER_02 38:24

Marcus Latrell.

SPEAKER_01 38:25

Marcus Luttrell and a few other guys that are that have got a they've got a big name and of influence, right? And they managed to get it to Trump, and Trump's fast-tracked all these psychedelics to now go through FDA approval. Because the data on him is like so grossly overwhelming. You just have to do it to be to have a moment when you've done it. The person after is like every everyone needs to be experiencing this. Like, it's like the the way you change your life and take responsibility and connect with your your history and your and your process things and reshuffle the way that you had things in your brain. Like um, the optimism, the the the life you feel, the you're an infinitely better person thereafter, which is why horse has this change, right? It's like and horse was a pretty extreme example, like he was pretty aggressive kind of dude. Like we had a lot of guys in the unit that we normalized like bipolarism, to be honest, that'd be like all smiley and to snap. Just like it was just and you just knew it, you just accepted it because they'd just been on like 15 combat deployments where every day they'd go out hunting dudes. That's the biggest thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_02 39:25

Just we normalized constant, constant constant rotation. And we spoke about this just before we've done this debrief. Uh me and Nico went for a gym session during throughout that gym session. We did a bit of a a debrief before the debrief. And you know, we spoke about this this constant tempo of rotations in and out of country, yeah. And it's not just like any other pen pusher or you know, some you know, I don't know, whatever, that's sitting in a you know, folding blankets, whatever. You guys are out there prosecuting targets, killing people legally, and coming back, no decompression period, your mates dying, no decompression period, back out in the fucking road again, doing the exact same thing, back to Australia, training, back to world, uh, back to war again. So the the complexities of constant war fighting, it showed.

SPEAKER_01 40:20

Dude, it's gonna like they didn't get I remember I came back, I had I came back from a four-month deployment, and I and my family knew I was changed. Like, and they didn't bring it up for like years. My family's pretty quiet with that shit, they'll just not share any emotions, but they'll like they knew I'd changed, rather, and I was wrecked, I was exhausted, it was busy as hell, day and night chasing dudes. And uh, and I came back and I had a I had like a week, not even a week. I came back and I had straight into pre-JTAC training, and then I had like a week to sort my shit out and then start a JTAC course, and then I came off that JTAC course and I still hadn't decompressed. I was so tired. I was I I'm not a pilot, so I had to learn all of it from scratch. So I was up at like up work until like 4 a.m. in the morning studying and then getting up at seven and just repeat. Did this course and then went straight into pre-deployment training to go back to Afghanistan. So I'm like permanently wound up, like permanently wound up. And I studied this JTAC course, like I'm like, I gotta do this so I can watch my mates' backs because no one's gonna watch them better than me. So I'm like, I can't fail this. I'm not allowed to fail this. There's that kind of that ethos at the unit too, like not allowed to fail things. So it's like I was wound up, man.

SPEAKER_02 41:34

Um and you also want to go overseas and deploy. Yeah, that's the worst part as well. So you can't blame blame defense, you can't blame you, you know, also gonna blame yourself in a way as well because Well, you can't.

SPEAKER_01 41:45

I'm a hammer, man. Yeah, well, that's it. You made me a fucking hammer, of course, and I want to go hit fucking nails. Yeah. That's it. My job is to hit nails. And I tell you what, man, if you start sending hammers to fucking like everything starts looking like a nail. Like it's like you're just you just you just want to go fucking hunt. Like that's your job. You're you're they groomed you to be a warrior. And it's like the more of these guys are sent, they're just wound up, wound up fucking warriors on hyper vigilant, like you know, unaware of where the next attack is coming from, right? Permanently. So by 15 deployments of being a hammer, you'd be you you'd be pretty high strung and pretty stressed, and you and you're not sure what you know what's coming your way next. Um, so what you know, so you get guys like like Horse that have come a long way, and that's the kind of results and success you're getting out of psychedelic psychedelics that is just fucking normal, by the way. Like these results don't surprise anyone who d who's done it and who's done the proper work. And I say the work because you don't just do one and done. You do a few ceremonies in a row, and that's tiring and fatiguing, the beautiful and exhausting, and then you go integrate that into your life, all the things you noticed and picked up and all the changes, you go commit to that, and then you go back and you do the next one. And you do that several times until you will just one day be like, I actually don't need to go anywhere. I'm actually, I feel, I feel, I feel at peace. And I would call that like homeostasis of like who you were meant to be, like this calm-centered person where your nervous system is up and down, where your immune system isn't crashing, where you're not getting sick all the time. I've had that experience with I've done the psilocybin, I've done the ketamine therapy, I've done the the 50 to 60 ayahuasca ceremonies. I know that sounds like a lot, but I really had to keep going for quite a while. And it's nothing addictive about it. You look at it and your body shakes at the thought of drinking another cup of it because you're like, fuck, I just can't. But you're like, you actually, you just like I'm committed to change. So it actually was it was actually an opportunity for me to get this connection to courage again. Because you can no longer charge into a fucking gunfight or a battle or something like up a hill. You you don't have that anymore. But I was able to find that was to to go in and to take another one when I was exhausted. I'm like, hey, I I'm here for this change. And I would be able to draw on that courage to go do that. So that that was cool. But it's actually, it takes work. And you know, now they've got I've done iboga in Africa, which is like three days of cro three days of crying. That's why Ibergain is like synthetic, the one they're talking about in Mexico, where you know you can do it for a couple of hours and it's pretty calm and pretty chill. Fuck no, the Africans, they'll take, they'll take full heroin addicts and they'll kidnap them. And they'll just go give them this, force feed it to them, and then after three days, they're not addicts anymore. And that's the same results that Americans are seeing, and that's what the data that that President Trump was talking about, Reese, you know, where it's 80 anyone who does one ceremony of this ibergain that has any opioid addiction at all, any opium-related like chemical addiction, they're 80% less likely thereafter to ever touch that drug again. Not maybe touch it, not maybe get addicted to touch it. Which is pretty high results. Not dude, it's an impossibility. Like like the the placebo has the exact same percentage of success as an antidepressant.

SPEAKER_02 45:09

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 45:10

Like it's there's no fucking difference. And then that's around like the 30. And that the only job is to actually not rehabilitate, like regenerate. It's actually just to stop them dying. So the objective isn't to heal. This is an opportunity to heal psychologically, spiritually, emotionally, like to get back to a a baseline of humanity.

SPEAKER_02 45:33

Makes you think, um, what's that drug? Uh what's that pseudo drug they give heroin addicts now? What's it called?

SPEAKER_01 45:41

No idea.

SPEAKER_02 45:42

Methadone.

SPEAKER_01 45:43

Yeah, right.

SPEAKER_02 45:44

Fuck you gotta you gotta look at it with with the governments, you know, we've got to look at heroin users. Why don't they introduce them to this type of treatment, the ibigaine and uh all the psychedelics, etc., rather than you know, look at the Australian government, you know, for example, here in Australia. Uh, to get our heroin users off uh heroin, they put them onto a manufactured drug, methadone.

SPEAKER_01 46:09

It's it's you know, like the pharmaceutical industry's got a stranglehold on this shit, man.

SPEAKER_02 46:13

Yeah, yeah, of course. And we we've seen that throughout COVID.

SPEAKER_01 46:16

Just like it just like Israel seems to have a stranglehold on politicians universally, right?

SPEAKER_02 46:21

That's that's been proven.

SPEAKER_01 46:22

Yeah, dude. When you when you can convince like when you look, when your constituents don't want nothing to do with it, especially another war, especially as a nation that they don't have any connection or give zero fucks about abroad. It's not their problem. They're like, when you can get their representatives to unanimously vote on something together that their constituents aren't interested in, you're like, there's something fucking dodgy there.

SPEAKER_02 46:44

Of course.

SPEAKER_01 46:44

But like, like not even maybe like you follow that fucking paper trail.

SPEAKER_02 46:48

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:48

But it's like the same with the pharmaceutical companies. It's not in their interest, and it hasn't been for a long time for psychedelics to come to light. Because they actually do something that psychiatrists can't do.

SPEAKER_02 46:57

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 46:58

Heal. Yeah. They heal. Like psychiatrists don't heal, they manage. And it's like, and same with psychologists, you know, to be able to come and go from that appointment. Now, psychologists I don't throw out the window at all. Sometimes it's really good just to have someone you can throw shit out in front of and hit and have them mirror back and and like add thoughts and whatnot. Like if you don't have anyone you're doing that with, because you can't be completely vulnerable with your your your partner or wife or whatever, then in that case, you're, you know, you need someone to do that with. But as far as the psychiatrist goes, it's like, you know, we don't need more pharmaceuticals. People actually need to regenerate, heal, back to a homeostasis.

SPEAKER_02 47:33

Yeah, I'm just trying to Google the pharmaceutical companies that make uh methadone, and you know, there's a ton of them. And of course, why would you want to prescribe a session of Ibergain when you can just continually get these methadone addicts coming in every single week? Yeah, and the methadone is provided by the Australian government, paid by the Australian taxpayer. Great. Uh, because it is subsidized for these uh addicts to get off heroin, which is wild, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 48:01

But you should we're we're we're paying for bangers right now.

SPEAKER_02 48:04

We're paying we know for a fact that the pharmaceuticals uh companies do run the system just like the Jewish counterpart.

SPEAKER_01 48:14

Yeah, the the Israel mate, Jesus Christ. Like I uh I used to be pretty pro-Israel about a year and a half ago. Um, I got a lot of you know Jewish mates in America. And like you just can't genocide someone, a people, and get away with it unnoticed. Like you you can't, and then you can't just start a war with literally fucking everyone and get away with it unnoticed, and then and then not raise some questions when both political parties that's supposed to be adversaries on any topic out of duty to some degree, like blue team, red team, unanimously backing that against all their constituents' interests of like why the hell would we want to support or vouch that that's positive in any way? Like, and you know, and I've now seen enough of like it's just all the you know, like and and and not listening to a Palestine-Israel view. I look at the American forces that that were involved in Gaza, and they're like, Yeah, they're the whole like medical staff or of like from some hospital are just apparently they're all broken. They're all just completely broken because they're like every single child that came in had single gunshots to the head. They're like, we just couldn't do it anymore, just like broken people, they're just permanently broken people. And and and you know, and then anything else that you read from any other third party, like you know, back in the past, I used to see a lot of you know the reporters like sort of playing up a whole bunch of the Palestinian stuff. Now they don't even need to play up anything, it's just straight up genocide at this point. It's it's horrific.

SPEAKER_02 49:49

I think the worst part with that war though, you don't know which side's doing it. It's both sides doing it.

SPEAKER_01 49:54

Yeah, yeah, which is which yeah, which is a which is a fairer point. Yeah. Um I know there's one side that shouldn't be doing it. Oh, yeah, 100%. If you want the moral high ground, yeah, yeah. You know what I mean? It's like I expect like I expect terrorist fuckwits to be terrorist fuckwits and to do inhumane shit. But you know, when you're supposed to be the God's chosen people, I don't expect you to be doing genocide on God's behalf. I don't think that math adds up.

SPEAKER_02 50:23

Ah, religion, mate. Fucking the root of I I reckon it's the root of all evil.

SPEAKER_01 50:29

But it's interesting, I was telling you about it. I'm like, it's the there's there's also the silent voice, it's the Orthodox Jews that were that were the that had permanently been located in Israel and had never been in Europe over the last thousand or so years. They'd they'd been there the whole time. And they consider the Palestinians their brothers, and they're in protest in Jerusalem, but that the police like beat the shit out of them. And they're like an Orthodox Jewish group that you never hear of. So it's not even just like religious sides, it's literally it's it's like there's some sort of agenda there. Um we, you know, they've got a stranglehold on the US too. They managed to get both political sides to go to war with Iran or convince the president to go to war with Iran. So it's getting it's pretty loose, man. There's some hands in play for sure.

SPEAKER_02 51:16

The world's crazy, mate. The world's crazy. Anyway, let's get back to the mental health stuff. Um, just quickly, you know, we've only got uh probably about 10 minutes left, mate. Let's I just want to tie and just quickly deep dive into where your mental health, you know, where did you know when I talk about Afghanistan, mate? What what was the triggering, I guess, episodes for yourself? You know, was it the obviously the the high tempo and the the hammer mindset as you said? There was no decompression period, obviously losing mates at the same time, but again getting back out into the thick of it. And obviously, I'm sure you had plenty of scenarios where you had some close calls and you probably look back now and go, fuck, I'm lucky to be here. Uh was it seeing death?

SPEAKER_01 52:01

Was it seeing looking contributing to death? Oh, look, man, there's I I'm I'm pretty open about all things, right? I've done an infinite out of you know the work I've done with Ayat Walsky and whatnot has facilitated me to be uncomfortable enough to even speak about this. I've done a shit ton of work. Um there's one in particular, right? Like just I remember witnessing this uh like a child choking to death on on its own blood, who was in the the target compound, um and the whole thing went down, and uh I was first on scene with my dog with Coda because at the end in the the the third trip I was a dog tack, I was a JTAC and a dog handler, which is like a gross amount of tasks. Um and I and I came in and I was clearing the compound, and the team leader was like, Yep, clear under CD, clear under that, clear the body, clear the body, and underneath I could see a little hand, and I ripped it back, and there's this kid there kind of just staring up at you, like a little toddler, like two, um, maybe one and a half, two, just eyes just like bright open open and just choking to death um on its own own blood as it as it um that one doesn't leave. And that's that's kind of the shit you will you know you you take away from there. That was just one of whatever missions.

SPEAKER_02 53:26

What was the father on the on the list?

SPEAKER_01 53:29

On the father, I don't even know. Can't remember. I can't even remember. Well it's a long time ago now. Yeah, I know I I it wasn't me.

SPEAKER_02 53:35

I think you spoke about this on uh on your podcast, I'm pretty sure.

SPEAKER_01 53:38

I m I might have might have spoken about it. This one here is the one that that kind of that that definitely is there and leaves its mark. And I think I think you've you've got you've got things like this, like killing any of the dudes, not really, not a problem. First first one shook me up a little bit. The you know, your your adrenaline is like just overloadedly pumped through your body, and then the second one um that was really close, was like really, really close to me, um, like blood on me. Uh that one there was rocked your system as well. Um but nothing it will compare it to to like kids. That one there at Sits with you. But uh interesting enough, and what I was telling you about was the guy named Tom Spooner, right? This ex um he's an ex-Delta Force guy, very, very senior, very successful, very um loved and I guess somewhat famous in America, um, as just a stand-up guy. Built a rehab clinic for veterans for for rehabilitation, and he's in Texas, and it's it's outstanding, it's becoming the basically the model. And I went through and I I had a tour from him, and he's a bit of an older guy, but he's he's a fucking just a stud, just such a good character. And he said, Um, out of everyone that comes through here, including myself, with all my challenges and traumas and everything from all the wars, he was in all of them. He he's like, it's still 80% childhood, 20% war. It's like the childhood did all the stacking of all the the foundations of the trauma, and then the war was just the 20% on top of that. And it firms it. Yep. And he and he's like that. So for me, with all the work that I did, and it would just be like every other veteran, you you when you start getting into this, you'll just realize you just you go all the way back to your childhood. Everything, pull it all apart. There's none of it that's that's left on untouched.

SPEAKER_02 55:47

Yeah, right. Uh all right, mate. I think we're coming up to that uh last part of this uh debrief. We'll definitely catch up again for sure. Uh yeah, as I said, I've got to travel to Argentina at the end of the year. I might uh shoot across the Rio, mate. If I'm in B if I'm in Brazil, drop by have a couple of mojitos. Yeah. Well, I will anyway.

SPEAKER_01 56:11

Shop.

SPEAKER_02 56:11

You know, drink anymore?

SPEAKER_01 56:12

No, I do it a little bit. Just a little bit. Yeah, just a little bit social stuff. Yeah, when I come to Australia, you guys love drinking. It's hard, it's hard to not pay partake in.

SPEAKER_02 56:20

Which is wild because that's that was your previous life within SASR. Which smash it. You deploy, and it was normal to come back, go to, you know, whatever pub and just turn it on.

SPEAKER_01 56:33

Here's how normal it was. That gap between the JTAC course and deploying again, which is a couple of weeks, I went into I had like 20 days or something of leave, and I went over to the States and proceeded to drink like an alcoholic. Yeah. No, I I was probably a little alcoholic, like I hadn't decompressed yet, and that's how I did it. All I had to do it. Did it like if Christ, if I knew what I knew now, I'd be one psychedelic, psychedelic experience, and I'd I'd probably come back to to zero to homeostasis and be fine. You could send me back again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 57:08

I think a lot of the mental health issues is obviously that contributes to a lot of it as well. Obviously, alcohol abuse. There was substance abuse. Uh, you know, I've had multiple guys on the podcast. Uh John Wynn, for example, example, two commando, absolute gangster on the battlefield, come back absolute junkie. It was wild. His story was wild. Now he's like one of the top-rated high ROCs athletes in Australia. I think he's just moved back to Australia, which is pretty cool. I have to try and catch up with him.

SPEAKER_01 57:36

Mate, I'd love to speak on it. So it's like everyone has their outlet, right? Because in Australia doesn't provide an environment, like I was telling you about Latin America at the start. Uh Australia doesn't have an environment that's open, warm feeling, like we don't have it, which is a problem because it has to go somewhere. It just gets stored in you. Come until it till it starts getting breaking point, which is why most men in Australia experience depression-like symptoms. Like it's normal. It's like, yeah, it's just treat as normal. We just don't have any outlet for it, right? So it's like, if it was me and I was handling this, I would pursue a psychedelic path overseas or anywhere. It Christ made if I couldn't even get overseas, I wouldn't give a fuck what anyone thought. I'd I'd find it and I'd I'd do my own my own journey. That's what I would do. Because it's like there is And that's what you've done. That's what I've done. There is no there is, you know, wherever I was doing, I was doing an indigenous ceremonies, it was all legal. Because it's like, you know, I was in Colombia or or Peru or wherever, but it's like gotta be honest, man. It's like you how else do you break that cycle if that's the only way you know to have an outlet? And alcohol, it as I know, is like the lowest frequency of those. It's not even it's like I put put things into categories. I'm like, what makes me a better person tomorrow? What makes me a worse person tomorrow? And for most of the time, 95% other than a wedding, alcohol makes me a worse person tomorrow. I might be hung over, but I'm full of full of joy after a wedding. But most of the time, next day I'm not. Whereas if if if I do any of the psychedelic ceremonies, any of these things that you would call as drugs, but they call it medicine, because it heals, they've known it healed, they do the same ceremonies for like 10,000 years, they haven't changed them. It's like all these things leaves you more healed as a better person, more whole, let's say, the next day.

SPEAKER_02 59:21

I began or your psychedelics have changed your life.

SPEAKER_01 59:24

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 59:25

100%.

SPEAKER_01 59:26

Yep.

SPEAKER_02 59:27

Yeah. That's and the the stories I've heard from the people that have done this treatment. Mexico, I know there's a couple of guys on the Gold Coast that have done it, uh supervised.

SPEAKER_01 59:40

I hope I hope this becomes the normal. Yeah, that's what I'm trying to get out.

SPEAKER_02 59:47

Yeah, the results of this treatment is shown. The data is showing.

SPEAKER_01 59:52

Yep. And I don't believe I don't think it's fair to wait for the government to catch up. You're just fucking not.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:01

The available data that's in put out there, especially from the United States, is showing that again, it has it, it is has a really high strike rate of success.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:10

Yep, and and low, lower risk than alcohol.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:12

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 1:00:13

Which is a big one, right? Yeah. I I I look, man, I no one wants to take responsibility.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:19

That's the biggest thing, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01 1:00:20

That's it. It's fucking leaders being cowards. We're back to leaders being cowards again. Like across the board, the medical industry, fucking anywhere, that no one wants to take responsibility. A pharmaceutical company technically takes liability, but they also have the money when they bill people to offset liability if there's ever been sued. So they don't really lose out, they factor that into their business model so that they're like, yeah, sweet. Uh like if we get sued for this much at some period of time, like they did with the vaccine, they knew they would probably fuck the vaccine. But they made so much money they knew that they could put a pool aside in case they were sued that would be taken out and they'd still be infinitely profitable.

SPEAKER_02 1:00:53

Yeah. Reminds me of that uh Dr. Charlie T.O. You remember hearing about him? He's that neurosurgeon. Anyway, he got uh I think he's got his medical license taken away from him anyway. He's uh you know, he's he's your last last resort doctor all over the news, and I'm sure some of the listeners will know. Anyway, like if you've got stage four fucking cancer, brain tumour, you go see Dr. Charlie Tio, he's either gonna cure you or you're gonna die.

SPEAKER_01 1:01:20

Mate, I could talk about that one. Yeah. One of the boys, brain cancer, two weeks to live. We all fucking rallied around him. I remember sending him a video on fasting. This guy, this cardiologist online, an Indian American Indian uh cardiologist online. You could you could Google him talking about fasting. Holy shit. And he took that in with his chemo, fasting eight days every month with his chemo. Not only did he get rid of the cancer, he got rid of all the scar tissue from the surgery. He doesn't have any cancer in his body, can't survive in a fasted state. My other buddy, who I just caught up with last weekend in Melbourne, civilian, he had cancer twice, brain cancer, had a baseball cut out of his head this year. He doesn't even, he didn't still didn't even stop vaping or drinking. He was like, no, I'm gonna do whatever I want, because but I'm gonna beat it. And he went and talked to this Canadian guy, doctor that's probably might even be the same guy. He went and talked to him and he got on this this ridiculous protocol. So this this whole thing is like vitamin C, antiparasitics. Then he's taking um, he was fasting and a few other anti-inflammatory things, but he's doing extreme vitamin C's as with his fasting and everything involved with the chemo and radiation. He did it all together. And it's they're like the doctors gave him three months to live, and they're like, we have just literally you're still smoking. Like we just have no fucking idea, like we can't fathom why you're still alive. Like this could not possibly fathom it. That that like and you know what? People, if they're open to alternate therapies, they'll go find a they'll go, if they're tenacious enough, they'll go find a reason to like a way to survive, a reason to live. They'll do it. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:02:55

Uh all right, mate. Uh if anyone wants to get in contact with you, mate.

SPEAKER_01 1:03:01

I do it, I do it via Instagram, right? Um and yeah, I do it via Instagram. Every via Instagram, I think LinkedIn's a bag of dog shit, just a circle joke or hangfest. Yeah, it is, no. That can fuck that can that can that can fuck off a little bit. Um, yeah, I I want to delete myself of that. I got Facebook because I've still got old old family, that's the only thing they use, and that's just linked to my Instagram. I don't really do anything, but Instagram's really where I do it. And I usually actually, one thing I wanted to mention is I usually get um you get a lot of kids that reach out. And in this climate of veterans getting fucked on, um, and the fact that the government at this point, it's fair to say just hates us, um, both serving, but the more combat-oriented you are, um, I guess the more uh masculine you are, um, it seems to be the more um worthless you are and the the least treated. So I would say that if there was a I don't believe voting works anymore. 3,400 new Australians joining the country every day. I don't think you can rally 3,000 veterans in the street and actually get a result. I I just don't believe in democracy that much anymore. I don't believe there all the voting. I think it just doesn't work. Protesting doesn't work, you're just not going to get anything. Um what veterans actually do have power on, if they're sick and tired of it and they wanted to they wanted to to to formulate something like this together. You could have a very like a just by podcast and social media, you could have a massive impact on deterring people from joining the military or or especially or emergency services. And if police are unhappy, they could do the same thing. Same with Farries, boycott just fucking boycott recruiting until they get their shit together. I think it's starting care of it. Your kids are fucked. How bad is it now? How bad is it gonna be if you let your children or your your nephew or your friend? So I get I get all these kids reaching out to me.

SPEAKER_02 1:05:01

Which is wild for you to say because no doubt for your fact, you know, for for my for myself, my service was the best thing I've ever fucking done in my life. Yeah. My time in Afghanistan was the best time in my life. I'm sure the same scenario for yourself.

SPEAKER_01 1:05:13

Dude, at this point, I would be like, if you want that warrior dream, great, but go do it with a country that gives a fuck about you when you're done. Literally, there's other countries. If you want the warrior dream, I know you'd love to do it for Australia, but to like what cause at this point? If they're not going to take care of you, you're gonna be left for dead at the end. And it's like, go grab a bunch of your mates if you want to do it with some mates that you know, and go join the French Foreign Legion, go join whatever, go abroad, go you could join the British Royal Marine commandos. Whatever, yeah, go join Britain. I don't know if they're much better at this point, they're much better. But it's like, you know, just go elsewhere. But I actually just think it's just it it it just needs to be boycotted enough to do enough damage to get the government's attention, make it a public talking point, and then I think they'd get it together again. Like the government would be forced to get it together again, and then just know it's veterans you have that power forever. You can just take that away from the government, suffocate them whenever they want. They're all bent on getting involved in third party third party third party wars in in the Middle East that have nothing to do with this or just even just throwing their their hat in for any reason whatsoever. You know, and it's going to be really hard to force project to a war to get involved in these things if they escalate without a military. You still be able to defend the country. It won't be a problem. They'll have enough to defend they just won't be able to force project. It'll be really crippling to them. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 1:06:32

Yeah mate I think under a a labor or a liberal government we're not changing. Nothing's changing. No nothing's changing. Same fucking parties as far as I'm concerned. Same thing. They're both bought. You know yeah far out. Anyway I guess I'll see you in uh Rio for a couple of seeing Latin America mate. Yeah I fucking love that place. It is good good food. Good food good people pretty uh eye-opening on the beach. Yeah mate how dare they have feminine Brazil eaters that's disgusting.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:04

Yeah mate Scojo's a fan he's wife Brazilian yeah he's definitely a fan I can get to chat with him.

SPEAKER_02 1:07:10

Yeah yeah man I appreciate you coming up and sharing you know uh an hour debrief and just chatting on you know all things mental health as well. Yeah mate I'm um shows that anyone is suscepti susceptible to mental health you know dude it's it's doesn't matter who you are what you've done it doesn't matter how strong you are because you're a man's man.

SPEAKER_01 1:07:31

Literally man it's it's you can't escape it. You can't escape it's like it's you know you can't but there is ways out of it or ways to manage it. Dude you can you can regenerate like this is why I believe in regenerative medicines in the future right the stem cell stuff which is what I did how I physiologically healed my body it's like to to a to a livable point to like I'm not gonna be like I'm 17 again when I join the military right this is not going to fucking happen. But I've got my self back to a sustainable level regeneratively that's on a physical level and then then uh emotionally spiritually and uh and mentally was with the psychedelics and it which is which I'm glad I'm no longer the crazy person in the room talking about it with Aussies. I'm glad it's becoming mainstream with the states and everyone's talking about it and it's pretty pretty common on podcasts and things now and it's like because I it's like made me pretty sad for a while there that I would still watch veterans die knowing that this is this that this is so profoundly successful. Yeah it just it it kind of like breaks your heart a little bit because I give a fuck you know like and and just like talking about boycotting it's like I give a fuck about the next generation too who it's not just us man. We're gonna be worried we've got to care for our for our brethren who are to come after us. So for every war is there is there are you going to be perpetually held up in war crimes investigations for the next 20 years? Because at this point in time it's infinite we don't know when that ends so let's say 20 let's say 30 after every war until the next war so is that what the next generation that are coming after us are going to be experience? Are they going to be treated like shit? Dude if this was Vietnam the Vietnam parade when they got home dude I I'll happily I will still walk the street and let the whole of Australia spit on me if they'll just fucking let my friends go back to to living their lives. Fuck welcome home parades you can all spit on me. Take your fucking turn and and I'd I'd rather that so these guys can move on with their lives. That sounds like a fucking deal it's like Australia doesn't learn anything and it's like this it's infinitely worse than a than than you know not giving them a fucking parade or anything when they got home I think it's just the next generation are fucked unless we as this generation's veterans do something to like help push push better treatment and better standards for us post post post war. Because the next one's coming so you need to be heldbound on starting them.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:00

100% and you know I you think they've got the the information and the data now on mental health through the G Watt era but anyway we'll wait and see because I guess they thought that after Vietnam as well.

SPEAKER_01 1:10:14

Look man here we are again yeah these psychedelics really are a game changer complete game like game changer like you've never fucking seen just uh you know when you whenever you if should you ever get around to to doing Iber gain or whatever these guys are doing definitely reach out to me afterwards and we'll have another chat because you it will be it is it is it is real than this world.

SPEAKER_02 1:10:38

Yeah I'm I'm open to it. I'm definitely open to it and tell you what trip to Mexico I'll definitely do that. Yeah you're like all right if I have to if I have to let's go yep so quickly just before you go what what's the plans now? What's your plans?

SPEAKER_01 1:10:54

Um moving on to the next uh enterprise developing the next enterprise in conjunction with an American guy um we've been running these like kind of like 12 week sort of programs that you know and and we're getting interesting characters in there right like we're getting guys that are making 800 million um a year some guys you know pretty significant companies lack size and and ultimately all the way down to guys who are still trying to work out what their next step is right but it's about like taking responsibility and kind of getting your whole life together as a whole in all aspects of your life and not just hiding behind a pillar like oh yeah I make a shit ton of money I'm great well no you're you're you're family and you're in a fucking circus or your body looks like shit or whatever it is and we we get them get them in a hole put them through a 12 week program that kind of not just about recovery or anything it's actually more about like prosperity getting to a point where you just like really be the best version of yourself. So we want to kind of want to build a a community um a pretty significant sized one and almost run it like a selection at the end of that thing you're either going to get let in or you're gonna have to go away and work on some shit because you didn't put enough hard enough effort into transformation and then create a community that feels like because I've I did it and then I went through and eventually started instructing in this in this with this guy. And ultimately I got to a point where I created I was creating this community ultimately that felt like for the first time since I've been out of the the unit and you know when you leave the day you leave you lose your identity you lose your purpose and you lose your your tribe in one day it was the first time I ever felt like I had that that that tribe of support like actual men's support. You know what it's like to be able to go to men and brag we can't actually fucking brag. But if you go in one of these communities you can brag about this thing you've achieved but they've been watching you work your ass off to achieve it holding you accountable to get there. So it's like a team celebration something bigger than yourself and they'll call you out when you're being weak and you're not doing it you're not doing this thing. So the power of the community and the power of the caliber of man that's like worked around all these edges is like creates a bit of a powerful community to to to be a part of want to build that want to run and then want to build like a bunch of different centers around the world where guys can find like minded men that have passed the same caliber of community standards that they can go to and they can they can check in for week two weeks three weeks four weeks whatever in these centers around the world like and make them like you know like you know pretty comfortable gyms and and everything kind of like of like an advanced monastery but ultimately creating this community um around the world that's that of of like minded savages um that's that's that's looking like the next plan it's it seems to be calling to me at the moment because I miss whatever that is and I know other men miss it as well and I would like to um I would like to find a way to build that because at this point I don't believe in like governments and I don't believe in a lot of these you know I've been in the Masons I've been in all this they're just like yeah they're good blokes and whatnot there but they go back to their lives. There's no real accountability for growth. No one's really telling each other the hard truths and doing the shit doing the work. And I want to have this kind of community where everyone's got each other's back. The other side of it is you end up doing commerce and and and business and things with these kind of guys because you just know each other intimately you know each other's strengths and weaknesses you know who you are and it's pretty it's pretty um it's pretty pretty powerful to be able to have these guys that you can draw upon that are successful in whatever aspects of their life that and and you might be successful somewhere else that they don't know anything else about like you might be really good athletically in the gym or pushing to do hard shit like run an ultra marathon or whatever whereas they might actually be you know a jet at making money business in the business frame and have some contacts.

SPEAKER_02 1:14:58

But well can you post it on it mate can you post it and uh yeah we'll uh see what we can do.

SPEAKER_01 1:15:03

Mate that's the yeah so that's that's what I'm looking at at the moment. But uh but other than that mate back to Latin America back to back to back to the Brazilian food. Yeah taking up surfing oh yeah take up surfing I'm gonna I I've done a little bit of it um went with one of the SaaS blokes after NSEC day he's like mate come for a surf went up there and went this sounds this is pretty good actually.

SPEAKER_02 1:15:24

Yeah yeah yeah right all right mate uh appreciate you stay mate god bless catcha