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Speaker 1: Him, I Boris and this is straight talk.

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Speaker 2: I've killed people, seen one of my best guys killed

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Speaker 2: all these things. But again, you're in such a mindset

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Speaker 2: that you expected that that was war. You know, one

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Speaker 2: plus one.

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Speaker 1: Equal to Nestin Russell Weldon straight took me special Forces

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Speaker 1: combat veteran public speaker, living campaigning for veterans in Australia.

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Speaker 2: We were taking the fight to Isis Daish, some of

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Speaker 2: the most evil people I've ever seen in the world.

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Speaker 2: So if you want a higher performance, you need a

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Speaker 2: higher purpose. When we're in overseas in Afghanistan and say

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Speaker 2: the enemy press their advantage, I could call in the

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Speaker 2: finger of God from the sky, drones and gunships, and

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Speaker 2: I would have every asset within that area of operations

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Speaker 2: dedicated to me and whatever I needed. And then there

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Speaker 2: I was at home in my Sydney apartment, having the

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Speaker 2: entire legacy of my guys being labeled as war criminals

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Speaker 2: on the day of my soldier's death.

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Speaker 1: Abandonment, absolute abandonment. So ABC took it upon themselves to

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Speaker 1: effectively attack your integrity by virtual allegations. Take us through

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Speaker 1: what happened. Heston Russell Welcome straight took mate thanks having me,

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Speaker 1: So it says your Special Forces combat veteran public speaker.

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Speaker 1: I'm sure you've got lots of lots of things to

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Speaker 1: talk about, podcast hosts and leading campaigning for veterans in Australia.

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Speaker 1: That covers a lot of ground. Okay, let's talk about

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Speaker 1: Special Forces veteran veteran. You look a bit young to

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Speaker 1: be a veteran, but yeah, you have been to war,

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Speaker 1: I guess, and that may now you're not at war,

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Speaker 1: although you have been at war, different sort of war.

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Speaker 1: What is a special What are the special forces? And

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Speaker 1: what does that mean? We're talking about sas we do

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Speaker 1: about commandos? I mean, please, no, no.

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Speaker 2: Good, good question. I mean I get called an SAS

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Speaker 2: commander all the time. There are pretty much two separate

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Speaker 2: major units, one the commandos and the second commander Regiment

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Speaker 2: here out at Holsworthy in Sydney, and then you've got

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Speaker 2: the sas in Perth, and both of them have their

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Speaker 2: genesis from different forces within the British military.

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Speaker 1: But what's the difference between the two is one, there's

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Speaker 1: one league sort of you know, sneaking around and sort

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Speaker 1: of jumping over fences and stuff like that. But what's

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Speaker 1: the difference between two was one dropping out of aeroplanes. There.

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Speaker 2: These are great questions. Look I got out four years

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Speaker 2: ago and it's changed since then. But the esas's role

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Speaker 2: is traditionally clandestine out of uniform, smaller team, special reconnaissance

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Speaker 2: type stuff, and the kommandos is more larger teams, direct action, raids,

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Speaker 2: offensive support. We also do the domestic canacterrorism role within Australia,

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Speaker 2: so very unique, but particularly in Afghanistan, we overlapped a

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Speaker 2: lot in our sort of mission sense. These days it's

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Speaker 2: much more well defined, so.

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Speaker 1: They're not the same thing though. So you so you're

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Speaker 1: a Special Forces person. I was a commando, you're a commander.

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Speaker 1: So you're in uniform or whatever. Yeah, the uniform and

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Speaker 1: then we've got to hit that spot down there and

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Speaker 1: there's twenty three whatever happened, A number of us are

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Speaker 1: and you've got to go and get it, get to

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Speaker 1: take control of it.

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Speaker 2: Lots of different roles, you know. One year I was

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Speaker 2: here in Sydney doing the domestic counter terrorism so when

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Speaker 2: linked Cafe Seedge happened, we're ready to roll if the

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Speaker 2: police allowed it to be handed over to us. Another year,

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Speaker 2: I was working in you know, Solomon Islands out of

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Speaker 2: uniform with the embassy when they had their elections in

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Speaker 2: case there were riots and Australian citizens got engaged. And

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Speaker 2: then another year, you know, we're in Afghanistan in uniforms,

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Speaker 2: flying in helicopters to kill or capture bad guys. So

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Speaker 2: the biggest difference is you have the units like that

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Speaker 2: are in the America. You know, they all their different

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Speaker 2: special forces units that are so niche in what they

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Speaker 2: specifically do. Australia has two units less than a thousand

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Speaker 2: operators to cover off on the whole spectrum of operations,

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Speaker 2: but particularly I guess to delineate between the two commandos

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Speaker 2: is much more sort of high visibility, but still operates

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Speaker 2: outside of you know, the public awareness. SAS is pushing

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Speaker 2: more and more into what we call the special reconnaissance role,

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Speaker 2: clandestine out of uniform stuff.

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Speaker 1: I had made. He's my age, but he's a long

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Speaker 1: time ago. I haven't seen it for w but was, well,

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Speaker 1: we all got told as a commander, but we're going

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Speaker 1: back fifty years and he was like did some weird shit,

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Speaker 1: Like he was like he was just a normal looking dude,

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Speaker 1: architect by profession. Post his army years. But when let's

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Speaker 1: say we had a massive storm, massive storm, okay, where

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Speaker 1: rain rain for a couple of days. He used to

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Speaker 1: know that certain canals around Rose Bay in place like

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Speaker 1: that used to fill up an empty into the harbor,

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Speaker 1: and he used to get his canoe and he dropped

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Speaker 1: his canoe in some really narrow canal and used to

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Speaker 1: get a thrill out of jumping in there and working

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Speaker 1: his way back out to the harbor. And I say,

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Speaker 1: fucking nutcase. But if you saw him normally, you just

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Speaker 1: think he's a mold manned architect. You wouldn't know some

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Speaker 1: weird shit like what actually got you into becoming were

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Speaker 1: You're weirder? Like you young kid? You know, like want

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Speaker 1: to get a bare knuckle everyone? What was you know?

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Speaker 2: I mean, I grew up in a military family. So

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Speaker 2: my dad was in the military, My grandfather was in

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Speaker 2: the Korean War in Vietnam War, grandfather great grandfather World

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Speaker 2: War two, and great great grandfather World War One. And

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Speaker 2: I particularly, as you know, a young kid growing up,

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Speaker 2: the aspirational men I saw around me were all in

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Speaker 2: the military. And then as it goes, I was sort

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Speaker 2: of fat, unpopular kid at high school and I sort

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Speaker 2: of saw the best version of me being that challenged

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Speaker 2: and going through the process I'd seen these other aspirational

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Speaker 2: men go through. So for me, it was a lot

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Speaker 2: about trying to discover myself, having a sense of service

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Speaker 2: that came from my family, and also just the adventure. Yeah.

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Speaker 2: I definitely wasn't bare knuckle in anyone.

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Speaker 1: So it's really important. Quite interesting things you just said,

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Speaker 1: adventure and service and that sense of service you're saying.

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Speaker 1: You know, I wonder how a person gets a sense

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Speaker 1: of service. So not many people could say that. Not

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Speaker 1: many people would say I want to serve my country.

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Speaker 1: I mean maybe some politicians might say it. I don't

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Speaker 1: know if I'm going to believe them if you're going.

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Speaker 2: To start like that, create along the way.

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Speaker 1: But if you're in the army or if you're in

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Speaker 1: one of these special units, you must have a sense

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Speaker 1: of service which has to override your sense of fear

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Speaker 1: and your sense of lack of control of the situation,

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Speaker 1: because at any one stage something could happen to you.

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Speaker 1: It's quite quite bad. So that sense of service you're

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Speaker 1: saying came from your family. How do you look at that?

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one of my favorite quotes is if

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Speaker 2: you want to hire a performance, you need a higher purpose.

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Speaker 2: And particularly during my high school years, I was very

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Speaker 2: poor at representing myself standing up for myself, but I

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Speaker 2: was excellent when I was empowered with a purpose that

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Speaker 2: was to support others or achieve a mission. And that

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Speaker 2: is really that sense of service before self that the

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Speaker 2: military indoctrinates you into. It breaks you down and indoctrinates

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Speaker 2: you into the mission and team being more important than yourself.

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Speaker 2: And people love talking about resilience, and they talk about

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Speaker 2: resilience is how you get up when you fall down.

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Speaker 2: But the best thing I learned from a military career,

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Speaker 2: and particularly combat, is that I always had two proactive

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Speaker 2: layers of resilience. One was the mission and one was

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Speaker 2: the team. Before my head was inside any of my

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Speaker 2: own problems, worrying about my own situations metag particularly like

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Speaker 2: even just mentally and emotionally. You know, physically sure, but

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Speaker 2: as far as mental and emotional health goes, never ever

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Speaker 2: had any issues because my mindset is always what does

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Speaker 2: the mission need, what the team need? And when you're

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Speaker 2: outside of your own head, you're not fighting those sort

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Speaker 2: of demons ricocheting inside. So it really was that empowering purpose,

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Speaker 2: and particularly in such a communal environment where you're constantly

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Speaker 2: living with people. And I was an officer, so I

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Speaker 2: always had thirty to fifty guys keeping me accountable, requiring

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Speaker 2: me to demonstrate leadership. It really projected you to perform

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Speaker 2: to the very best version of you with all forms

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Speaker 2: of intrinsic and extrinsic motivation.

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Speaker 1: Apart from what happened more recently, we don't feel about

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Speaker 1: a moment. But did I start to question yourself about

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Speaker 1: the or did you ever have to question yourself about

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Speaker 1: the sense of service or more importantly the purpose? You know,

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Speaker 1: did you say, what the hell am I doing this for?

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Speaker 1: Did that? And if that happens, because we haven't even

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Speaker 1: business of this stuff all the time, how do you

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Speaker 1: redeem yourself? Well, he will fix yourself.

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Speaker 2: Yeah, I never really experienced that till the very end

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Speaker 2: of my career. I was fortunate to go into the

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Speaker 2: military at a time where we were just so busy

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Speaker 2: on combat operations, and then particularly so I joined the

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Speaker 2: regular Army and then go through a six week selection

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Speaker 2: and a full year's worth of training just to become

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Speaker 2: a qualified commando. And then during that time I deployed

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Speaker 2: Afghanistan four times and everything was just relevant. There weren't

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Speaker 2: conversations about political opinions. There was me justifying I need

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Speaker 2: this helicopter, I need this extra team because this is

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Speaker 2: the risk to mission, or this is the risk to force,

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Speaker 2: and it was all so very one plus one niquals two.

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Speaker 1: I was going to say it sounds very binary.

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Speaker 2: It was, and there was so much that The non

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Speaker 2: binary part was the strategy and the tactics. Particularly as

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Speaker 2: the platoon commander, My job was to be a specialist

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Speaker 2: leader and a specialist planner. And you're operating with so

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Speaker 2: much incredible technology, intelligence, satellites in the sky, people on

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Speaker 2: the ground, and you're basically spending weeks planning missions on

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Speaker 2: how you're going to orchestrate the battle space and cause

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Speaker 2: reactions from your enemy. And it was brilliant, especially when

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Speaker 2: we got to a point where you were literally doing

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Speaker 2: things to force them to do other things, and then

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Speaker 2: you could imagine and this is the whole conversation we

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Speaker 2: talk about with the charity work I do now, transitioning

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Speaker 2: from that life of clear purpose, sort of binary, non

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Speaker 2: political explanations of what you need to a world that

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Speaker 2: is self before service, profit before purpose and nothing. But

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Speaker 2: you know, political agendas and labels that don't actually mean anything.

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Speaker 2: It's really quite a juxtaposition and a difficulty to adapt.

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Speaker 1: It's really interesting. I never ever ever considered the army

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Speaker 1: in my life. I mean, I remember when I was

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Speaker 1: at school, someone said, if if you go to Dune

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Speaker 1: done trun you get a free education. That was something

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Speaker 1: that went through my mind. I thought, well, maybe I

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Speaker 1: could become an engineer or something like that. I can

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Speaker 1: and the government to pay for me. But there's only

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Speaker 1: other time I really thought of the thing that term.

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Speaker 1: I was haud to go to Canberra, but so I

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Speaker 1: decided I want to go to the Mothership and hang

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Speaker 1: out down there. But but I really didn't understand this self,

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Speaker 1: of this sense of service to our nation. I certainly

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Speaker 1: didn't understand. I never really thought about it, the sense

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Speaker 1: of purpose. Do you you ever or did you ever

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Speaker 1: get caught up in the in a logical sense the

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Speaker 1: futility of war like it, in other words, is war

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Speaker 1: futile because the dude on the other side is thinking

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Speaker 1: exactly the same as you, but for a different reason,

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Speaker 1: And maybe you're going to kill him. Who's going to

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Speaker 1: kill you and then but you both believe in something

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Speaker 1: quite passionately.

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Speaker 2: Question. During my time in the military, no, since absolutely

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Speaker 2: my reflections on my time, particularly during my time on

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Speaker 2: operations doing combat. You know, we are getting intelligence feeds

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Speaker 2: and tracking people who we have fingerprints from explosive devices

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Speaker 2: that killed kids in a you know, in a marketplace

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Speaker 2: like we absolutely know what we're doing, and it was

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Speaker 2: so satisfying being able to take the fight to evil

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Speaker 2: people who were targeting others, you know, fighting against the

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Speaker 2: bullies in the playground. Since then and realizing that at

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Speaker 2: the end of the day, war is ultimately what happens

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Speaker 2: when diplomacy fails, when politicians don't do their job properly.

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Speaker 2: And at the same time you have the sides, which

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Speaker 2: definitely are different ideologies, and it's so easy to get

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Speaker 2: trapped in our own echo chamber of what we're fed

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Speaker 2: as far as you know, media information, through to what

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Speaker 2: some of the most unqualified people in the world, our

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Speaker 2: politicians and our media tell us other justifications for it.

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Speaker 2: But then looking back and seeing how much you know

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Speaker 2: mineral resources as grabs through to just political agendas have

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Speaker 2: played part. And also I do so much work since

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Speaker 2: leaving the military helping to get afghan so we fought

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Speaker 2: with back here to Australia. Just getting that other side

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Speaker 2: of the narrative that you're otherwise deprived of, it really

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Speaker 2: makes you question that. And I would be the last

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Speaker 2: person in the world to ever commit young Australians to

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Speaker 2: any war unless it was absolutely defending our own soil.

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Speaker 1: Is a bit like it is there Ever, some of

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Speaker 1: who sort of sort of jumped in the boxing room

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Speaker 1: and had a lot of fights. You know, you carry

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Speaker 1: on a little bit before the thing. You've got to

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Speaker 1: steal yourself and I think are going to care whether

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Speaker 1: it like you're not. I'm going to knock yet off.

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Speaker 1: But footballers do the same thing. But at the end

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Speaker 1: of it, yeah, jail, same mate, well done. Like you

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Speaker 1: know it does. Maybe it one well forught and your

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Speaker 1: besties all of a sudden your mates same rugby league,

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Speaker 1: the same thing. Do you have you ever gone through

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Speaker 1: a process where you feel as though you'd like to

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Speaker 1: reach out to those other soldiers that you were up

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Speaker 1: against and and invite them off for a couple of tree

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Speaker 1: or something like you know what I mean?

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Speaker 2: No, I mean, especially very different than the special forces world.

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Speaker 2: We were fighting in sort of insurgents and terrorists. It

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Speaker 2: wasn't sort of uniform versus uniform conflict. It wasn't two

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Speaker 2: ideologies pressed against each other. I mean, my last deployment

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Speaker 2: was to Iraq in twenty sixteen seventeen, and we were

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Speaker 2: taking the fight to Isis Daish some of the most

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Speaker 2: evil people I've ever seen in the world, and some

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Speaker 2: of the stories that I could tell you would make

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Speaker 2: your toes curl, but always felt so justified. Felt what's

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Speaker 2: the word I'm looking for. Yeah, you just felt so

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Speaker 2: justified in what you were doing. And these were properly

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Speaker 2: evil people, and particularly Mark most of us. Once we

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Speaker 2: sort of finished that world just want to move on

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Speaker 2: from it. You know, it's a phase in a stage,

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Speaker 2: and it's a young person's game for sure, and if

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Speaker 2: you've sit here and try and remember all those bits

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Speaker 2: and pieces, it can become far too overwhelming for too many.

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Speaker 1: Do you think you ever get traumatized from it all?

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Speaker 1: I mean, we hear about PTSD, and I've had a

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Speaker 1: lot of conversations with various ministers or previous ministers for

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Speaker 1: veteran affairs. They talked to me about it. A lot

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Speaker 1: of the guys of older guys are suffering. You see

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Speaker 1: a lot of suffering. Is the PTSD a function of

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Speaker 1: not suggesting you are a psychologist but list taking a

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Speaker 1: little bit? Is the PTSD a function of having seen

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Speaker 1: trauma in front of you, or people injured, or kids injured,

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Speaker 1: or just destruction? Or is thet PTSD more a function

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Speaker 1: of the futility of my ideology versus his or her ideology.

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Speaker 2: No, Look, I've been diagnosed with PTSD, of which I

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Speaker 2: don't have any acte PTSD. I've killed people, seen one

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Speaker 2: of my best guys killed, all these things. But again,

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Speaker 2: you're in such a mindset that you expected that that

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Speaker 2: was war, you know, one plus one equal to It

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Speaker 2: was a terrible and emotional and.

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Speaker 1: Still is what it is.

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Speaker 2: It is what it is. Most of us have such

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Speaker 2: a pragmatic mindset to be able to do that, particularly

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Speaker 2: veterans from the Vietnam era, you know, jungle close combat

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Speaker 2: warfare is some of the most crazy and gruesome that.

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Speaker 1: You can come across.

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Speaker 2: So hectic, that's it, and that generation has a lot

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Speaker 2: of acute PDSD from just those conditions that in humanity,

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Speaker 2: that mass scale of civilian casualties as well. My generation,

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Speaker 2: particularly from afghanistaner ARC. There is a small minority that

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Speaker 2: will have acute PDSD and that comes from their own

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Speaker 2: mental preparations and just everyone has a psychological threshold. So

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Speaker 2: many veterans like myself actually have PDA tote that comes

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Speaker 2: from a physiological reaction to being exposed to combat and danger.

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Speaker 2: Our nervous system is basically rewired to perform at its

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Speaker 2: optimal levels when we are in a fight or flight state.

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Speaker 2: My body loves to dump quarterisole, feed off dopamine and endorphins,

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Speaker 2: and I find it's so hard to naturally produce oxytocin

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Speaker 2: and serotonin, often without some of the new therapies that

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Speaker 2: have now become legal. And it's just realizing that, realizing

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Speaker 2: what brain clutter and memory loss you get when you're

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Speaker 2: in that state, when your body is filled with quartersole,

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Speaker 2: when your testosterone levels are low and actually needing to

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Speaker 2: adapt your nutrition. You know, do you regulate your exercise

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Speaker 2: low intensity instead of high intensity? Get off alcohol, get

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Speaker 2: off caffeine. All those bits and pieces. We're learning so

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Speaker 2: much just in the last few years of how we

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Speaker 2: need to put mental and physical health back together and

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Speaker 2: stop treating them like separate entities.

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Speaker 1: That's really interesting that maybe we just if folk just

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Speaker 1: asked you to pause all part I just want to

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Speaker 1: talk about that quartersole thing. League. So I guess what

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Speaker 1: you're saying is that when you're in that fight fight

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Speaker 1: or fly flight or fight to a flight situation. In

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Speaker 1: other words, something's going to happen to your bad you

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Speaker 1: recognize it, your sense of seed here, whatever your sense it,

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Speaker 1: your various parts of your body, such a produced cordsole

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Speaker 1: which actually dumbs and everything in your body. So put

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Speaker 1: you a position no real decision making is going to happen.

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Speaker 1: I'm either going to run or fight. Adrenaline sort of

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Speaker 1: starts surging through his system, but your testosterone, if you're

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Speaker 1: in a constant state of that, your test is reduced,

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Speaker 1: reduced to a low level, which Broya the way happens

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Speaker 1: outside of water. Some people who are in a constant

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Speaker 1: state of this and they are pretty fucked up. How

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Speaker 1: did you know? Were you trained as to saying, Okay,

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Speaker 1: I've got to recognize the situation. That's the position I'm

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Speaker 1: in right now. I've just come back from a day's

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Speaker 1: work in the shooting. Whoever I'm shooting isis whatever is,

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Speaker 1: and they're shooting me. So I'm feeling pretty fucked and

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Speaker 1: I've spent the last five days doing I'm going to

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Speaker 1: have to do it again tomorrow. Is that something that

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Speaker 1: Heston knew about and that Hessen then went into a

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Speaker 1: programmatized to make sure that he did the sort of

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Speaker 1: things you just said, low weight, lightweights, maybe many reps,

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Speaker 1: good nutrition, good sleep, you programmatized for this or just

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Speaker 1: did you understand it? Now?

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Speaker 2: This is the fascinating part. So many of the stuff

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Speaker 2: that I've actually just verbalized, we kind of knew as

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Speaker 2: an assumed knowledge, but without the scientific factors. So in particular,

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Speaker 2: the routine that was established already aided that. So we

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Speaker 2: go away on deployments for three, four five months, and

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Speaker 2: then we'd come back to a good four to six

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Speaker 2: weeks worth of hand your weapons in stand down, go home,

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Speaker 2: be with your family, oxy to Australia, come back to Australia. Really,

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Speaker 2: you go through a two week decompression period, have all

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Speaker 2: your sight screen and all that. But then you'd go

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Speaker 2: and have four to six weeks of oxytocin and serotonin hits,

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Speaker 2: connecting with your family, connected with your loved ones, going

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Speaker 2: out and socializing with your mates, and you can imagine

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Speaker 2: the job. You can't answer emails, you can't, you know,

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Speaker 2: log in, you literally cut and we'd have these full

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Speaker 2: decompression moments and then we'd go hard and then we'd

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Speaker 2: force people to take leave. And the routine we had

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Speaker 2: every morning was physical training. Meals were allocated.

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Speaker 1: Like in for example, in Iraq, also mean to come.

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Speaker 2: Back back at base, even overseas, because you're already you

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Speaker 2: have that routine from back here in base. Overseas, every

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Speaker 2: day everyone's out there exercising. You live in communal alignce

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Speaker 2: so you're achieving that communal connection piece the Aussie alaricanism,

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Speaker 2: and you know you're having all this fun while you're

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Speaker 2: off work. And at the same time, we had no

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Speaker 2: social media. We weren't allowed to have social media accounts.

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Speaker 2: There's one landline phone to call your family back home,

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Speaker 2: so you're not dealing with these everyday stresses as those

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Speaker 2: hierarchy of needs. The most self actualized individual I ever

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Speaker 2: have been was on operations, and that stay you talk

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Speaker 2: about fight or flight, that was my flow. I've never

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Speaker 2: had more head, heart and body alignment than actually being

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Speaker 2: in combat because as per mental health one oh one.

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Speaker 2: The best remedy is whatever can bring you into the moment,

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Speaker 2: not thinking back or you know, worrying about the future.

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Speaker 2: In combat, you're in the moment, You're with your people,

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Speaker 2: and you're being tested at the ultimate level of performance

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Speaker 2: for something that we were at the ultimate level of

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Speaker 2: our sort of industry, and it's just brilliant, and particularly

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Speaker 2: as a commander getting to see my soldiers who we

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Speaker 2: spend two years with training and the junior commanders takeover lead,

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Speaker 2: you know, fight tactics, kill enemy who are trying to

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Speaker 2: kill us. It is just so hard to explain, but

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Speaker 2: it's one of the most inspiring times seeing what level

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Speaker 2: people can perform at. And the hardest part is actually

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Speaker 2: then achieving that level of inspiration and then coming back

390
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Speaker 2: to a world or a job outside of that where

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Speaker 2: you'll probably never experience that again, and you've sort of

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Speaker 2: had that drug, You've had that feeling of being in

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Speaker 2: such an amazing headbody and heart alignment, and then, like

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Speaker 2: I tell people, you know, come back to my biggest

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Speaker 2: responsibility of taking my sausage jog for a walk each day.

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Speaker 2: It's such a massive deceleration and such a really hard

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Speaker 2: adjustment that's why most of us develop ADHD, most of us,

398
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Speaker 2: you know, start to develop physical issues because we haven't

399
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Speaker 2: appreciated how our nervous system has literally evolved due to stress.

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Speaker 2: And that's a lot of the work we do now

401
00:20:56,280 --> 00:20:58,840
Speaker 2: is to help actually educate people on what's gone on

402
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Speaker 2: and what they need to do to their own lives.

403
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Speaker 1: Which one do you prefer?

404
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Speaker 2: If I had my old team and that purpose again,

405
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Speaker 2: I'd go back in a heartbeat. But again I've learned

406
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Speaker 2: so much about again, like I said, fighting wars, if

407
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Speaker 2: there was something a mission to fly around the world

408
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Speaker 2: and take the fight to people who were harming animals

409
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Speaker 2: or human trafficking, absolutely, you know straight away on the

410
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Speaker 2: no drama, no drama. But as far as getting involved

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Speaker 2: with Ukraine, getting involved with Israel, getting involved with Taiwan,

412
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Speaker 2: that's not for young Australian sons and daughters. That's the

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Speaker 2: politicians to do their bloody job and to look after

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Speaker 2: our own people.

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Speaker 1: Do you ever sit back and reflect on that though,

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Speaker 1: because that's a really interesting one. Do you ever sit

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Speaker 1: back and reflect on that? I mean, we're looking at

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Speaker 1: and I look at Israel Gaza or Israel Palace. Neither moment,

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Speaker 1: and I mean we never know and it talks about it,

420
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Speaker 1: but really is the war between one prime minister and

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Speaker 1: a number of other leaders of the other territory who

422
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Speaker 1: basically order their soldiers out to fight each other. But

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Speaker 1: these two individuals aren't fighting anybody. They're just sort of

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Speaker 1: getting on the megaphone and making a lot of noise

425
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Speaker 1: make sure that they can save the sorry asses from either

426
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Speaker 1: being kicked out of their current political role or internally

427
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Speaker 1: trying to get into a new political role. Think about it, like,

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Speaker 1: did you ever think about maybe I would like you

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Speaker 1: to reflect on that, because that's not how our politicians

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Speaker 1: really act. But they sort of do, but not really.

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Speaker 1: But how do you see it?

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Speaker 2: I'm with you one hundred percent. You know, most people

433
00:22:23,560 --> 00:22:25,520
Speaker 2: see people coming from the military to be much more

434
00:22:25,520 --> 00:22:27,840
Speaker 2: aligned to the conservative cybeer the government. You know, a

435
00:22:27,880 --> 00:22:31,040
Speaker 2: lot of that side is big defense industry and whatnot. Whereas,

436
00:22:31,480 --> 00:22:35,040
Speaker 2: particularly the last few years working in around politicians, bureaucrats

437
00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:37,880
Speaker 2: and big industry, I realized that war is a business,

438
00:22:38,080 --> 00:22:40,800
Speaker 2: and in particular my biggest fear is particularly for those

439
00:22:40,920 --> 00:22:44,400
Speaker 2: leaders who are failing in their own leadership, It's very

440
00:22:44,440 --> 00:22:46,760
Speaker 2: easy to provide a higher purpose.

441
00:22:47,160 --> 00:22:49,840
Speaker 1: It's very easy to provide what's too seductive.

442
00:22:49,960 --> 00:22:53,560
Speaker 2: Provide a combat, provide war, something that all of a

443
00:22:53,560 --> 00:22:56,480
Speaker 2: sudden brings people out of their everyday issues and gives

444
00:22:56,480 --> 00:23:00,399
Speaker 2: them something shiny and bright to focus on. And it's dangerous.

445
00:23:00,440 --> 00:23:02,919
Speaker 2: It's a dangerous tactic. I see too many failing or

446
00:23:02,960 --> 00:23:06,040
Speaker 2: failed or toxic leaders default too. You hear people back

447
00:23:06,040 --> 00:23:08,639
Speaker 2: here in Australia beat this war drum. All they do

448
00:23:08,760 --> 00:23:10,600
Speaker 2: is drive up the stress and quarters all levels in

449
00:23:10,600 --> 00:23:13,840
Speaker 2: Australian society. Like and it's for political purpose. It's not

450
00:23:14,000 --> 00:23:17,720
Speaker 2: generally for the better betterment of humanity in my opinion. No, no, no,

451
00:23:17,880 --> 00:23:20,440
Speaker 2: they're funded by defense industry. Have a look at the

452
00:23:20,440 --> 00:23:24,080
Speaker 2: political donations, Like, it's just such a quagmire.

453
00:23:25,400 --> 00:23:28,199
Speaker 1: It's sort of business. And business always pervades everything at

454
00:23:28,240 --> 00:23:30,639
Speaker 1: the end of the day, everything we do, all the

455
00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:33,040
Speaker 1: moralities and ethics, everything.

456
00:23:32,840 --> 00:23:35,640
Speaker 2: And this is this trading purpose of profit. And particularly

457
00:23:35,640 --> 00:23:37,280
Speaker 2: when we look at a lot of the senior defense

458
00:23:38,240 --> 00:23:41,080
Speaker 2: generals these days who have become bureaucrats. And I come

459
00:23:41,119 --> 00:23:43,520
Speaker 2: from three years at the Defense Force Academy, one year

460
00:23:43,520 --> 00:23:46,320
Speaker 2: at RMC. We always taught you know mission and team

461
00:23:46,400 --> 00:23:50,440
Speaker 2: before self. You know purpose priority, You know leadership by example,

462
00:23:50,480 --> 00:23:53,000
Speaker 2: you are the last person to eat. The troops eat

463
00:23:53,040 --> 00:23:56,080
Speaker 2: first to what we see and exactly as you're saying,

464
00:23:56,480 --> 00:23:59,199
Speaker 2: how it's turned into a business, it's turned into self promotion,

465
00:23:59,240 --> 00:24:03,280
Speaker 2: it's turned into it. It's this complete moral dislocation from

466
00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:06,199
Speaker 2: what we've been indoctrinated with. And that's why, actually so

467
00:24:06,240 --> 00:24:08,439
Speaker 2: many young veterans of my generation, there's this new thing

468
00:24:08,520 --> 00:24:11,800
Speaker 2: called moral injury or moral trauma that a lot of

469
00:24:11,800 --> 00:24:15,520
Speaker 2: our sort of acute trauma comes from when your belief system,

470
00:24:15,680 --> 00:24:19,480
Speaker 2: what you've been indoctrinated in programmed with, is completely undermined

471
00:24:19,480 --> 00:24:22,719
Speaker 2: by either someone else doing something to you or abandoning you,

472
00:24:22,760 --> 00:24:25,639
Speaker 2: which is the transition process from defense, or by you

473
00:24:25,680 --> 00:24:28,240
Speaker 2: all of a sudden realizing what you've been taught is

474
00:24:28,240 --> 00:24:30,520
Speaker 2: actually not what is valued on the outside, and you

475
00:24:30,560 --> 00:24:32,600
Speaker 2: have this fracture of your identity and you to sort

476
00:24:32,600 --> 00:24:35,560
Speaker 2: of rediscover who you want to be and how you're

477
00:24:35,560 --> 00:24:40,440
Speaker 2: going to navigate life outside of this self actualized, all

478
00:24:40,440 --> 00:24:44,760
Speaker 2: inclusive Maslow provided environment you're within the defense community. And

479
00:24:44,840 --> 00:24:48,159
Speaker 2: just for a very quick lightning rod to that the

480
00:24:48,160 --> 00:24:51,760
Speaker 2: suicide rate of current serving veterans, current serving people in

481
00:24:51,800 --> 00:24:55,359
Speaker 2: the defense force is less than half the Australian community average,

482
00:24:55,960 --> 00:24:59,240
Speaker 2: but veterans who have transitioned, and particularly the demographic under

483
00:24:59,240 --> 00:25:01,680
Speaker 2: the age of forty, it more than doubles.

484
00:25:01,920 --> 00:25:03,240
Speaker 1: So just together they're right.

485
00:25:03,320 --> 00:25:08,240
Speaker 2: So people who are still in the army currently serving

486
00:25:08,280 --> 00:25:11,360
Speaker 2: in the lesson less than half, but once they've left

487
00:25:11,359 --> 00:25:13,840
Speaker 2: the army and they say, like in your position, they

488
00:25:13,960 --> 00:25:16,479
Speaker 2: double the stats, more than more than double the stats.

489
00:25:16,600 --> 00:25:19,520
Speaker 2: So we lost forty one soldiers during our you know,

490
00:25:20,240 --> 00:25:22,480
Speaker 2: over a decade in Afghanistan. During the same time we

491
00:25:22,560 --> 00:25:24,920
Speaker 2: lost sixteen hundred veterans to suicide.

492
00:25:25,200 --> 00:25:29,080
Speaker 1: But is that because they missed the thrill? Is a

493
00:25:29,080 --> 00:25:30,560
Speaker 1: bit of that going on? Well, a lot of it.

494
00:25:30,640 --> 00:25:32,840
Speaker 2: And look, I work hand in glove with campaigning for

495
00:25:32,960 --> 00:25:34,960
Speaker 2: winning the Royal Commission and still speak to the current

496
00:25:35,040 --> 00:25:37,679
Speaker 2: Royal Commissions into defense and veterans suicide and the highest

497
00:25:37,680 --> 00:25:41,359
Speaker 2: demographic mark in particular are young men who like myself,

498
00:25:41,440 --> 00:25:44,640
Speaker 2: joined straight out of school, never achieved an identity outside

499
00:25:44,680 --> 00:25:47,399
Speaker 2: of an institution prior to going into a giant not

500
00:25:47,480 --> 00:25:51,040
Speaker 2: for profit service before self institution, and then either have

501
00:25:51,720 --> 00:25:54,600
Speaker 2: their performance compromise, they've forced to leave, or they become

502
00:25:54,600 --> 00:25:57,720
Speaker 2: injured and they've had what they envisaged themselves as being

503
00:25:57,720 --> 00:26:01,960
Speaker 2: their self actualized identity removed and haven't been re indoctrinated

504
00:26:02,000 --> 00:26:04,199
Speaker 2: into who they are and what their value set is

505
00:26:04,200 --> 00:26:08,600
Speaker 2: outside of defense, and go down this line of broken

506
00:26:08,640 --> 00:26:12,320
Speaker 2: down relationship, losing their job, getting on substances, and ending

507
00:26:12,400 --> 00:26:14,840
Speaker 2: up taking their own life. And the high stust demographic

508
00:26:14,920 --> 00:26:16,320
Speaker 2: is young men under the age of thirty five.

509
00:26:16,560 --> 00:26:19,919
Speaker 1: Wow, And would you say that's some reason why we

510
00:26:20,000 --> 00:26:24,840
Speaker 1: are now operating on reduced numbers of people joining the

511
00:26:24,880 --> 00:26:25,440
Speaker 1: armed forces.

512
00:26:26,040 --> 00:26:27,879
Speaker 2: I think that whole other different kettle of fish, in

513
00:26:27,920 --> 00:26:32,720
Speaker 2: particular the last three to four years from the collapse

514
00:26:32,760 --> 00:26:37,280
Speaker 2: of Afghanistan through to the handling of war crime allegations,

515
00:26:37,600 --> 00:26:40,520
Speaker 2: and how defense senior leadership has just turned their back

516
00:26:40,560 --> 00:26:44,800
Speaker 2: on so many soldiers that really has carried through. I

517
00:26:44,800 --> 00:26:48,159
Speaker 2: mean I speak with so many current serving militiy members

518
00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:51,560
Speaker 2: every day who send me messages and knowing that the

519
00:26:51,600 --> 00:26:53,840
Speaker 2: defense hierarchy no longer has their back the way in

520
00:26:53,880 --> 00:26:57,080
Speaker 2: which we experienced overseas. You know, if you made a

521
00:26:57,119 --> 00:26:59,560
Speaker 2: tactical decision on the ground, you would brief it up

522
00:26:59,560 --> 00:27:01,600
Speaker 2: too high commander, and they would trust you because you're

523
00:27:01,600 --> 00:27:04,360
Speaker 2: the man on the ground now, because it comes political

524
00:27:04,400 --> 00:27:06,960
Speaker 2: and because there's media who are out there looking to

525
00:27:07,040 --> 00:27:10,240
Speaker 2: attack those in those higher positions who want to progress,

526
00:27:10,320 --> 00:27:15,840
Speaker 2: are more than willing to adapt to the public perception

527
00:27:16,119 --> 00:27:19,240
Speaker 2: as opposed to stand their ground and demonstrate actual leadership.

528
00:27:28,720 --> 00:27:31,600
Speaker 2: And of course you experienced that yourself firsthand.

529
00:27:32,280 --> 00:27:40,480
Speaker 1: So the ABC took it upon themselves to effectively attack

530
00:27:40,520 --> 00:27:44,440
Speaker 1: your integrity by virtual allegations. Take me through that now,

531
00:27:44,480 --> 00:27:48,000
Speaker 1: because and probably maybe just tell us what happened, but

532
00:27:48,880 --> 00:27:50,840
Speaker 1: I want to importantly understand how you felt about that,

533
00:27:50,880 --> 00:27:54,879
Speaker 1: like as someone who just was in service of his country,

534
00:27:55,400 --> 00:27:58,040
Speaker 1: was fighting for a greater purpose, was there for a

535
00:27:58,040 --> 00:27:58,679
Speaker 1: greater purpose?

536
00:27:59,560 --> 00:28:01,679
Speaker 2: How did you about that? So but first take us

537
00:28:01,680 --> 00:28:04,280
Speaker 2: through what happened gotcha? And this is this moral injury

538
00:28:04,280 --> 00:28:09,399
Speaker 2: that I spoke about. So twentieth of October twenty twenty,

539
00:28:10,000 --> 00:28:13,879
Speaker 2: the ABC published an article that named my platoon Novemberlatoon.

540
00:28:14,400 --> 00:28:16,760
Speaker 2: And there are thirty to forty people in a platoon

541
00:28:16,880 --> 00:28:19,240
Speaker 2: and there's only one November platoon and the entire of

542
00:28:19,240 --> 00:28:20,399
Speaker 2: Australian Special Forces.

543
00:28:20,480 --> 00:28:22,080
Speaker 1: They didn't name names in there.

544
00:28:21,960 --> 00:28:24,320
Speaker 2: No, they just named the platoon the platoon right, first

545
00:28:24,359 --> 00:28:26,679
Speaker 2: time that's ever happened in Australia's history. Usually it's like

546
00:28:26,720 --> 00:28:28,960
Speaker 2: the larger unit or the defense source. But they labeled

547
00:28:29,040 --> 00:28:31,960
Speaker 2: forty guys, saying that they had this story from a

548
00:28:32,119 --> 00:28:35,919
Speaker 2: US Marine helicopter door gunner who was flying a mission

549
00:28:35,960 --> 00:28:38,440
Speaker 2: one night and said that he heard over the radio

550
00:28:38,560 --> 00:28:43,240
Speaker 2: that commando's had six sorry seven detainees were told there

551
00:28:43,240 --> 00:28:45,560
Speaker 2: was only room for six. Said that he heard a

552
00:28:45,600 --> 00:28:48,920
Speaker 2: pop over the radio, and then that the commando group

553
00:28:48,960 --> 00:28:49,960
Speaker 2: said that they had six.

554
00:28:50,200 --> 00:28:53,120
Speaker 1: Of course he changes his version of it down the track,

555
00:28:53,760 --> 00:28:54,920
Speaker 1: but so to.

556
00:28:55,200 --> 00:28:58,040
Speaker 2: Keep that, yeah, and so then and he wasn't landing

557
00:28:58,080 --> 00:29:00,560
Speaker 2: at time. This is a nighttime in Hellman, thousands of

558
00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:03,560
Speaker 2: feet above in twenty twelve, and all of a sudden,

559
00:29:03,600 --> 00:29:07,240
Speaker 2: eight years later, I'd spoken with an ABC journalist and said, yep,

560
00:29:07,320 --> 00:29:08,920
Speaker 2: that meant that the commando said, well.

561
00:29:08,840 --> 00:29:11,680
Speaker 1: See the ABC journalists. ABC sought him. He didn't go

562
00:29:11,720 --> 00:29:13,400
Speaker 1: out there and offer this up, No.

563
00:29:13,400 --> 00:29:16,440
Speaker 2: He did. So he contacted an ABC journalist. Yeah, he did,

564
00:29:16,720 --> 00:29:19,600
Speaker 2: because he'd seen some other reporting on for instance, the

565
00:29:19,600 --> 00:29:22,520
Speaker 2: Ben Robert Smith stuff. And look, I'll leave it up

566
00:29:22,560 --> 00:29:24,040
Speaker 2: to people if they want to research it. But this

567
00:29:24,080 --> 00:29:27,440
Speaker 2: guy obviously has his own life that he's going through

568
00:29:27,720 --> 00:29:31,680
Speaker 2: and as came out during my trial, what was published

569
00:29:31,840 --> 00:29:35,360
Speaker 2: by the ABC journalist is not what he actually said.

570
00:29:35,400 --> 00:29:38,520
Speaker 2: He never named commandos, he never named November Platoon. He

571
00:29:38,680 --> 00:29:42,960
Speaker 2: thought they were Australians, and he never actually saw anything

572
00:29:42,960 --> 00:29:45,200
Speaker 2: that happened. He wasn't there well, because he was flying

573
00:29:45,240 --> 00:29:46,960
Speaker 2: up on the sky. He heard a pop on the radio.

574
00:29:47,040 --> 00:29:47,880
Speaker 1: Heard a pop on the radio.

575
00:29:48,360 --> 00:29:51,080
Speaker 2: So the kicker to this is that exact day, twentieth

576
00:29:51,080 --> 00:29:53,880
Speaker 2: of October was the anniversary of the death of Corporal

577
00:29:53,880 --> 00:29:55,920
Speaker 2: Scott Smith, who was the one soldier that I lost

578
00:29:55,920 --> 00:30:00,479
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan in twentieth October twenty twelve, twenty first October,

579
00:30:00,520 --> 00:30:04,440
Speaker 2: sorry twenty twelve. He stood on an ied and was

580
00:30:04,480 --> 00:30:08,320
Speaker 2: blown into a million pieces over three hundred meters. We

581
00:30:08,320 --> 00:30:10,120
Speaker 2: were then attacked by the enemy straight away, as you

582
00:30:10,120 --> 00:30:12,520
Speaker 2: could imagine a big plume, and we spent the next

583
00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:15,160
Speaker 2: three hours picking up Scott, fighting off the enemy and

584
00:30:15,200 --> 00:30:17,720
Speaker 2: sending him home to his family. And the day that

585
00:30:17,720 --> 00:30:19,760
Speaker 2: the ABC chose to do that was the eighth the

586
00:30:19,840 --> 00:30:22,400
Speaker 2: year anniversary of his death, and that evening I met

587
00:30:22,400 --> 00:30:25,000
Speaker 2: with his mother and sister at North Bondo RSL as

588
00:30:25,000 --> 00:30:29,680
Speaker 2: we did have a reunion for him and I had

589
00:30:29,680 --> 00:30:32,680
Speaker 2: recently transitioned for the military. Twenty nineteen, I contacted the

590
00:30:32,680 --> 00:30:36,360
Speaker 2: ABC and asked for them to clarify and call me back,

591
00:30:36,360 --> 00:30:39,320
Speaker 2: and never got any response. I reset posted story yeah

592
00:30:39,360 --> 00:30:43,320
Speaker 2: the next day, the same day, and then I was

593
00:30:43,360 --> 00:30:46,960
Speaker 2: waiting for angry. I was just I was confused. I

594
00:30:47,000 --> 00:30:48,600
Speaker 2: was like, someone's got this wrong, Like, how could they

595
00:30:48,640 --> 00:30:50,239
Speaker 2: have done this. They've never been spoken to me, they

596
00:30:50,280 --> 00:30:52,680
Speaker 2: never spoke to any of us. And then I waited

597
00:30:52,720 --> 00:30:55,320
Speaker 2: for the Department of Defense to speak out. You know,

598
00:30:55,360 --> 00:30:58,760
Speaker 2: we were never allowed to speak special Forces, and there's

599
00:30:58,760 --> 00:31:01,720
Speaker 2: a whole public affairs department within Defense. Surely they're going

600
00:31:01,760 --> 00:31:04,760
Speaker 2: to be on it. Days went by and nothing happened.

601
00:31:04,800 --> 00:31:06,520
Speaker 2: So I ended up taking to my social media and

602
00:31:06,560 --> 00:31:08,200
Speaker 2: just saying, you know, this is an absolute lie. I

603
00:31:08,240 --> 00:31:10,480
Speaker 2: had my soldiers calling me saying what do we do

604
00:31:10,520 --> 00:31:12,960
Speaker 2: about it? It was all quite despairing, and the next

605
00:31:12,960 --> 00:31:15,880
Speaker 2: thing some media picked up, and over the course of

606
00:31:15,920 --> 00:31:19,440
Speaker 2: the next two years, I submitted a number of editorial

607
00:31:19,440 --> 00:31:22,360
Speaker 2: complaints of the ABC, wrote them a ten page letter

608
00:31:22,400 --> 00:31:25,760
Speaker 2: from the guys talking about how impossible their entire story was,

609
00:31:26,600 --> 00:31:29,720
Speaker 2: and all that ended up bringing was them doubling down,

610
00:31:30,280 --> 00:31:32,400
Speaker 2: and then ended up publishing a new article that put

611
00:31:32,520 --> 00:31:37,120
Speaker 2: my face and my name within that whole allegation, which

612
00:31:37,560 --> 00:31:39,520
Speaker 2: I subsequently learned meant that I could take them to

613
00:31:39,560 --> 00:31:41,160
Speaker 2: the federal court and sue for defamation.

614
00:31:41,280 --> 00:31:43,400
Speaker 1: Did they put you there? There was a platoon leader as.

615
00:31:43,320 --> 00:31:44,000
Speaker 2: The platoon commander?

616
00:31:44,040 --> 00:31:47,600
Speaker 1: Yeah, commander? Yeah? So and was your reason why you

617
00:31:47,640 --> 00:31:49,880
Speaker 1: took to social media and more importantly just took to

618
00:31:49,960 --> 00:31:53,200
Speaker 1: writing the record or correcting the record. Was that sort

619
00:31:53,200 --> 00:31:55,600
Speaker 1: of out of a leadership sense, still a remaining sense

620
00:31:55,640 --> 00:31:58,120
Speaker 1: of leadership for your platoonity, even though you're not there anymore. Yeah.

621
00:31:58,160 --> 00:32:01,800
Speaker 2: Absolutely, I was the platoon membletoon at the time when

622
00:32:01,800 --> 00:32:04,640
Speaker 2: they said this happened, and per all of my officer

623
00:32:04,680 --> 00:32:06,400
Speaker 2: training one oh one, that's my job.

624
00:32:06,680 --> 00:32:08,920
Speaker 1: To protect your absolutely protect your men.

625
00:32:08,880 --> 00:32:10,840
Speaker 2: To protect my men, and protect the legacy of the

626
00:32:10,840 --> 00:32:12,160
Speaker 2: one guy that we'd also lost.

627
00:32:12,360 --> 00:32:16,000
Speaker 1: Why I mean, did ABC not respond or do they say,

628
00:32:16,040 --> 00:32:18,360
Speaker 1: look when you say, they double down, they went and

629
00:32:18,440 --> 00:32:20,640
Speaker 1: named you, But they did they name you as And

630
00:32:20,720 --> 00:32:22,760
Speaker 1: what was the outcome of that leak? They just said

631
00:32:22,760 --> 00:32:24,320
Speaker 1: you're the platoon leader.

632
00:32:24,600 --> 00:32:27,640
Speaker 2: So they ABC submitted a freedom information requests The Defense

633
00:32:27,680 --> 00:32:30,400
Speaker 2: Defense replied and said, hey, we can't respond to this

634
00:32:30,440 --> 00:32:33,680
Speaker 2: because there's an ongoing investigation into all of Afghanistan. And

635
00:32:33,720 --> 00:32:36,440
Speaker 2: ABC just jumped on that and said Defense confirms criminal

636
00:32:36,440 --> 00:32:38,600
Speaker 2: investigation into novembletun.

637
00:32:38,440 --> 00:32:40,560
Speaker 1: No no, but no confirmation, zero.

638
00:32:40,360 --> 00:32:44,200
Speaker 2: Confirmation, and then republished this whole article with my picture.

639
00:32:44,480 --> 00:32:47,000
Speaker 2: I'm the only named person so straight away in the

640
00:32:47,000 --> 00:32:49,360
Speaker 2: public eye, and as was found in the federal court,

641
00:32:49,840 --> 00:32:52,840
Speaker 2: I'm being identified as the command at being involved with

642
00:32:53,480 --> 00:32:54,200
Speaker 2: a war crime.

643
00:32:54,400 --> 00:32:57,520
Speaker 1: So I can't mentione how angry I would feel if

644
00:32:57,560 --> 00:33:00,280
Speaker 1: it was me. But and it's not good. I did

645
00:33:00,320 --> 00:33:03,000
Speaker 1: to get a you know, it was just a spar

646
00:33:03,120 --> 00:33:07,800
Speaker 1: and command commander angry especially was used to has killed people.

647
00:33:08,640 --> 00:33:09,320
Speaker 1: How did you feel?

648
00:33:10,080 --> 00:33:13,800
Speaker 2: It was the first time I'd ever witnessed such injustice.

649
00:33:14,040 --> 00:33:18,800
Speaker 2: I've never felt so helpless and hopeless in a situation.

650
00:33:18,960 --> 00:33:21,040
Speaker 2: I've said this before when we were in overseas in

651
00:33:21,080 --> 00:33:24,200
Speaker 2: Afghanistan and say the enemy, like when we lost Scott

652
00:33:24,200 --> 00:33:26,120
Speaker 2: and the enemy pressed their advantage, I could call in

653
00:33:26,160 --> 00:33:29,080
Speaker 2: the finger of God from the sky, the finger of God.

654
00:33:29,080 --> 00:33:31,840
Speaker 2: I could call in drones and gunships, and I could

655
00:33:31,840 --> 00:33:34,600
Speaker 2: call in a quick reaction force of fellow commanders from

656
00:33:34,600 --> 00:33:37,200
Speaker 2: back in base Square up. Yeah, if I yelled out,

657
00:33:37,240 --> 00:33:39,280
Speaker 2: you know, troops in contact over the radio. Then I

658
00:33:39,280 --> 00:33:43,240
Speaker 2: would have every asset within that area of operations dedicated

659
00:33:43,240 --> 00:33:45,480
Speaker 2: to me and whatever I needed. And then there I

660
00:33:45,600 --> 00:33:48,600
Speaker 2: was at home in my Sydney apartment, having the entire

661
00:33:48,680 --> 00:33:51,200
Speaker 2: legacy of my guys been labeled as war criminals on

662
00:33:51,280 --> 00:33:55,239
Speaker 2: the day of my soldier's death. Abandonment, absolute abandonment, and

663
00:33:55,280 --> 00:33:58,440
Speaker 2: this is this moral injury. Abandonment is the absolute word

664
00:33:58,480 --> 00:34:01,280
Speaker 2: that keeps coming up in the Royal Commission because I

665
00:34:01,360 --> 00:34:04,320
Speaker 2: reported to another officer, and he reported to another officer,

666
00:34:04,480 --> 00:34:07,960
Speaker 2: and you knew them like a family, and I reached

667
00:34:07,960 --> 00:34:10,000
Speaker 2: out to them and I got nothing. I reached out

668
00:34:10,040 --> 00:34:12,480
Speaker 2: to the Department Defense and I got nothing. Well why though,

669
00:34:13,080 --> 00:34:16,080
Speaker 2: because at this point in time, I will assume these

670
00:34:16,080 --> 00:34:19,359
Speaker 2: people have also left the military. They have families, they

671
00:34:19,360 --> 00:34:22,560
Speaker 2: have careers, and they have had to trade purpose for

672
00:34:22,600 --> 00:34:26,240
Speaker 2: self preservation, particularly with an adversarial media like the ABC

673
00:34:26,480 --> 00:34:29,880
Speaker 2: that has all of our taxpayer resources to attack and

674
00:34:29,920 --> 00:34:31,759
Speaker 2: whatever else is going on in their life. And I

675
00:34:31,800 --> 00:34:34,840
Speaker 2: have deep resentment at that abandonment. But I can also

676
00:34:35,200 --> 00:34:39,880
Speaker 2: in reflection understand seeing how hard the ABC tried to

677
00:34:39,880 --> 00:34:43,120
Speaker 2: silence me, how I've only had to worry about me

678
00:34:43,960 --> 00:34:47,239
Speaker 2: and my extended family and my sausage dog, whereas I

679
00:34:47,239 --> 00:34:50,520
Speaker 2: haven't had to have those very real world, everyday concerns.

680
00:34:50,560 --> 00:34:52,440
Speaker 2: I mean, it nearly broke me over the last three years,

681
00:34:52,480 --> 00:34:55,160
Speaker 2: and I've definitely had a mental crash, particularly the last year.

682
00:34:56,440 --> 00:34:58,640
Speaker 2: And I feel very fortunate that I was the one

683
00:34:58,680 --> 00:35:02,799
Speaker 2: able to do that, because I know I have been

684
00:35:02,840 --> 00:35:05,640
Speaker 2: able to do that. I've always been a very high performer.

685
00:35:06,160 --> 00:35:08,840
Speaker 2: But yeah, for others to have to go through that,

686
00:35:08,840 --> 00:35:11,880
Speaker 2: I can now completely appreciate how if I had the choice,

687
00:35:11,880 --> 00:35:13,600
Speaker 2: I might have preferred to avoid it as well.

688
00:35:13,600 --> 00:35:15,600
Speaker 1: It's funny, you know, you should have say, because when

689
00:35:15,640 --> 00:35:18,319
Speaker 1: I was looking at the program that you know that

690
00:35:18,320 --> 00:35:19,960
Speaker 1: we got this month, and I saw you there, and

691
00:35:20,840 --> 00:35:24,640
Speaker 1: I should thought to myself, Wow, I could do this interview.

692
00:35:24,680 --> 00:35:30,400
Speaker 1: And if I look too sympathetic towards what Hessen's got

693
00:35:30,440 --> 00:35:33,640
Speaker 1: to say, they basic could come after me or my shop.

694
00:35:34,080 --> 00:35:36,680
Speaker 1: I mean, I'm serious, And I thought of myself, yeah,

695
00:35:36,719 --> 00:35:40,080
Speaker 1: but I'm not at war with the obviously, but I

696
00:35:40,080 --> 00:35:41,920
Speaker 1: thought of myself, yeah, but like, this is a story

697
00:35:41,920 --> 00:35:47,200
Speaker 1: that needs to be told and for me, not really

698
00:35:47,320 --> 00:35:52,000
Speaker 1: a commercial business. This is more I wouldn't say fun

699
00:35:52,040 --> 00:35:54,840
Speaker 1: thing because it's very serious, but it's more something I

700
00:35:54,880 --> 00:35:57,399
Speaker 1: want to do, and I also want to know about this,

701
00:35:57,920 --> 00:35:59,719
Speaker 1: and because I think this is really important to me

702
00:35:59,760 --> 00:36:03,120
Speaker 1: as Australian to know about how our return soldiers are

703
00:36:03,160 --> 00:36:05,440
Speaker 1: being dealt with and how they feel. And also the

704
00:36:05,480 --> 00:36:07,319
Speaker 1: fact that you're won is really important to you won

705
00:36:07,360 --> 00:36:12,560
Speaker 1: your case, and that's incredibly important because I'm somewhere I

706
00:36:12,600 --> 00:36:15,600
Speaker 1: don't like bullies like you don't like bullies, but I

707
00:36:15,719 --> 00:36:19,600
Speaker 1: like fairness and justice absolutely and a sense of justice

708
00:36:19,600 --> 00:36:22,319
Speaker 1: in this environment. I like to know Australia still has

709
00:36:22,320 --> 00:36:25,279
Speaker 1: a sense of justice, that we still have justice in

710
00:36:25,760 --> 00:36:29,319
Speaker 1: our country and it's the system that manages it and

711
00:36:29,360 --> 00:36:33,520
Speaker 1: it's not one organization that makes a decision who gets

712
00:36:33,600 --> 00:36:37,600
Speaker 1: justice and it doesn't get justice. I don't know how

713
00:36:37,760 --> 00:36:41,000
Speaker 1: you didn't. I don't know how you resisted from just

714
00:36:41,080 --> 00:36:43,799
Speaker 1: getting in an uber going to the ABC and I'm

715
00:36:43,840 --> 00:36:45,960
Speaker 1: serious and just staying the reception saying I want to

716
00:36:45,960 --> 00:36:46,840
Speaker 1: see the managing director.

717
00:36:47,360 --> 00:36:49,840
Speaker 2: You have no idea how many times it's planned. I

718
00:36:49,880 --> 00:36:51,399
Speaker 2: wanted to get in my car and drive it through

719
00:36:51,440 --> 00:36:53,960
Speaker 2: the front door of the ABC, particularly when all of

720
00:36:54,000 --> 00:36:57,799
Speaker 2: a sudden I just encountered bureaucratic walls of resistance, a

721
00:36:57,880 --> 00:37:01,000
Speaker 2: lack of any form of empathy or care. I offered

722
00:37:01,120 --> 00:37:03,759
Speaker 2: so many times to personally have a live interview with

723
00:37:04,320 --> 00:37:06,680
Speaker 2: the ABC journalists. I wrote to the managing director, I

724
00:37:06,680 --> 00:37:10,040
Speaker 2: wrote to the board of the ABC responses zero, nothing,

725
00:37:10,200 --> 00:37:12,560
Speaker 2: nothing cowards or do.

726
00:37:12,560 --> 00:37:14,640
Speaker 1: You think it's a commercially there's just lockdown or shit

727
00:37:14,719 --> 00:37:15,879
Speaker 1: with might have been of drama here.

728
00:37:15,920 --> 00:37:17,839
Speaker 2: You just say nothing, But this is it like if

729
00:37:17,880 --> 00:37:21,440
Speaker 2: it was any other commercial news outlet. I can understand that,

730
00:37:21,480 --> 00:37:24,720
Speaker 2: but it's our ABC, mate, And if you're not willing

731
00:37:24,719 --> 00:37:27,080
Speaker 2: to hear the other side of a conversation and educate

732
00:37:27,080 --> 00:37:29,200
Speaker 2: the public and instead try and double down on your

733
00:37:29,239 --> 00:37:31,720
Speaker 2: own version, like where are we at as a society?

734
00:37:31,760 --> 00:37:34,560
Speaker 1: I asked you prior to any of this, never mentioned

735
00:37:34,640 --> 00:37:36,000
Speaker 1: your name, They never contacted you.

736
00:37:36,280 --> 00:37:38,560
Speaker 2: Oh, it came out through the court case just like

737
00:37:38,680 --> 00:37:41,560
Speaker 2: literally hours before they went to publish the next article

738
00:37:41,600 --> 00:37:43,960
Speaker 2: that we sued on, they called me up and asked,

739
00:37:44,000 --> 00:37:45,520
Speaker 2: you know, do you know about this? Do you know

740
00:37:45,520 --> 00:37:47,880
Speaker 2: about this? No, never mentioned what they were going to do,

741
00:37:47,960 --> 00:37:50,359
Speaker 2: never asked me the actual questions of information they put

742
00:37:50,400 --> 00:37:54,080
Speaker 2: in their article. The whole thing I've never I'm not

743
00:37:54,080 --> 00:37:56,520
Speaker 2: a rabbit hole conspiracy person, but I've sat in the

744
00:37:56,560 --> 00:37:59,120
Speaker 2: middle of a conspiracy the last few years and going

745
00:37:59,160 --> 00:38:01,080
Speaker 2: through the last year of federal court case, it was

746
00:38:01,120 --> 00:38:03,960
Speaker 2: just incredible to see all of the strings get pulled,

747
00:38:04,400 --> 00:38:05,640
Speaker 2: everything be laid out to bear.

748
00:38:05,880 --> 00:38:07,879
Speaker 1: Is it the individual journalists or is it some sort

749
00:38:07,920 --> 00:38:10,080
Speaker 1: of group above them trying to have a crack at

750
00:38:10,200 --> 00:38:14,040
Speaker 1: Australian Army personnel?

751
00:38:14,640 --> 00:38:14,759
Speaker 2: You know?

752
00:38:14,960 --> 00:38:17,160
Speaker 1: Is it this part of this Ben Robert Smith game

753
00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:19,759
Speaker 1: that there's question getting what are we talking about? It

754
00:38:19,760 --> 00:38:21,000
Speaker 1: is anti war? What are we talking about?

755
00:38:21,000 --> 00:38:23,759
Speaker 2: You great question? It comes to individual journalists and this

756
00:38:23,840 --> 00:38:26,280
Speaker 2: is the biggest issue where I am such a stickler

757
00:38:26,320 --> 00:38:29,880
Speaker 2: for accountability in the military mark you have a Defense

758
00:38:29,920 --> 00:38:32,320
Speaker 2: Force discipline react. There's a whole new set of standards

759
00:38:32,320 --> 00:38:34,640
Speaker 2: where if I turn up five minutes late to a meeting,

760
00:38:35,000 --> 00:38:36,880
Speaker 2: I can be put on twenty four hours worth of

761
00:38:36,880 --> 00:38:39,160
Speaker 2: extra duties. I can have two weeks worth of my

762
00:38:39,280 --> 00:38:42,080
Speaker 2: pay taken away from me. The level you I held

763
00:38:42,080 --> 00:38:43,960
Speaker 2: to is so massively because you know there will be

764
00:38:44,000 --> 00:38:46,680
Speaker 2: accountability if you don't have personal integrity to hold yourself

765
00:38:46,719 --> 00:38:49,160
Speaker 2: to those standards. And then what I've seen Throughout this

766
00:38:49,280 --> 00:38:52,440
Speaker 2: entire process, there's been individual journalists, and one journalist in

767
00:38:52,440 --> 00:38:56,000
Speaker 2: particular who has won Walkley Awards, and all of a sudden,

768
00:38:56,040 --> 00:38:58,000
Speaker 2: that is the mark of his measure. You know, that's

769
00:38:58,040 --> 00:39:01,920
Speaker 2: the complacency because he has done something good. And for me,

770
00:39:02,000 --> 00:39:03,520
Speaker 2: the day you wrest on your laurels is a day

771
00:39:03,560 --> 00:39:06,400
Speaker 2: you become irrelevant every day. When we got our commando beret,

772
00:39:06,440 --> 00:39:08,960
Speaker 2: it was this comes with a daily renewablek contract. Your

773
00:39:08,960 --> 00:39:12,040
Speaker 2: actions and attitude each day define you. And so what

774
00:39:12,120 --> 00:39:15,760
Speaker 2: happened was, particularly when I started to question their story

775
00:39:15,760 --> 00:39:19,000
Speaker 2: and put in complaints, the whole editorial process was going

776
00:39:19,040 --> 00:39:22,520
Speaker 2: back to the original journalist and saying, hey, this question's

777
00:39:22,520 --> 00:39:25,080
Speaker 2: come in. Do you still stand by your work?

778
00:39:25,239 --> 00:39:25,439
Speaker 1: Yes?

779
00:39:25,480 --> 00:39:28,440
Speaker 2: I do. There was never any individual checking of this

780
00:39:28,480 --> 00:39:32,080
Speaker 2: person's work. And then when the ABC accepted my complaint

781
00:39:32,080 --> 00:39:35,840
Speaker 2: and launched an internal investigation, this guy was even allowed

782
00:39:35,920 --> 00:39:40,600
Speaker 2: to draft the media response to the investigation. Again, in

783
00:39:40,640 --> 00:39:42,960
Speaker 2: the military, if you're being an investigated or something you

784
00:39:43,000 --> 00:39:46,160
Speaker 2: step aside, an investigation officer comes in and you're not

785
00:39:46,200 --> 00:39:48,879
Speaker 2: allowed to touch that work again. And instead, what has

786
00:39:48,880 --> 00:39:51,200
Speaker 2: happened and what has just recently come out this last

787
00:39:51,239 --> 00:39:54,120
Speaker 2: month is This person even went to the links of

788
00:39:54,160 --> 00:39:58,799
Speaker 2: publishing a whole new online television program saying that I

789
00:39:59,040 --> 00:40:02,160
Speaker 2: was the person sitting in helicopter shooting at unarmed civilians

790
00:40:02,160 --> 00:40:05,239
Speaker 2: from fifteen seconds worth of footage that his team even

791
00:40:05,239 --> 00:40:09,120
Speaker 2: decided to superimpose extra gunshots to make it look like

792
00:40:09,160 --> 00:40:09,960
Speaker 2: that's what's happening.

793
00:40:10,200 --> 00:40:10,480
Speaker 1: Wow.

794
00:40:10,840 --> 00:40:14,000
Speaker 2: And during the court case mark because their entire truth

795
00:40:14,040 --> 00:40:15,200
Speaker 2: defense was off.

796
00:40:15,239 --> 00:40:18,160
Speaker 1: So one of the defense to do defamation yes, is

797
00:40:18,200 --> 00:40:21,319
Speaker 1: truth yes. So they lodged the defensive truth a.

798
00:40:21,400 --> 00:40:26,000
Speaker 2: Truth, contextual truth, and public interest and their whole schedule

799
00:40:26,120 --> 00:40:29,680
Speaker 2: Alpha Schedule one against Heston Russell. We have footage of

800
00:40:29,680 --> 00:40:32,920
Speaker 2: Heston Russell shooting from a black Hawk helicopter at unarmed civiliance,

801
00:40:32,920 --> 00:40:35,640
Speaker 2: which demonstrate he has this propensity to do this, this,

802
00:40:35,680 --> 00:40:36,920
Speaker 2: and this like we've accused him to.

803
00:40:36,920 --> 00:40:38,000
Speaker 1: No, they was going to get tested.

804
00:40:38,560 --> 00:40:40,839
Speaker 2: Well, when you're in your own echo chamber, no one

805
00:40:40,880 --> 00:40:43,319
Speaker 2: else is checking your work. That's where we get down

806
00:40:43,320 --> 00:40:43,640
Speaker 2: to these.

807
00:40:43,840 --> 00:40:46,560
Speaker 1: Surely the barrister must their barrister or their legal representative

808
00:40:46,560 --> 00:40:48,879
Speaker 1: of modes said, let's check this bit of evidence that

809
00:40:49,080 --> 00:40:52,719
Speaker 1: you're about to give that you have this footage and

810
00:40:52,760 --> 00:40:55,560
Speaker 1: as independently obtained et cetera, and verified, et cetera.

811
00:40:55,760 --> 00:40:57,600
Speaker 2: This is a massive question and I hope the New

812
00:40:57,640 --> 00:40:59,799
Speaker 2: South Wales Law Society looks into this because the end

813
00:40:59,800 --> 00:41:03,479
Speaker 2: of the they carried on three iterations of submitted truth

814
00:41:03,520 --> 00:41:09,000
Speaker 2: defenses that were based on entirely false and fabricated information

815
00:41:09,040 --> 00:41:12,120
Speaker 2: and evidence provided by these ABC journalists.

816
00:41:12,160 --> 00:41:13,920
Speaker 1: So where did you go? So you won the case?

817
00:41:14,120 --> 00:41:16,640
Speaker 2: So won the case. But during the case, because they

818
00:41:16,640 --> 00:41:19,279
Speaker 2: had fifteen seconds worth of footage saying that this was me,

819
00:41:19,760 --> 00:41:21,440
Speaker 2: and I have the whole twenty five minutes worth of

820
00:41:21,440 --> 00:41:24,480
Speaker 2: helmet can footage, we provided that to them, and then

821
00:41:24,520 --> 00:41:27,040
Speaker 2: they ended up withdrawing their truth defense for something completely

822
00:41:27,040 --> 00:41:31,000
Speaker 2: different and have never corrected. The public record. Their story

823
00:41:31,160 --> 00:41:36,279
Speaker 2: with the added gunshots was still on the Internet as

824
00:41:36,320 --> 00:41:39,400
Speaker 2: of this last month, and that is the public record

825
00:41:39,480 --> 00:41:42,920
Speaker 2: of me and my service in Afghanistan from fifteen seconds

826
00:41:42,920 --> 00:41:44,000
Speaker 2: worth of helmet cam footage.

827
00:41:44,000 --> 00:41:46,000
Speaker 1: Surely the judge must order them to remove it.

828
00:41:46,239 --> 00:41:48,680
Speaker 2: Well, the judge didn't because they dropped that defense. The

829
00:41:48,760 --> 00:41:51,600
Speaker 2: judge never focused on that, and because they were cunning

830
00:41:51,680 --> 00:41:54,719
Speaker 2: enough to do it while proceedings had already occurred, I

831
00:41:54,800 --> 00:41:57,560
Speaker 2: was unable to sue on that individually. And this is

832
00:41:57,600 --> 00:42:00,440
Speaker 2: where we're at in our country. Someone can go out

833
00:42:00,440 --> 00:42:02,480
Speaker 2: there in the media and accuse me of being a

834
00:42:02,520 --> 00:42:05,680
Speaker 2: war criminal without even being charged alone having a day

835
00:42:05,680 --> 00:42:08,560
Speaker 2: in court. The only recourse I have as a private

836
00:42:08,560 --> 00:42:12,160
Speaker 2: citizen is to if I can afford, sue them for defamation.

837
00:42:13,239 --> 00:42:15,320
Speaker 2: That's it. And my legal team took me on a

838
00:42:15,440 --> 00:42:17,279
Speaker 2: no win, no fee because I couldn't even afford to

839
00:42:17,280 --> 00:42:19,799
Speaker 2: do that. Otherwise you can. There are no mechanisms to

840
00:42:19,960 --> 00:42:21,640
Speaker 2: challenge this in the public arena.

841
00:42:21,560 --> 00:42:23,000
Speaker 1: Where the government will pay for you and them at

842
00:42:23,000 --> 00:42:23,439
Speaker 1: the same time.

843
00:42:23,440 --> 00:42:25,880
Speaker 2: For example, the Department of Defense the last three years

844
00:42:26,040 --> 00:42:28,560
Speaker 2: never stepped up, never stepped up once, even the ABC

845
00:42:28,640 --> 00:42:31,360
Speaker 2: published that had occurred during a period where my platoon

846
00:42:31,480 --> 00:42:33,880
Speaker 2: wasn't even in Afghanistan. And I wrote to the minister,

847
00:42:34,080 --> 00:42:36,080
Speaker 2: and I wrote to the department and asked, please just

848
00:42:36,120 --> 00:42:39,279
Speaker 2: release our deployment records. And they wouldn't even do that.

849
00:42:39,840 --> 00:42:41,439
Speaker 1: Why is that? I mean, wh why wouldn't the government

850
00:42:41,480 --> 00:42:44,359
Speaker 1: stand whyouldn't the ministeria for the Defense or whether it doesn't

851
00:42:44,320 --> 00:42:48,120
Speaker 1: matter which color, which, no particular party, they didn't do it.

852
00:42:48,160 --> 00:42:50,000
Speaker 1: Why wouldn't they? What do you think? It is just

853
00:42:50,040 --> 00:42:50,920
Speaker 1: not get the es.

854
00:42:51,000 --> 00:42:52,919
Speaker 2: As good as mine. And look, one of the great

855
00:42:52,920 --> 00:42:55,400
Speaker 2: insights I had from going to and meeting with some

856
00:42:55,440 --> 00:42:57,040
Speaker 2: of these people was when one of them turned to

857
00:42:57,040 --> 00:43:01,400
Speaker 2: me and said, look for us to take on the

858
00:43:01,400 --> 00:43:06,680
Speaker 2: ABC's career suicide. Yeah, And for me, that was just incredible.

859
00:43:06,680 --> 00:43:09,120
Speaker 2: They cared more about their career than to support a

860
00:43:09,120 --> 00:43:12,560
Speaker 2: group of forty guys who went overseas, lost one of

861
00:43:12,560 --> 00:43:14,799
Speaker 2: our own, and put our lives on the line for

862
00:43:14,880 --> 00:43:17,880
Speaker 2: the democracy that they apparently represent. And that's where I

863
00:43:17,920 --> 00:43:21,040
Speaker 2: just realized I have to with my team fight this

864
00:43:21,480 --> 00:43:25,319
Speaker 2: ourselves and not expect anyone to bring the finger from

865
00:43:25,360 --> 00:43:27,239
Speaker 2: God or bring a quick reaction force in. We're on

866
00:43:27,280 --> 00:43:30,280
Speaker 2: our own and it's been a very very lonely place.

867
00:43:30,880 --> 00:43:33,000
Speaker 1: So how do you feel now? Because you're won, You've

868
00:43:33,680 --> 00:43:34,800
Speaker 1: you got word for the images.

869
00:43:34,920 --> 00:43:37,719
Speaker 2: Yeah, that's it. And this is the sad part. At

870
00:43:37,760 --> 00:43:40,239
Speaker 2: the very start of it, we wrote. I wrote to

871
00:43:40,239 --> 00:43:42,080
Speaker 2: the ABC and said, hey, just please take the articles

872
00:43:42,080 --> 00:43:45,120
Speaker 2: down and apologize. Never once been about the money. When

873
00:43:45,120 --> 00:43:46,680
Speaker 2: we started the trial, we offered to settle it for

874
00:43:46,719 --> 00:43:49,200
Speaker 2: like ninety grand or something. Never been about the money.

875
00:43:49,480 --> 00:43:52,040
Speaker 2: They never even entered into a single round of any

876
00:43:52,080 --> 00:43:54,000
Speaker 2: form of mediation. We had to go all the way

877
00:43:54,000 --> 00:43:56,960
Speaker 2: through to judgment, and this court case has probably cost

878
00:43:57,000 --> 00:43:59,720
Speaker 2: Australian taxpayer over five million dollars, and as a taxpayer,

879
00:43:59,719 --> 00:44:02,680
Speaker 2: I'm disgusted by that because all we ever wanted was

880
00:44:02,880 --> 00:44:07,920
Speaker 2: the record corrected. However, since my federal court win, the

881
00:44:07,960 --> 00:44:10,200
Speaker 2: only public statement the ABC has made is that the

882
00:44:10,239 --> 00:44:13,919
Speaker 2: two journalists who are also found individually at fault would

883
00:44:14,000 --> 00:44:16,960
Speaker 2: keep their jobs. And they're still out there publishing articles

884
00:44:16,960 --> 00:44:19,560
Speaker 2: the very next day. So you might have a federal

885
00:44:19,640 --> 00:44:23,520
Speaker 2: court rule in your favor against a meter outlet for defamation,

886
00:44:24,000 --> 00:44:26,640
Speaker 2: but there is no accountability in the system. There's no

887
00:44:26,719 --> 00:44:29,279
Speaker 2: integrity within the system, and these people are still out

888
00:44:29,320 --> 00:44:31,880
Speaker 2: there doing what they're doing. And there's been no changes

889
00:44:31,880 --> 00:44:36,160
Speaker 2: to any federal regulations that protect veterans into the future.

890
00:44:36,239 --> 00:44:37,440
Speaker 2: This could happen again tomorrow.

891
00:44:37,840 --> 00:44:40,600
Speaker 1: Wow, And where do from here? Because I mean, I

892
00:44:40,600 --> 00:44:42,799
Speaker 1: would have thought that in itself would give you PTSD,

893
00:44:43,040 --> 00:44:46,200
Speaker 1: I mean mental effect, and this is it.

894
00:44:46,400 --> 00:44:50,560
Speaker 2: June July last year, I crashed my nervous system reset.

895
00:44:50,680 --> 00:44:53,600
Speaker 2: I had about two weeks you know where I didn't

896
00:44:53,640 --> 00:44:56,160
Speaker 2: leave the house. My body lost about eight kilos worth

897
00:44:56,200 --> 00:44:58,640
Speaker 2: of fluid and my nervous system just literally shut down

898
00:44:58,719 --> 00:45:02,200
Speaker 2: and restart. And what is so incredible for me, having

899
00:45:02,280 --> 00:45:05,359
Speaker 2: been at the highest levels of fighting for your life

900
00:45:05,440 --> 00:45:08,600
Speaker 2: performance on over a year's worth of combat that I've

901
00:45:08,600 --> 00:45:12,440
Speaker 2: been in the Middle East, to then reach my mental

902
00:45:12,440 --> 00:45:16,760
Speaker 2: and emotional limit fighting a court case outside of actual

903
00:45:17,360 --> 00:45:21,040
Speaker 2: real life threatening danger is just such a testament to

904
00:45:21,080 --> 00:45:23,920
Speaker 2: how much this has impacted me without me even realizing,

905
00:45:24,400 --> 00:45:26,400
Speaker 2: and how much I've had to sort of reset and

906
00:45:26,400 --> 00:45:29,360
Speaker 2: refocus my life from that and where to from here.

907
00:45:29,400 --> 00:45:32,120
Speaker 2: This is the saddest part mark It actually requires just

908
00:45:32,160 --> 00:45:35,800
Speaker 2: greater public awareness and public support. Politicians have to remember

909
00:45:35,840 --> 00:45:38,440
Speaker 2: they work for the Australian people, and the ABC needs

910
00:45:38,480 --> 00:45:40,920
Speaker 2: to remember that they're paid for by our taxpayer funds.

911
00:45:41,000 --> 00:45:44,960
Speaker 2: And unless there is more noise and action from the

912
00:45:45,000 --> 00:45:48,040
Speaker 2: wider Australian community, than nothing's going to happen. We have

913
00:45:48,120 --> 00:45:49,920
Speaker 2: to be the people to hold them accountable.

914
00:45:50,120 --> 00:45:52,080
Speaker 1: We need another media outlet to sort of say something

915
00:45:52,120 --> 00:45:52,480
Speaker 1: about it.

916
00:45:52,520 --> 00:45:55,520
Speaker 2: I mean, I've personally taken to launching a new petition

917
00:45:56,880 --> 00:45:59,160
Speaker 2: to call for a Veterans Protection Act that just basically

918
00:45:59,200 --> 00:46:02,600
Speaker 2: means that media isn't allowed to name any individual or

919
00:46:03,000 --> 00:46:06,200
Speaker 2: unit prior to their being a decision through court. It's

920
00:46:06,239 --> 00:46:08,479
Speaker 2: what that means is they can report to say there's

921
00:46:08,480 --> 00:46:10,760
Speaker 2: been an allegation of a war crime within the Department

922
00:46:10,800 --> 00:46:13,520
Speaker 2: of Defense to force the Department of Defense to step

923
00:46:13,600 --> 00:46:16,319
Speaker 2: up and do it. But leaving a platoon and a

924
00:46:16,320 --> 00:46:19,160
Speaker 2: platoon commander to fight for their men against a multi

925
00:46:19,160 --> 00:46:21,960
Speaker 2: billion dollar sort of company can't happen again. And Heston

926
00:46:22,000 --> 00:46:25,680
Speaker 2: russell dot com slash veterans is where I've launched that petition.

927
00:46:26,440 --> 00:46:27,759
Speaker 1: And have you sort of put to one of the

928
00:46:27,800 --> 00:46:31,240
Speaker 1: parliamentarians to introduce it in the departiament.

929
00:46:31,280 --> 00:46:35,440
Speaker 2: I've put it to both science and again, a lot

930
00:46:35,440 --> 00:46:38,240
Speaker 2: of people are very resistant to put through a bill

931
00:46:38,360 --> 00:46:42,799
Speaker 2: that in any way hamstrings any media, given that's the

932
00:46:42,840 --> 00:46:45,680
Speaker 2: outlet they need to provide themselves with that relevance to

933
00:46:45,719 --> 00:46:48,640
Speaker 2: the public. But I did this before when we campaign

934
00:46:48,680 --> 00:46:51,040
Speaker 2: to retain the unit citations, we get one hundred thousand

935
00:46:51,080 --> 00:46:53,960
Speaker 2: signatures on that. We take it to a parliamentarian, they

936
00:46:54,000 --> 00:46:56,440
Speaker 2: say no, we have a look at all the postcodes

937
00:46:56,520 --> 00:46:59,399
Speaker 2: of you know what electric they're in and tell them

938
00:46:59,400 --> 00:47:01,840
Speaker 2: that this election the representative is not supporting them. And

939
00:47:01,880 --> 00:47:03,800
Speaker 2: that's the way in which we start pulling the threads

940
00:47:03,880 --> 00:47:06,160
Speaker 2: on the democracy to make these people do their job.

941
00:47:06,600 --> 00:47:09,120
Speaker 1: So the way it seems to me then is that

942
00:47:09,320 --> 00:47:14,279
Speaker 1: if politicians don't sort of step up, then hess and

943
00:47:14,320 --> 00:47:17,680
Speaker 1: Russell's going to actually apply all the training and all

944
00:47:17,719 --> 00:47:20,840
Speaker 1: the cunning that he's achieved over all these years to

945
00:47:21,400 --> 00:47:23,680
Speaker 1: as you say, pull the strings, but probably more importantly,

946
00:47:23,760 --> 00:47:25,560
Speaker 1: start to bring him undone and make sure that they

947
00:47:25,600 --> 00:47:28,000
Speaker 1: do step up. I like the idea of that absolutely.

948
00:47:28,000 --> 00:47:32,439
Speaker 2: I mean, this is gorilla insurgency. There are nearly six

949
00:47:32,520 --> 00:47:35,000
Speaker 2: hundred thousand veterans in this country as per the census

950
00:47:35,000 --> 00:47:36,959
Speaker 2: and twenty one and they all vote, They all vote,

951
00:47:37,040 --> 00:47:38,200
Speaker 2: and they all have families.

952
00:47:38,280 --> 00:47:38,520
Speaker 1: Yep.

953
00:47:38,719 --> 00:47:41,120
Speaker 2: And if there is one thing that the soylum majority

954
00:47:41,120 --> 00:47:43,319
Speaker 2: in Australia will step up for when given the right

955
00:47:43,360 --> 00:47:45,120
Speaker 2: purpose and outlet to do it, it is those who

956
00:47:45,200 --> 00:47:48,840
Speaker 2: are willing and have gone to sacrifice our lives and

957
00:47:48,840 --> 00:47:51,680
Speaker 2: comforts for theirs. That's all we ask for. We all

958
00:47:51,800 --> 00:47:54,600
Speaker 2: just simply ask for to be treated normally and to

959
00:47:54,600 --> 00:47:56,920
Speaker 2: be given justice and to be heard.

960
00:47:58,120 --> 00:48:01,080
Speaker 1: Well. This is a country where fair enough and fair

961
00:48:01,160 --> 00:48:04,960
Speaker 1: go I was just like always been in our language,

962
00:48:05,680 --> 00:48:08,280
Speaker 1: and I for one would be someone who would definitely

963
00:48:08,520 --> 00:48:11,520
Speaker 1: sign up for that and support that with my local politician.

964
00:48:12,239 --> 00:48:14,759
Speaker 1: Once this gets kicked off, you know, for me, and

965
00:48:14,800 --> 00:48:16,759
Speaker 1: I think I speak for perhaps a lot of people

966
00:48:16,800 --> 00:48:21,040
Speaker 1: in my cohort age group, et cetera. Mate, you guys

967
00:48:21,080 --> 00:48:23,560
Speaker 1: have done what we never got asked to do. I

968
00:48:23,680 --> 00:48:26,880
Speaker 1: was one year out of having to go to Vietnam

969
00:48:26,960 --> 00:48:29,359
Speaker 1: conscription and I voted for a golf whitlam the only

970
00:48:29,360 --> 00:48:31,719
Speaker 1: time I've voted for the part in my life. But

971
00:48:31,719 --> 00:48:35,000
Speaker 1: I voted for GoF withodlamb just because GoF was at

972
00:48:35,040 --> 00:48:36,799
Speaker 1: our university is saying you don't, I'm going to get

973
00:48:36,800 --> 00:48:40,120
Speaker 1: you a conscription. I was like, I was just seventeen

974
00:48:40,080 --> 00:48:42,440
Speaker 1: when I first started Universe eighteen. I was just turn eighteen,

975
00:48:42,680 --> 00:48:45,640
Speaker 1: just enough to vote, and so I was lucky. My

976
00:48:45,719 --> 00:48:50,120
Speaker 1: mates went Vietnam who come back completely fucked up, became

977
00:48:50,160 --> 00:48:53,759
Speaker 1: fucked up over time, and I one think to myself, Wow,

978
00:48:53,840 --> 00:48:56,000
Speaker 1: I'm so glad I wasn't one of those people had

979
00:48:56,000 --> 00:48:58,520
Speaker 1: to go and have to do what you do and

980
00:48:58,560 --> 00:49:02,120
Speaker 1: what they did. And from my point of view, hest

981
00:49:02,880 --> 00:49:07,480
Speaker 1: this stuff is is so on Australian for us to

982
00:49:07,560 --> 00:49:10,080
Speaker 1: ignore those outcomes. And by the way, you're not asking

983
00:49:10,120 --> 00:49:12,960
Speaker 1: for much, You're just asking forward legislation that gives everyone

984
00:49:12,960 --> 00:49:14,560
Speaker 1: a figure absolutely and for.

985
00:49:14,600 --> 00:49:17,799
Speaker 2: Truth absolutely, And my whole piece is Mark. I just

986
00:49:17,840 --> 00:49:20,440
Speaker 2: don't want anyone to go through what I've had to

987
00:49:20,480 --> 00:49:23,800
Speaker 2: been through. It is taking me to the darkest places.

988
00:49:23,960 --> 00:49:27,040
Speaker 2: It has taken my family to have to drop everything

989
00:49:27,440 --> 00:49:31,399
Speaker 2: to support me. It's taken my Mother's just this beautiful lady.

990
00:49:31,400 --> 00:49:33,680
Speaker 2: She's a registered nurse up in Brizy. You know, she's

991
00:49:33,719 --> 00:49:35,879
Speaker 2: had people in the hostel of the earth, Yeah, she said,

992
00:49:35,880 --> 00:49:38,520
Speaker 2: people in the hospital ask her when this article was

993
00:49:38,560 --> 00:49:41,759
Speaker 2: published accusing me of shooting at civilians, and Mum just

994
00:49:41,800 --> 00:49:44,000
Speaker 2: isn't ready for that, you know, Mum, to this day,

995
00:49:44,040 --> 00:49:47,680
Speaker 2: even doing this interview, she's like, Heston, I've just compartmentalized that.

996
00:49:47,719 --> 00:49:49,279
Speaker 2: I don't want to remember. It brings me so much

997
00:49:49,320 --> 00:49:52,040
Speaker 2: trauma to feel like I nearly lost you at home

998
00:49:52,160 --> 00:49:54,279
Speaker 2: after watching you go and come back from so many

999
00:49:54,320 --> 00:49:56,759
Speaker 2: complex and you know, to put my mum through that,

1000
00:49:58,000 --> 00:49:58,720
Speaker 2: it's been a lot.

1001
00:50:00,160 --> 00:50:02,759
Speaker 1: Sitting here right here. When you first walked into the studio, Mate,

1002
00:50:02,760 --> 00:50:04,960
Speaker 1: you look like at awesome. You know something's been through

1003
00:50:04,960 --> 00:50:08,360
Speaker 1: all that shit. You've got able a remarkable resilience, real resilience.

1004
00:50:08,360 --> 00:50:11,640
Speaker 1: What we talk about all the time, real resilience, real recovery,

1005
00:50:12,040 --> 00:50:16,640
Speaker 1: and you project for me anyway, you project strength and

1006
00:50:17,400 --> 00:50:19,800
Speaker 1: a sense of doing good. So from the moment I

1007
00:50:19,840 --> 00:50:22,279
Speaker 1: talked to you out outside the studio, like I get

1008
00:50:22,320 --> 00:50:24,440
Speaker 1: that sense. So well done, mate, I mean is this

1009
00:50:24,520 --> 00:50:26,600
Speaker 1: is it's a big fucking deal to recover.

1010
00:50:26,320 --> 00:50:28,759
Speaker 2: From massive and like, this is where I am so

1011
00:50:29,000 --> 00:50:32,920
Speaker 2: privileged to have gone through so much training and experience,

1012
00:50:33,000 --> 00:50:35,360
Speaker 2: all paid for by the taxpayer, And this is where

1013
00:50:35,840 --> 00:50:38,319
Speaker 2: I've realized so much about myself. You know, diamonds are

1014
00:50:38,320 --> 00:50:41,239
Speaker 2: forming under pressure, like our human race has evolved under

1015
00:50:41,280 --> 00:50:44,240
Speaker 2: stress and pressure. And I feel like I have evolved

1016
00:50:44,280 --> 00:50:47,120
Speaker 2: so much through this, but the cost of it has

1017
00:50:47,160 --> 00:50:50,319
Speaker 2: been massive. And I'm just so lucky that, you know,

1018
00:50:50,440 --> 00:50:52,640
Speaker 2: I am single. I don't have a lot of things

1019
00:50:52,680 --> 00:50:55,120
Speaker 2: that really I had to put on the line to

1020
00:50:55,200 --> 00:50:57,080
Speaker 2: do this outside. You know, I had a legal team

1021
00:50:57,120 --> 00:50:59,520
Speaker 2: who came and offered to do this, no win, no fee.

1022
00:50:59,560 --> 00:51:02,319
Speaker 2: I've been very blessed with that small community who supported me.

1023
00:51:02,400 --> 00:51:06,640
Speaker 2: But if this happens in the next conflict, when there's

1024
00:51:06,680 --> 00:51:08,799
Speaker 2: a soldier or a group who have to go out

1025
00:51:08,800 --> 00:51:11,480
Speaker 2: there and expose themselves to this, you know, Mark. When

1026
00:51:11,520 --> 00:51:14,560
Speaker 2: the ABC publish this article, my grandfather called me and

1027
00:51:14,600 --> 00:51:17,320
Speaker 2: just simply said, don't let them do to your soldiers

1028
00:51:17,520 --> 00:51:19,480
Speaker 2: what they did to mind when we came back from Vietnam.

1029
00:51:20,080 --> 00:51:24,040
Speaker 2: And he died two months later after the ABC publisher's

1030
00:51:24,040 --> 00:51:27,960
Speaker 2: first article. And that has just provided me such a

1031
00:51:28,000 --> 00:51:31,160
Speaker 2: massive higher purpose to know that, even though I might

1032
00:51:31,200 --> 00:51:33,319
Speaker 2: want to drop this because it's better for me and

1033
00:51:33,360 --> 00:51:36,359
Speaker 2: my family, what happens in thirty or forty times, if

1034
00:51:36,400 --> 00:51:38,759
Speaker 2: I'm sitting there and watching this happening again on TV

1035
00:51:38,880 --> 00:51:40,960
Speaker 2: and no I could have stepped up and done something.

1036
00:51:41,280 --> 00:51:44,040
Speaker 1: Well Heston, I want to say thank you, Mahufable those

1037
00:51:44,040 --> 00:51:46,520
Speaker 1: Australians who are not part of this process, but all

1038
00:51:46,560 --> 00:51:48,839
Speaker 1: of us are sitting back here observing these things, which

1039
00:51:49,080 --> 00:51:51,160
Speaker 1: may have listened to this podcast or may have just

1040
00:51:51,160 --> 00:51:54,719
Speaker 1: followed the whole process. There's probably more people in your

1041
00:51:54,719 --> 00:51:57,120
Speaker 1: camp than you think. Yeah, just that we are the

1042
00:51:57,120 --> 00:51:58,880
Speaker 1: side of the majority. I'm with her, hester Russ the

1043
00:51:58,880 --> 00:51:59,359
Speaker 1: thanks very much