Speaker 1: This episode of Headgame was recorded on gadigal Land.
Speaker 2: It's October twenty first, twenty twelve. Heston Russell leads his
Speaker 2: team through combat operations in Afghanistan. It's his third deployment
Speaker 2: with the Special Forces, but his first as the commander
Speaker 2: of the November Platoon. He has more than fifty successful
Speaker 2: missions under his belt. Despite precise planning and carefully sequence maneuvers,
Speaker 2: one of the soldiers under Heston's command dies during an operation.
Speaker 2: Twenty four year old Corporal Scott Smith is killed instantly
Speaker 2: when an ID explodes during a mission to target insurgeons
Speaker 2: in Afghanistan's Uazgan Province. For Heston, Corporal Smith is the
Speaker 2: first and would be the only soldier lost under his command,
Speaker 2: but it's a scar that would remain well into the future.
Speaker 2: I'm at Middleton and this is Headgame today, fifth Generation
Speaker 2: Defense Forces veteran Heston Russell on his sixteen years in
Speaker 2: the Australian Army and the battle that's followed him from
Speaker 2: the front line. Now, Heston, I'm going to rattle through quickly. Hesson,
Speaker 2: you spent sixteen years in the military, joining at the
Speaker 2: age of seventeen, going on to complete more than one
Speaker 2: hundred combat missions. Your dad served twenty years in the Army.
Speaker 2: Your grandfather, your mom's dad, fought in Career and Vietnam Wars.
Speaker 2: Your great grandfather also served during World War II, and
Speaker 2: his great great grandfather fought on the Western Front during
Speaker 2: World War One. Being gassed twice during the previous two
Speaker 2: years of combat in France. You deployed four times to
Speaker 2: Afghanistan and the Middle East. Served in Iraq as the
Speaker 2: Special Operations Joint Planner within the Special Operations Joint Task Force.
Speaker 2: You've done multiple counter terrorist operations within Australia and the
Speaker 2: Asia Pacific region, a year long exchange within the United
Speaker 2: States Special Operations Command. Wow, I thought that I had
Speaker 2: a versatile career in the military. You, my man, absolutely
Speaker 2: blow me out the water. It seems like that you
Speaker 2: were engulfed as a youngster with this sort of military family,
Speaker 2: this military environment, military order. What was it like growing
Speaker 2: up and when did you realize that you were encapsulated
Speaker 2: by military heroes that you know that was bred into
Speaker 2: your family.
Speaker 1: Oh and first and foremost thanks having me on.
Speaker 3: Well done a rattling all that off for one of
Speaker 3: the few people who would probably know most of those
Speaker 3: acronyms and all the rest. I grew up with the
Speaker 3: military influence from my dad and living within that military family,
Speaker 3: moving around the country. But as far as my grandfather,
Speaker 3: I knew my grandfather Mum's dad as a fisherman. I
Speaker 3: didn't know about his service in Korea or in Vietnam.
Speaker 1: He was a gentleman.
Speaker 3: He was a ballroom dancing champion, something you know a
Speaker 3: lot about as well.
Speaker 2: We won't mention my dancing with the stars day wheremen
Speaker 2: have go into this military mindset, now, gotcha?
Speaker 3: And yeah, I didn't honestly truly appreciate my lineage until
Speaker 3: actually more recent years when I started doing some research myself.
Speaker 3: My passage into the military came simply from seeing my
Speaker 3: father and his mates and those around him as those
Speaker 3: sort of aspirational men that were sure masculine and all
Speaker 3: the traits we see from men in society, but were
Speaker 3: also caring, nurturing team players, had that heart of service,
Speaker 3: putting others and the mission before themselves, and I really
Speaker 3: saw them as very aspirational values and character traits to me,
Speaker 3: especially during a time when I went through high school.
Speaker 3: I was the fat kid at high school. I was unpopular.
Speaker 3: I was probably having he.
Speaker 2: Sat there with veins whipping through his muscles.
Speaker 1: Again, never again, never going back, mate.
Speaker 3: But you know, it's a classic identity piece, and I
Speaker 3: saw the potential self actualized best version of myself in
Speaker 3: the military and wanted to at least go through that
Speaker 3: journey to see what would where it would take me.
Speaker 2: Yeah, you say, And I think it's a massively important
Speaker 2: point where you say, you know, people think that in
Speaker 2: the military we're just you know, individuals locked away in
Speaker 2: an armory and the armory is open, and the way
Speaker 2: we go, we cause destruction everywhere we go. But the
Speaker 2: compassionate and the empathetic, the loving side of who we
Speaker 2: are to not only want to serve our friends and
Speaker 2: our country and ourselves, but to you know, but to
Speaker 2: serve the people. Yeah, you know, we are there because
Speaker 2: we care about the people. We want what's best for
Speaker 2: the people. We want to be able to give them
Speaker 2: their their blanket of safety or freedom. You know that
Speaker 2: they sleep under whice we go and prevent terror from
Speaker 2: coming onto our shores. And there's that huge sort of
Speaker 2: compassion side to a soldier that is just sort of
Speaker 2: you know, wiped out that people you know, don't even mention,
Speaker 2: which you just mentioned, which is huge because again with myself,
Speaker 2: that was a huge part of you know, going into combat.
Speaker 2: It's like you're there to preserve life. And I believe
Speaker 2: that no one has the god given right to take life. However,
Speaker 2: if you or someone else thinks they have the right
Speaker 2: to take a life, I will simply deny you that
Speaker 2: right by taking your life, therefore saving a life. So
Speaker 2: I always processed it in that way of preserve life,
Speaker 2: preserve life, preserve life. And when I went into combat
Speaker 2: like that, it gave me a new sense of a
Speaker 2: new sense of soldiering. And the one that you just
Speaker 2: tapped on there, which I think is super important, is
Speaker 2: the compassionate, the loving, you know, that empathetic side that
Speaker 2: no one ever sees. And it's interesting that you mentioned
Speaker 2: that you were brought up around this environment because anyone
Speaker 2: would think from your background me having reeled off everything
Speaker 2: that you know, it got you up in the morning
Speaker 2: doing press ups, you know, do it, you know, which
Speaker 2: would probably happened. But you know, having that sort of
Speaker 2: male sort of dominant organization or family unit where it's
Speaker 2: just hurah, you know, let's get the job done. But
Speaker 2: Ultimately it is a flip, right.
Speaker 3: Yeah, massive. I mean, as you know, mate, being being
Speaker 3: a soldier, being an officer. So much of it is
Speaker 3: actually diplomacy, even out in Afghanistan. You know, we were
Speaker 3: fighting the enemy in and amongst the locals and the
Speaker 3: villages we went out with our partner force. So much
Speaker 3: of it was also the information operations piece. You know,
Speaker 3: you had to deter the insurgents from wanting to ever
Speaker 3: fight you or our allies again. But you're trying to
Speaker 3: win over the locals to support you, because when we
Speaker 3: got on the ground on targets, it was a locals
Speaker 3: telling us, hey, he's not supposed to be here.
Speaker 1: He's not supposed to be here.
Speaker 3: And these are massive parts of the narrative that are
Speaker 3: missed in the movies, a mist in the news I
Speaker 3: missed in how much our soldier, sailors and men and
Speaker 3: women were some of the most incredible diplomats as well
Speaker 3: as having to flip the switch to be warriors to
Speaker 3: take and prevent the loss of life in order to
Speaker 3: save life and achieve the mission.
Speaker 2: Was there a moment growing up where you just thought
Speaker 2: or you saw something. You might see some medals or whatever.
Speaker 2: It may be where you thought, this is what I
Speaker 2: want to do, I want to join the military or
Speaker 2: was it just the norm in your household and that
Speaker 2: was the normal route of progression to take to join
Speaker 2: the military. How did that come about?
Speaker 3: Well, I think probably like a lot of veterans, mate,
Speaker 3: I had a lead scout. I had the son of
Speaker 3: one of my dad's army buddies. He was about four
Speaker 3: or five years older than me, and he ended up
Speaker 3: going to the Australian Defense Force Academy. He got direct
Speaker 3: posted to the commandos and I think at the age
Speaker 3: of fifteen, I remember walking into the recruiting office and said,
Speaker 3: I want to be a commander officer.
Speaker 2: I want to be lucky.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: Argent laughed at me and said, there's a few steps
Speaker 3: you got to take in between.
Speaker 1: But that was a straight to.
Speaker 2: The top mate, Listen, I love it.
Speaker 1: Means to an end. Everything else in between. Yeah, that
Speaker 1: was the goal. That was what got me in and
Speaker 1: I just took me through.
Speaker 2: And so that there's obviously the basic training you have
Speaker 2: to go through. What unit did you join, How did
Speaker 2: basic training look and was it a shock to you
Speaker 2: or was it what you expected?
Speaker 1: I joined straight out of school.
Speaker 3: I was seventeen, having gone to school in Queensland, and
Speaker 3: I went down to the Defense Force Academy in Camera,
Speaker 3: which is you do three years there, you study, you
Speaker 3: do a degree at the same time. Picture a UNI
Speaker 3: where you'd have your blocks of study throughout the day,
Speaker 3: but in the morning it's physical training or it's out
Speaker 3: there in the freezing temperatures doing an hour an hour
Speaker 3: and a half a drill. Every Friday is a white
Speaker 3: glove room inspection where you sleep on your floor because
Speaker 3: you've owned your sheets to such a crisp point that
Speaker 3: you don't want to sleep on them that night with
Speaker 3: the hospital corners.
Speaker 2: Three years mate, not good, goose goose bumps. You're bringing
Speaker 2: back there the shivers.
Speaker 1: Still to this day, I feel rebellious if I don't
Speaker 1: make my bed. But yeah, you know, you're wearing the military.
Speaker 3: Uniform polyesters every single day, and then when normal universities
Speaker 3: would go on holidays, you're out bush doing your basic training,
Speaker 3: doing your sleeping under hootchees and digging pits and patrolling
Speaker 3: the stuff that handheld drones do these days we had
Speaker 3: to do back then.
Speaker 1: So it's three years and you go.
Speaker 3: Across the hill to the Royal Military College where there's
Speaker 3: no more civilian academics. It's all military strategy and study.
Speaker 3: And I absolutely love that. And then it came out promoted.
Speaker 2: That's where it starts to get meet to you, right,
Speaker 2: that's when the two worlds I supposed start to separate, really,
Speaker 2: you know, from society to really engulf in yourself.
Speaker 1: Really well put yeah, yeah, absolutely into the military.
Speaker 3: And particularly for me wanting to be an officer, that's
Speaker 3: we really got to delve into the military art of tactics.
Speaker 3: There's all the science of you know, the fundamentals of
Speaker 3: the attack, the principles of war, all the rest. But
Speaker 3: then we would just go out constantly and drill and
Speaker 3: plan and then have to get a team and do
Speaker 3: our plans and fail and see what was like, if
Speaker 3: ever you were going to make soldiers do that, it
Speaker 3: was brilliant and as opposed to arguing over you know,
Speaker 3: philosophy or Pythagorisi's theorem or all the rest, it was
Speaker 3: about military strategy and as you know, mate, it's one
Speaker 3: of the oldest professions in the world. And the ability
Speaker 3: to draw all that information and knowledge together to then
Speaker 3: develop your own tactics and strategy.
Speaker 1: It was really fun. There's actually quite a creative.
Speaker 3: Artistic side to us, which you then have to go
Speaker 3: practice physically to test your creativity.
Speaker 1: It's not just so you.
Speaker 2: Have to put it into into practice, into action to
Speaker 2: test the theory.
Speaker 1: Ultimately you are absolutely and that's the fun stuff.
Speaker 3: And you know, all of that, combined with the officer
Speaker 3: training I did throughout my career and particularly special Forces,
Speaker 3: that development of the art of tactics is something that
Speaker 3: I just loved so much from the military career and
Speaker 3: never really got to appreciate that creative piece. But promoted
Speaker 3: to the lieutenant, went up to Townsville to the second Battalion,
Speaker 3: Royal Australian Regiment, a line infantry battalion, where I completed
Speaker 3: three years. Within my first year, I was deployed to
Speaker 3: Team or Less peacekeeping operation and to this day I
Speaker 3: probably say as one of the most important milestones in
Speaker 3: my career as a twenty one year old between commander
Speaker 3: of thirty people, a seven month deployment where you're spending
Speaker 3: most of the time with your weapons slung and going
Speaker 3: out into the local tribes, into local villages doing key
Speaker 3: leadership engagements and minds. That's it, and I'd studied Indonesia
Speaker 3: the language as a major at the academy. Straight away
Speaker 3: I was able to really engage with the locals in
Speaker 3: one of their languages and really achieve a lot as
Speaker 3: the commander. You can imagine that comes through just from
Speaker 3: a respectable level in itself.
Speaker 2: Twenty one years old is platoon commander? Yeah, how do
Speaker 2: you feel, you know, especially going into that position as
Speaker 2: a twenty one year old, such a young officer going
Speaker 2: into such an important role. And then you've got the
Speaker 2: NCOs as well.
Speaker 4: That are there that have been in for like sixty
Speaker 4: seventeen years and they see this, Yeah, this young spunker
Speaker 4: come in, he's twenty one years old, and you but you.
Speaker 2: Know, you have to command respect, You have to you
Speaker 2: almost have to, you know, go in with a level
Speaker 2: of you know, authority, especially as a twenty one year old.
Speaker 2: How did that unfold? And how hard was that to
Speaker 2: settle in? As let's call it one of the lads.
Speaker 3: No great question, mane you get it? Yeah, yeah, you
Speaker 3: are old ball, new ball and all the rest. By
Speaker 3: this stage, I was really well advised by my dad.
Speaker 3: My dad had been the military during peacetime. He joined
Speaker 3: as a soldier, then became an officer, and during his
Speaker 3: twenty years he deployed to Rifle Company Butterworth and that
Speaker 3: was it. There was nothing else on and he got
Speaker 3: out and he got back in ten years later, never
Speaker 3: to be promoted again. And his simple words would be
Speaker 3: good at your job, and be a good person, and
Speaker 3: understand what your job is and what your role is
Speaker 3: and for me coming into any team. And this really
Speaker 3: applied later when it particularly I went into the Special Forces.
Speaker 3: You can imagine I was twenty six when I did that,
Speaker 3: and I had guys who deployed Afghanistan nine or ten times.
Speaker 3: My job was to be an expert in planning and
Speaker 3: leadership and understanding that leadership is about actually being an
Speaker 3: impact player, knowing and understanding your people, uniting people with purpose.
Speaker 3: Is the role of a leader, not being the guy
Speaker 3: out the front constantly.
Speaker 2: And amgation decision making and.
Speaker 3: Group planning, group decision making like bringing in your platoon sergeant,
Speaker 3: bringing in your section commanders, harnessing that experience and corporate knowledge,
Speaker 3: giving them buy into the plan, learning from them, but
Speaker 3: then just knowing end of the day, you're the one
Speaker 3: to make the decision and you're the one responsible whether
Speaker 3: it's a good plan or a bad plan. If it's
Speaker 3: a good plan, it's all their success. If it's a
Speaker 3: bad plan, it's all your failure.
Speaker 1: Exactly.
Speaker 2: Guess where I'm going to share.
Speaker 3: Yeah, and just honestly just making yourself equal and having
Speaker 3: those conversations where at the end of the day, you
Speaker 3: do have the responsibility of the authority of your rank,
Speaker 3: but no one is entitled to anything based on their authority.
Speaker 3: I mean, as you would know, mate, it's the toxic
Speaker 3: leaders and the weak leaders who default to authority. Leadership
Speaker 3: is about inspiring people, and I was very well benefited
Speaker 3: by my physicality. I was always excellent at physical tasks
Speaker 3: and tactical task and patrolling and all the rest, and
Speaker 3: then really putting my due diligence to the planning, the communications,
Speaker 3: the orders and all the rest, and just over time,
Speaker 3: through respect and meritocracy, the guys sort of were won
Speaker 3: over and you've become part.
Speaker 1: Of the accepted tribe.
Speaker 3: But then, as you know, the next part is to
Speaker 3: make sure you don't transition into fully being one of
Speaker 3: the lads and maintaining.
Speaker 2: Absolutely buffer, especially of command, that hierarchical structure. You know,
Speaker 2: there's a line to be drawn and for obvious reasons.
Speaker 2: And I love what you said about leadership is about,
Speaker 2: you know, putting yourself as an equal. It's that's super important.
Speaker 3: At the end of the day, leadership is a service
Speaker 3: to others. And you would know this from the military.
Speaker 1: Mate.
Speaker 3: I've seen so many of my colleagues have gone up
Speaker 3: the ranks. There's this something happens when they flip and
Speaker 3: they think leadership is about being served, and that's when
Speaker 3: you've lost it in my opinion.
Speaker 2: Yeah, do you know what. It's a great point and
Speaker 2: hence why you probably absolutely flourished in what you've done
Speaker 2: as a twenty one year old and then you know
Speaker 2: you progress onto the special forces. Now what's that transition like?
Speaker 2: And because like myself, I went on selection when I
Speaker 2: was twenty six as well, and I enjoyed when I
Speaker 2: was seventy as well. I was a grunt. But it's
Speaker 2: one of those where you know, your aspirations can almost
Speaker 2: be treated as a delusion, you know, when you're so
Speaker 2: young and you they go, he's such so young and keen,
Speaker 2: and you know, did you ever face face any backlash,
Speaker 2: shall we say, or any sort of jealousy or envy
Speaker 2: being where you were, who you were, what you'd already
Speaker 2: achieved at such a young age, and then wanting not
Speaker 2: going on, but wanting to be a special Forces operator.
Speaker 3: Yeah, well, I think I think firstly that delusion is
Speaker 3: probably a handy thing, solely focused. Remember I had a
Speaker 3: Plan A and there was no Plan B. The biggest
Speaker 3: struggle I had. You had to serve a minimum of
Speaker 3: four years in the military before being able to apply,
Speaker 3: and then when I applied, I remember turning up for
Speaker 3: the assessment day before the selection course. It was one
Speaker 3: of thirty officers and I was the youngest officer and
Speaker 3: all the others had deployed to the Middle East before.
Speaker 3: One of them was my adjudant from when I was
Speaker 3: at the Royal Military College.
Speaker 1: Syndrome.
Speaker 3: The syndrome was the biggest thing I had to deal
Speaker 3: with because I just sat there and compared myself to them.
Speaker 3: I knew and I'd studied all the tabulated data of
Speaker 3: every asset and everything we need in our planning iterations
Speaker 3: for a Middle East based scenarios we'd face on the course.
Speaker 3: But these people had called in gunshots, they commanded troops
Speaker 3: in combat, and the hardest part for me was to
Speaker 3: get over that mindset of I'm too young, I'm too inexperienced,
Speaker 3: and I'm not as good as these others before we're
Speaker 3: even up against any form of assessment. And as you know, mate,
Speaker 3: you're not being assessed against them, You're being assessed against
Speaker 3: yourself and your own performance. And it was those initial
Speaker 3: mental and mindset gateways that I had to really push
Speaker 3: through in a very rapid rate.
Speaker 2: And how does it look special Forces selection? How long
Speaker 2: is it? And obviously I know you go too much
Speaker 2: into detail about it, but how does it look, you know,
Speaker 2: going on from as as an officer or as anyone
Speaker 2: really going on to Special Forces selection? Is it? Is
Speaker 2: it like the UK where you know you're literally separating
Speaker 2: yourself from the unit you sign yourself over. If you fail,
Speaker 2: then you get art. You'd return to the unit if
Speaker 2: you If you pass, and you know you progress on
Speaker 2: into a squadron, which was which was what the Special
Speaker 2: Forces does in the UK. You go to a saber
Speaker 2: squadron and then and then you embed yourself there. How
Speaker 2: does it look for the Aussies?
Speaker 3: When I went through it, I have the benefit of
Speaker 3: my last job in my career was then redesigning and
Speaker 3: running the selection course just as well coming out of Afghanistan.
Speaker 3: And I could talk to you all day about that,
Speaker 3: because I know you get that backcasting, emotional quotient development,
Speaker 3: testing all the rest. But when I did it, it
Speaker 3: was a six week process for an officer. There was
Speaker 3: an initial officer per week where the thirty of us
Speaker 3: got together in every n officer from the unit would
Speaker 3: come and just you.
Speaker 2: And to this day, yeah, still been on one of those.
Speaker 2: I've been on one of those.
Speaker 3: Everyone who's got a chip on their shoulder, come out
Speaker 3: and just go through a group therapy session at your expense.
Speaker 2: Especially for officers.
Speaker 3: Mate, those PT sessions that pictures, you know, two or
Speaker 3: three to one staff members just on you.
Speaker 1: And I have this terrible ability.
Speaker 3: I'm doing it now where when I'm under stressful duress,
Speaker 3: I just smile because deep down I'm happy to be
Speaker 3: there exactly.
Speaker 1: Yeah, yea. And going back to.
Speaker 2: Never highlight yourself in a negative way, my guys.
Speaker 3: Used to say in combat, the wouldn't met a camouflage
Speaker 3: my teeth because it was the.
Speaker 1: Only part that the enemy might be able to see,
Speaker 1: even at night.
Speaker 3: But but yeah, so, particularly being the youngest and you
Speaker 3: and you, going back to what you said.
Speaker 1: Beforehand, was that a weakness that was exploited or a
Speaker 1: perceived weakness? Oh?
Speaker 3: Mate, I remember crawling through the mud, pushing time, flipping tires,
Speaker 3: carrying heavy things. And next thing is like, what are
Speaker 3: you twenty six years old number candidate twelve? Do you
Speaker 3: really think you have what it takes the command soldiers
Speaker 3: who've been there, killed people, done this, done that, and
Speaker 3: just planting that seeds of sabotage within your own head.
Speaker 2: Seas of dow seas and self doubt that you grow
Speaker 2: in your head.
Speaker 3: You know massive well, mate, and I'm sure i'd be
Speaker 3: interested to hear if the statistics are saying for you guys.
Speaker 1: But on that, that's six weeks for me.
Speaker 3: I started at ninety one kilos about the way I
Speaker 3: am now and went down to just over seventy five kilos.
Speaker 3: And of the one hundred and twenty we started with,
Speaker 3: thirty finished, and eighty to eighty five percent of the
Speaker 3: people who come off the course year after year come
Speaker 3: off by their own requests. They would pull out their
Speaker 3: form and they withdraw at their own requests.
Speaker 2: Pollute withdraw VW Yeah, we call at WRT VW.
Speaker 3: And as you don't mate, that's the most important, particularly
Speaker 3: when we're given missions that are potentially no fail there
Speaker 3: is no backup, and that process of breaking people down
Speaker 3: physically and mentally to expose the true authenticity and do
Speaker 3: you have what it takes when you're alone, when you're tired,
Speaker 3: when you're hungry, when you're under stress, to not come
Speaker 3: up with a reason in your head why you can't
Speaker 3: do it, but instead find a reason why you must
Speaker 3: do it. And it was brilliant to be taken on
Speaker 3: that mental journey and then, like I said at the
Speaker 3: end of my career, be a part of taking people
Speaker 3: on that mental journey and giving them their reflections once
Speaker 3: you come off the course. That in itself is just
Speaker 3: an evolutionary upgrade for anyone I believe who's gone through
Speaker 3: that process, particularly people like you and I who've gone
Speaker 3: through successfully.
Speaker 2: So when you do finally we call it getting badged.
Speaker 2: When you do finally pass selection, what does that feel
Speaker 2: like for you as a young off sub and what
Speaker 2: does it look like for you moving forward? Because that's
Speaker 2: just the tip of the iceberg. You go there and
Speaker 2: all of a sudden you are thrust off into multiple
Speaker 2: operations in multiple countries. It's like, but that moment, just
Speaker 2: that moment of you being badged or passing selection, how
Speaker 2: did that feel? And what unit did you go to
Speaker 2: and what happened thereafter?
Speaker 3: Yeah, so I went to the second Commander Regiment. So
Speaker 3: it's bet And as you know, mate, that beret is
Speaker 3: so covered and it goes back to World War II,
Speaker 3: and there's so much history and honor that comes with that,
Speaker 3: and the official beret presenting ceremony is very ceremonial and
Speaker 3: very detailed for that reason. But as you said, it's
Speaker 3: just the start of the journey, and you would know
Speaker 3: better than others. There's the whole being qualified. All the
Speaker 3: qualifications and skills we got on all the courses is
Speaker 3: like the academics and university, but then there's a lived
Speaker 3: experience and application of those skills in real life.
Speaker 1: That is the true education component.
Speaker 3: So while you're skilled and drilled on paper, after the
Speaker 3: requirements to being a Beret qualified commando, the journey just begins.
Speaker 3: And for me, it was a baptism of five where
Speaker 3: I was assigned to November Platoon, a platoon with an
Speaker 3: Alpha Company two Komando Regiment. They had just got back
Speaker 3: from Afghanistan. I was the youngest as a platoon commander.
Speaker 1: Here's the kicker, mate.
Speaker 3: During that deployment in twenty ten, on insertion to a target,
Speaker 3: one of the Blackhawks carrying an element of novembertoon crashed,
Speaker 3: hit low, hit a feature up from the ground and
Speaker 3: three people were killed. Straight away, Ben Chuck, Tim Applan
Speaker 3: and Scottie Palmer and the others on the helicopter sustained
Speaker 3: pretty incredible injuries, as you could imagine. They come back,
Speaker 3: they go through their de compression period.
Speaker 1: Next thing, I'm.
Speaker 3: Brought in as a new platoon commander. The platoon sergeant
Speaker 3: need to be replaced. He was injured on that flight
Speaker 3: as well. So my first job is forming, norming and
Speaker 3: storming a battle hardened platoon that's also just lost three
Speaker 3: of their best warriors during that recent deployment. And again, mate,
Speaker 3: it was defaulting back to the team more piece. It's
Speaker 3: just hey, what's my job? Get into it. And we
Speaker 3: had to then take over the domestic counterterrorism role that
Speaker 3: we'd run out at Holsworthy here and straight away we're
Speaker 3: into an exercise that's the handover takeover exercise that the
Speaker 3: Minister has to come and sign you off, and you're shooting, moving, communicating,
Speaker 3: flying all around the country, presenting orders, doing all the rest.
Speaker 3: So I was actually really enabled by just being putting
Speaker 3: straight into a job that was too much straight in.
Speaker 3: There wasn't enough time to sit around and have cups
Speaker 3: of coffee unless it was first thing in the morning
Speaker 3: before the mission, and it was just all actions and
Speaker 3: words in orders and planning and all the rest, and
Speaker 3: straight away through just competence and being a good person
Speaker 3: at the same time, was able to win them over
Speaker 3: through the high tempo that is the nature of our operations,
Speaker 3: but it also could have very easily been the prime
Speaker 3: exposure for as you know, you can't bluff your way
Speaker 3: through that shit, and especially and especially with the first
Speaker 3: response from the lines then you're going into is just
Speaker 3: looking for weakness and looking for blood.
Speaker 1: That was probably one of the hardest.
Speaker 3: Times for me, just as far as being aware of
Speaker 3: all that I'm very empathetic and aware of all this
Speaker 3: that's going on, and then just being able to bring
Speaker 3: your mindset down to the five, ten and fifteen minute
Speaker 3: targets in front of you and not worry about the
Speaker 3: whole swirling emotional situation around you.
Speaker 2: I love that, mate, and that's why, you know, it's
Speaker 2: so important that I asked that question because I know it.
Speaker 2: I know that one you.
Speaker 3: Know who, they're not going to help you out climbing
Speaker 3: that road Maine.
Speaker 2: But you know what what you said about being thrust
Speaker 2: into the into work and you know having you know,
Speaker 2: there's no time to think about things. There's no R
Speaker 2: and R, there's no you know. It's the same with myself.
Speaker 2: I passed selection and within two weeks I was in
Speaker 2: the Middle East on pre deployment training and within four
Speaker 2: weeks I was point man within a saber squadron. So
Speaker 2: I understand the importance of you know, you being thrust
Speaker 2: into that because you can almost you almost own your stripes,
Speaker 2: you know straight away, don't you, rather than having to
Speaker 2: sit back and lay back and go, oh, do you
Speaker 2: do your funds in the office and go shit, you
Speaker 2: know what am I going to do now?
Speaker 3: And as you do, mate, That's what I just love
Speaker 3: so much about that whole Special Forces community and the
Speaker 3: whole job, particularly now in everyday life, where there is
Speaker 3: no room to hide, there's no room for inauthenticity, there's
Speaker 3: no room for you know this lollibag of words. It
Speaker 3: really came down to what you did and how you
Speaker 3: treated people, and as you've experienced out there for real
Speaker 3: with life and death scenarios, like what other job are
Speaker 3: you able to feel out each other and form a
Speaker 3: culture where you know you can't hide behind a computer
Speaker 3: and emails. You're out there planning, implementing the plans, taking
Speaker 3: the fight to the enemy, receiving the fight from the enemy,
Speaker 3: and being exposed. And I think also for me, it
Speaker 3: was just amazing to see how professional that selection and
Speaker 3: training process was to be able to then, as you said,
Speaker 3: default to your.
Speaker 1: Level of training.
Speaker 3: I love that people say, you know, in crisis, you
Speaker 3: know you rise to the occasion defaulty level of training
Speaker 3: and experience. And the beast that trained us and put
Speaker 3: us out same same between Australia, the UK and the
Speaker 3: US and all the rest is just so professional and
Speaker 3: what it does, and it helps you to appreciate why
Speaker 3: you went through all of that ship Yeah, to be
Speaker 3: where you're at and then be tested, Yeah, because you.
Speaker 2: Question it sometimes why am I going through this? And
Speaker 2: it all makes sense when and when things are harder,
Speaker 2: when things are you know, out of your control, where
Speaker 2: you have to adapt, you have to improvite, you have
Speaker 2: to overcome, you have to use each other. We sort
Speaker 2: of operated and functioned through the Golden Days, you know
Speaker 2: when you know it's like training on the on the football,
Speaker 2: which you trained because you want to want to perform
Speaker 2: in the cup final, you know, you want to. We
Speaker 2: were like, right, this is what I've trained, this is
Speaker 2: what the government spent millions on us for. This is
Speaker 2: what we need to do. And I do call it
Speaker 2: the Golden Days because you know, Afghanistan was kinetic. You know,
Speaker 2: you joined the military, you joined the Special Forces, knowing
Speaker 2: that you're going to do back to back tours in
Speaker 2: the Middle East. You're going to you know, that's that's
Speaker 2: where you're going to live the majority of your life.
Speaker 2: And then you're going to go on rotation. You're going
Speaker 2: to go and cross train with the Aussies, the Americans,
Speaker 2: the Kiwis. You know, but you knew that you'd be
Speaker 2: constantly busy. When was your first tour of Afghanistan with
Speaker 2: in the Special Forces, with a body of individuals under
Speaker 2: your command.
Speaker 1: Yeah, so twenty twelve was my.
Speaker 3: Platoon kinetic operation as a part of the Special Operations
Speaker 3: Task Group. My first deployment, I took our first female
Speaker 3: Prime minister over there on a PSDAL security office. That
Speaker 3: was fascinating, good to see some of the insights. But
Speaker 3: the first proper kinetic operation. We were really professional the
Speaker 3: way in which we rotated in and out as well.
Speaker 3: I actually did a pre deployment where I went and
Speaker 3: embedded with the company and platoon that was over there
Speaker 3: for two weeks and did some missions, came back and
Speaker 3: helped run our mission rehearsal exercises, and then we deployed
Speaker 3: and deployed for five months in.
Speaker 2: So you've got that crossover.
Speaker 1: So it's the latest TTP.
Speaker 3: You can imagine everything from the technology that we're in
Speaker 3: plowing from the assets in the sky through to By
Speaker 3: that stage, we were partnering with the Drug Enforcement Administration,
Speaker 3: the DEA guys from the US to go into Helman
Speaker 3: and blow up opium labs and track the money that
Speaker 3: was funding terrors.
Speaker 1: Yeah yeah, yeah. Who's the Golden.
Speaker 2: Where they're big with a big silver you know the
Speaker 2: pits and the silver trades where they used to do
Speaker 2: the cook all.
Speaker 3: There, and they had these giant presses and just the
Speaker 3: different even the because unfortunately being Australian. We never had
Speaker 3: any of our own aircraft of helicopters there. So just
Speaker 3: even going over there and learning who were the battlespace owners,
Speaker 3: who owned the assets, who you had to take a
Speaker 3: cartn of red bulls to if you need an extra
Speaker 3: patch that yeah, yeah, yeah, and you and I laughed.
Speaker 3: But literally of a quiet military assets through Australian Fresh
Speaker 3: cream milk and red bulls and Fanta for the local
Speaker 3: partner force.
Speaker 1: But yeah.
Speaker 3: July twenty twelve deployed based in Tarran count and immediately
Speaker 3: commenced two lines of operation. One was sort of counter
Speaker 3: leadership and insurgents within Uruzgan and Candor and then the
Speaker 3: counter drugs working with the DEA guys into Helmond. And
Speaker 3: during that five months sixty seven missions. I don't like
Speaker 3: it as a measurement, but we killed one hundred and
Speaker 3: seventeen sergeants, captured so many more, and I lost one
Speaker 3: of my best soldiers, Corporal Scott Smith, who was killed
Speaker 3: by an ID on the twenty first of October.
Speaker 2: Do you remember that day? And can you recall that
Speaker 2: day massively?
Speaker 3: It was so we had been sent to conduct a
Speaker 3: three day clearance partnered with the United States Marine Corps.
Speaker 3: They were the battlefield commander of that area of Keshmesh
Speaker 3: Khan up near the Kajaki Fan and they wanted to
Speaker 3: do a clearance and we partnered with a troop of tanks.
Speaker 3: Michel Toombe partnered with a troop of m one Abrams
Speaker 3: tanks from the US Marine Corps and we did a
Speaker 3: three day rather conventional clearance from west to east. And
Speaker 3: it was on the morning of the second day where
Speaker 3: I push one of my teams up into this building
Speaker 3: that was firing on our company headquarters. There's correz system,
Speaker 3: so giant wells cut into the ground that's got the
Speaker 3: waterway underneath. You'd have insurgents going through those waterways popping
Speaker 3: up with RPG shooting at the tanks. We're uncovering massive
Speaker 3: cases of rockets, mortars.
Speaker 1: Weapons and all the rest.
Speaker 3: Yeah, And the biggest one was because we had the tanks,
Speaker 3: they just set out put these IEDs everywhere, and I
Speaker 3: remember we'd literally start jumping on the tanks to travel
Speaker 3: even fifty meters between two compounds, and he'd just be
Speaker 3: popping as his loads are going off underneath you.
Speaker 1: It was pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: On that second morning pushed my team up to clear
Speaker 3: this compound, so big mud bricked wall compound where insurgents
Speaker 3: were firing at our company headquarter element. They cleared that
Speaker 3: compound but immediately found hundreds of components that would be
Speaker 3: made used to make IEDs. And Scott was the special
Speaker 3: operations engineer attached to that team. I had a team
Speaker 3: a section attached to my platoon and he immediately identified
Speaker 3: there were issues and he pushed his point man back
Speaker 3: while he went and cleared this doorway and there was
Speaker 3: a zero metal content pressure plate that immediately detonated and
Speaker 3: killed him and blew him over about three hundred meters
Speaker 3: worth of worth of span from you know, a limb
Speaker 3: through to a five cent piece of him. And as
Speaker 3: you would know mate straight away, that giant plume of
Speaker 3: dust and smoke was a giant signal for every insurgent
Speaker 3: in the region and then come and try and drive
Speaker 3: their advantage. And it's still one of the most inspiring
Speaker 3: days to me and I love reflecting on it, for
Speaker 3: it was terrible, but it was so tremendous in what
Speaker 3: it taught me about, like that true human spirit. In Australia,
Speaker 3: we talked about the ANZAC spirit where my guy straight away?
Speaker 3: You know, we were I remember looking around and the
Speaker 3: guys were up.
Speaker 2: So where were you at this stage?
Speaker 3: I was about four hundred meters back. And then I
Speaker 3: had the call that there'd been an AD strike and
Speaker 3: they read out his call sign was KA, and I
Speaker 3: called over the nearest tank, grabbed my headquarters, jumped on
Speaker 3: the tank and just said drive straight for that compound.
Speaker 3: I could see the plume of dust, yeah, of course,
Speaker 3: and then turn up and then just went out into
Speaker 3: went into action mode like we were under an attack.
Speaker 1: As soon as we got there. We got the.
Speaker 3: Tank to drive from that compound in a straight line
Speaker 3: and punched a hole through the three meter high wall
Speaker 3: in the next compound, started moving the partner force along
Speaker 3: the track that the tank had made. With the track
Speaker 3: moving along, so we knew that was ied cleared. Got
Speaker 3: absolutely pizzled moving between those two buildings. We still got
Speaker 3: them through and then started trying to coordinate one establishing
Speaker 3: a defensive perimeter, pulled the tanks up onto points. Also
Speaker 3: had other marines with, you know, like the Mark nineteen
Speaker 3: grenade launchers fifty gals and they had my guys in
Speaker 3: roots cutting holes in the walls to fire out of,
Speaker 3: and while half the platoon established that position and we
Speaker 3: won sort of that initial initiative and took it back,
Speaker 3: had some harriers come in, had some apaches come in.
Speaker 3: Everyone wanted to help. Everyone had wanted to come and help,
Speaker 3: but I was kind of like, hey, like we can't.
Speaker 3: Everything was so close to us, and the terrain is
Speaker 3: that complicated. That lasting needed was to get in trouble
Speaker 3: legally as well. And then I remember looking up seeing
Speaker 3: everyone fighting, doing their job, and then watching you know,
Speaker 3: the other half of my platoon, big burly tattooed men
Speaker 3: on hands and knees, you know, for two and a
Speaker 3: half hours picking up the smallest pieces of Scott to
Speaker 3: put into these bags so we could put him on
Speaker 3: the helicopter to get him out of there. And it
Speaker 3: was just so inspiring seeing that juxtaposition of you know
Speaker 3: that the brutality of war and warriors doing their job,
Speaker 3: and then just the care and love and affection the
Speaker 3: guys had trying to make sure we got all of
Speaker 3: Scott to send him home.
Speaker 1: And yeah, that was pretty it was pretty incredible.
Speaker 3: It was my job to then carry him back to
Speaker 3: the company Sergeant major who then put him on a
Speaker 3: helicopter and took him home, and then we spent the
Speaker 3: next two days fighting on to finish the mission. And
Speaker 3: I'm sure you can imagine the one of my favorite
Speaker 3: pictures on my desk at home is I called in
Speaker 3: the team commanders after went back to the company, dropped
Speaker 3: Scott off and just got them around the map, pull
Speaker 3: out a knife. One of my commanders, one of my
Speaker 3: second commanders, put grenades to hold the map down just
Speaker 3: for the picture point of view, but just briefed everyone
Speaker 3: on the mission. Old school, no powerpoints, no gadget's nothing,
Speaker 3: you know, the situation, mission execution, having logistics command and
Speaker 3: sig hey, we got a new purpose to honor Scott's death,
Speaker 3: not to take revenge, but to find on you know,
Speaker 3: so he would be proud of this mission and those
Speaker 3: three days while we lost Scott. And it's still painful
Speaker 3: to remember that just forged a new level of matship
Speaker 3: and team solid. I've never been able.
Speaker 1: To replicate it again in my Yeah yeah, and.
Speaker 3: Still stands and still inspires to this day.
Speaker 2: How hard is it not to seek revenge or not
Speaker 2: to let that revenge mindset sort of come into play,
Speaker 2: because yeah, it's a negative sort of emotion sets. It
Speaker 2: can lead to a negative outcome, to negative decisions, to
Speaker 2: bad decisions. And how hard is it to keep that
Speaker 2: obey knowing that one of your men, you know, had
Speaker 2: just been blown up.
Speaker 3: Great question, mate, really great question, and particularly in that
Speaker 3: context where you don't have someone to blame. It's a
Speaker 3: bomb under the ground, so every insurgent is to blame.
Speaker 3: And being aware, I think a big thing that the
Speaker 3: selection course teaches us is to be aware of our
Speaker 3: emotions and not let them control us. And I just
Speaker 3: remember all of the emotions you spoke up, came over me,
Speaker 3: came over my guys, and I think straight away it's
Speaker 3: that relationship you have going into those crisis situations where
Speaker 3: you can read those in each other and have those
Speaker 3: upfront conversations. And particularly for me, it was using that
Speaker 3: orders group to refocus that energy into the mission and
Speaker 3: not into whatever anyone was driving in their own heart,
Speaker 3: and talk about the importance of why we're there and
Speaker 3: the long lasting impacts of what our next actions would have.
Speaker 1: Because it's so easy.
Speaker 3: You're out there in the middle of nowhere, you are
Speaker 3: the masters of your own universe. I could call in
Speaker 3: the finger of God and give my initials to give
Speaker 3: the approvals. You know, you could completely be unaccountable to
Speaker 3: anyone else, but it was the true test of service
Speaker 3: and those values as to while you were there that
Speaker 3: you had to display and dig into. And I honestly
Speaker 3: think it's everything that leads you up to that process,
Speaker 3: being selected, working with a team, and all the rest
Speaker 3: that just really make sure you're the right person to
Speaker 3: go through those situations. But one hundred percent, it's a
Speaker 3: team effort and you no, Maad only takes a few
Speaker 3: bad eggs or a few bad influences to help it
Speaker 3: go the other way. But fortunately in that situation, we're
Speaker 3: able to channel that energy for the positive purpose that
Speaker 3: we still had.
Speaker 2: What did it feel like as an officer? Yeah too,
Speaker 2: And it's different for us. I suppose it's the same.
Speaker 2: But you know, was it like as an officer to
Speaker 2: lose one of your men on a mission that you
Speaker 2: were leading?
Speaker 3: Yeah, I remember struggling with emotions of shame, embarrassment exactly
Speaker 3: as you said, like, this is my mission I'm responsible
Speaker 3: for at the end of the day, good or bad,
Speaker 3: and I had lost one of my soldiers and it's
Speaker 3: not a name on a piece of paper. You know,
Speaker 3: he had a mum, he had a sister, you know
Speaker 3: he has a nephew, all these sorts of things, and
Speaker 3: it's really difficult to you almost feel selfish thinking about
Speaker 3: the sorrowful parts that impact you on your professional career
Speaker 3: on all the rest. And I think it's just having
Speaker 3: to again what I'm good at doing in a pragmatic way,
Speaker 3: putting the mission and team before yourself, like it's not
Speaker 3: about me. If the shoe had been on the other
Speaker 3: foot and it was me, I know that I would
Speaker 3: have died doing what I wanted to do, and I
Speaker 3: knew that's exactly what he did as well. So I
Speaker 3: think it's really going through a very pragmatic process to
Speaker 3: understand and appreciate the emotions you're having, but to again
Speaker 3: remove yourself from the attachment. Yeah, and it's difficult, especially
Speaker 3: it's a pretty hyper experience to learn it for the
Speaker 3: first time. But I was just so fascinated to feel
Speaker 3: those emotions of shame and embarrassment and feel like I
Speaker 3: had failed in some way tactically and perhaps break through
Speaker 3: some of that delusion whereas to thinking that I could
Speaker 3: perfectly orchestrate warfare like it was a written script.
Speaker 2: Was there ever a moment for you where you you know,
Speaker 2: you know, I suppose combat fatigued, so it kicks in
Speaker 2: and you think, you know, I need to hand over
Speaker 2: the torch.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I loved it.
Speaker 3: Maslow's hierarchy of needs, that self actualized version of myself
Speaker 3: achieving flow in combat, being so in the moment, immersed
Speaker 3: and with a team and tribe that I just felt
Speaker 3: so a part of I would go back and do
Speaker 3: that tomorrow with the right people, for the right purpose. Unfortunately,
Speaker 3: probably like yourself, I've since been able to look a
Speaker 3: lot at the wars we fought and perhaps why we
Speaker 3: were there and all the rest. But for me, my
Speaker 3: reason to end up leaving the military actually came from
Speaker 3: a lot of reasons of the heart and head.
Speaker 1: I fell in love with someone, and.
Speaker 3: I wasn't sure how to mesh my personal life with
Speaker 3: my professional life.
Speaker 2: We fell in love with someone from work outside.
Speaker 3: In America, and one year I went to the Rangers.
Speaker 1: Yeah.
Speaker 3: I sort of kept myself in the closets sexually throughout
Speaker 3: my entire career, and in the US I actually got
Speaker 3: to meet professional gay men I didn't know who were gay.
Speaker 3: I did own it as their identity, and I've got
Speaker 3: to figure out, hey, I can actually still be Heston Russell,
Speaker 3: the commander officer and whoever I want to be in
Speaker 3: my personal life. But yeah, my last apployment to Iraq,
Speaker 3: or we helped to take the fight to isis one
Speaker 3: of the most incredible deployments and missions I've ever been
Speaker 3: a part of. He was back in la and it
Speaker 3: is the first time I've been deployed with someone back
Speaker 3: at home. And at the same time, I was deployed
Speaker 3: with the general who was going to come back and
Speaker 3: be the next commander of our special operations. He'd come
Speaker 3: from a very conventional career and in his mindset he
Speaker 3: needed to get us back to haircuts, ironing uniforms, being
Speaker 3: the Special Forces Brigade just refused to listen to any
Speaker 3: of the experience that we had around him. And my
Speaker 3: next position mate was to start climbing the ranks to
Speaker 3: lieutenant colone or going down the Canberra move on to
Speaker 3: a career that was away from the guys and the teams,
Speaker 3: and I wanted to be a part of. So those
Speaker 3: three combined, I took my long service leave. I followed
Speaker 3: my heart moved to the US to be with my
Speaker 3: boyfriend at the time, and so I said about for
Speaker 3: wing a new life from there.
Speaker 1: Wow, they're right.
Speaker 2: Wow, it was segue different, different, And throughout your whole
Speaker 2: career were you always in the closet? Where was it?
Speaker 2: Did it affect your work, did it affect who you
Speaker 2: were or did you just think? Or did you just were?
Speaker 2: You very good at compartmentalizing, separating.
Speaker 3: The team developed this, there's different personality, Mike the pe teacher.
Speaker 2: I think we need another hour.
Speaker 3: I was able to compartmentalize and separate, and look again,
Speaker 3: you can imagine how hard it is for me on
Speaker 3: the outside trying to explain military culture to you know,
Speaker 3: the LGBT IQO plus community and vice versa. The culture
Speaker 3: service admission before self to a culture that's all about
Speaker 3: being seen and being heard, and like, I get it
Speaker 3: for those reasons, but I got to a place where
Speaker 3: I didn't need to be recognized or accepted for my
Speaker 3: sexuality because it meant nothing to what I truly loved.
Speaker 3: That was my mission and that was my job, and
Speaker 3: I didn't know how to mesh the two together, so
Speaker 3: I kept them completely separate. I also didn't know what
Speaker 3: gay was. I was brought up in a very conservative
Speaker 3: family up in Brisbane. When I moved down to Sydney
Speaker 3: and joined the Commandos, the first insight to the gay
Speaker 3: world I saw was middrift and drag queens on Oxford
Speaker 3: Street and scared the shit out of me because I
Speaker 3: didn't see there wasn't another there was another gay Special
Speaker 3: Forces person that I knew of, and there hasn't been
Speaker 3: again in the Australian military publicly, not that they need
Speaker 3: to be at all. So I just didn't know what
Speaker 3: I didn't know, and I was too afraid to be
Speaker 3: the first, and I was too afraid for it to
Speaker 3: potentially impact any form of stigmas or stereotypes within the
Speaker 3: guys within the unit. Like this was two thousand and
Speaker 3: ten to twenty fifteen, before the gay marriage vote, before
Speaker 3: all this, and as you would know, mate, it actually
Speaker 3: doesn't matter, and the guys since have reinforced it so much.
Speaker 3: But as the officer, as the commander, as a member
Speaker 3: of the Special Forces, there was nothing I wanted to
Speaker 3: introduce into the mixture of our social engagement and environment
Speaker 3: in the workplace. To do that was even more uncertain
Speaker 3: than what we had to deal with. So I chose
Speaker 3: to put my sexuality on the back foot. I was
Speaker 3: more than happy with that. I never had relationships and
Speaker 3: all the rest till I met Blake. And then again
Speaker 3: there was that natural divide where hey, I'm done with
Speaker 3: this and it's time to explore this love thing that
Speaker 3: I've never felt before.
Speaker 2: Do you think anyone new? Do you think anyone.
Speaker 1: I delay? I delayed telling my daddy here and he
Speaker 1: reckons he knew. But did your dad say he didn't? Yeah,
Speaker 1: he found out here after mom and sister.
Speaker 3: But no, And it's not that I prided myself on that.
Speaker 3: I just love and I still love it today. Where
Speaker 3: people know me it's Heston Russell, not as any of
Speaker 3: these other labels in between, because that's what I feel
Speaker 3: we have to aspire from. That's where I feel we're
Speaker 3: getting wrong in society. Like I'm gay, you have to
Speaker 3: accept me. I'm a veteran, you have to accept me.
Speaker 3: No one ever will mate. It's how you perform in
Speaker 3: yourself and treat others like your name is your label.
Speaker 3: And that's why I fought so hard to grasp for
Speaker 3: myself and encourage others to do as well.
Speaker 2: Or Mate You've done a phenomenal job in doing that,
Speaker 2: absolutely phenomenal and sat opposite you. May you know it's
Speaker 2: it's been an absolute pleasure and there's so much more
Speaker 2: to say. Do you know what You're gonna have to
Speaker 2: get Heston's book? Just remind us of the name of your.
Speaker 1: Book, Forging the Will to Fight.
Speaker 2: It's all my web Forging the Will to Fight? Yeah,
Speaker 2: Ford on your website? What's your website?
Speaker 1: Heston Russell dot com.
Speaker 2: Heston Russell dot com Forging the Will to Fight? You
Speaker 2: can go a lot more into depth by getting Heston's book.
Speaker 2: But mate, you've been an absolute pleasure to talk to you.
Speaker 2: Mate of reminisces. I think I've talked more about myself
Speaker 2: than I have about ye know more.
Speaker 1: About you, mate, everything We know a lot about you.
Speaker 1: There's so many more layers to be seen. Yeah, do
Speaker 1: you know?
Speaker 2: It's like everyone right, there's so much more layers to
Speaker 2: be seen. There's so much more you know of us
Speaker 2: than than people know. But mate, it's an absolute pleasure
Speaker 2: to get to know you within the short hour that
Speaker 2: I've got you. What is next for you? Heston?
Speaker 3: The book launch made, It's been four years in the making,
Speaker 3: and I'm really looking forward to getting that out and
Speaker 3: I'm trying to get myself back into I run an
Speaker 3: event once a year called the Veteran Games through my
Speaker 3: charity and building that it's in its third year Veterangames
Speaker 3: dot Com. Trying to get guys who are isolated out
Speaker 3: there and at the biggest risk of mental health off together,
Speaker 3: doing obstacle courses, doing casual evacuations, doing all the team
Speaker 3: stuff we used to do, and then myself getting back
Speaker 3: into some corporate speaking and just helping to spread the
Speaker 3: good word mate, much like you do out there, and
Speaker 3: trying to just be the best version of me I
Speaker 3: can outside of that amazing purpose and environment we have
Speaker 3: with motivation in service.
Speaker 2: That was a pretty good version mate. It's a pretty
Speaker 2: good version of a right.
Speaker 1: Now better inspiration out there in the community.
Speaker 3: I want to thank you for your service and what
Speaker 3: you do, particular here in Australia. It's great to see
Speaker 3: a brick come over here and do what you do, mate,
Speaker 3: and break through so many of the stigmas as well,
Speaker 3: so I appreciate it.
Speaker 2: You know what, mate, if you need any help, will
Speaker 2: fucking help out in any way with your events. Let
Speaker 2: me know we'll do pleasure mate. Thank you.
Speaker 1: Thanks Anne.
Speaker 2: As you've heard, Heston's book, Forging the Will to Fight
Speaker 2: is available now via his website. You can also check
Speaker 2: out Heston's podcast, The ABC's of Heston Russell. I'll put
Speaker 2: it in the show notes and don't forget if you
Speaker 2: need help. Also, you can contact Lifeline on thirteen eleven
Speaker 2: fourteen or Beyond Blue at beyond blue dot org dot AU.
Speaker 2: ADF personnel can also access confidential support our link the
Speaker 2: details in the show notes. Thank you for joining me
Speaker 2: on this episode of Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode,
Speaker 2: please share it with a friend. I'm at Middleton. Catch
Speaker 2: you in the next episode.