Ep. 223 Hamish Maclachlan New Zealand SAS and Australian SASR

Episode Transcript
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Listen on today's podcast and ina different country recording a
podcast.
This podcast is going to bepretty exciting.
Now we spent the last couple ofdays with this bloke out in the
mountains.
It was like Mount Everest andhe's an absolute mountaineering
God because I was shootingmyself a few times.

(02:21):
I'm a bit of AI guess a donkeysometimes, but again, we're in a
different country.
Bit of a guest in the remotestudio Skoda, he's here in the
background just talking aboutthis guest. 23 years in two
defence forces, New Zealand andAustralia, a bit of time as an
infantry soldier IN21, whichI've had a couple of guys on the

(02:43):
podcast that have served in thatunit from there seized the SASR,
sorry, the SAS, New Zealand SASin Timor and it's that
mysterious figure, the blacksonnies and black boots and
you're like, oh fuck, thosedudes look cool.
I want to be I want to be one ofthose guys.
So he end up doing selectionpasses that get into SAS

(03:05):
eventually does Afghanistan.
He's probably the only dude thathas witnessed 2 VCs or been part
of two VCs from two differentarmies, one from New Zealand
SAS, which was Willie Apiata.
And then moving down forward, hejoins SSA in Australia and on

(03:25):
the same deployment with BRS BenRobert Smith when he received
his VC for the axe on the day inTizak.
Tizak.
Tizak.
Hamish Tezak.
Yeah, Tezak.
That's the one.
Hamish.
Hamish McLaughlin.
Yeah.
How are you mate?
Hey, thanks heaps for having meon the on the podcast man.

(03:48):
And yeah, loved going out withyou guys and having a hunt over
the last three days.
It was actually got some goodweather, walked a few miles and
he ain't got a ball on the end.
So yeah, man, we're stoked.
It was absolutely epic.
Like you, you know, me and Skodaspoke about it and we're just
like, that was some of the mostincredible stuff we've done.

(04:08):
And obviously you run a businessthat entails around that, that
market.
So we'll, you know, we'lldefinitely talk about it after
the whole Defence Force, bothdefence forces lives, you know,
what you're currently doing.
As I said, mate, like yourcareer within the SAS and SAS
have been incredible, not tomention the multiple deployments

(04:31):
that you did and being part oftwo VCs, which is it's
astronomical, like the, thewhite of that.
And, you know, we'll get intoboth of those, you know, I guess
contacts, because that firstone, you know, was that that was
your initiation into warfighting and, you know,
obviously taking life as well,which we'll definitely talk

(04:52):
about.
But mate, before we do, let'sget back to the younger days.
Obviously you can't have been aMad Dog like you are now back in
the younger days mate, But rummythrough like growing up here in
in Kaziland.
Yeah, man, so I grew up in thecentral North Island and on a
sheep beef family, 8 so I've gotfive other five siblings.

(05:17):
I got four brothers and asister, three of us, 3, three
other of my siblings ended upjoining the military, someone
NZ, someone in Australia,someone in the UK.
So they've all been out andabout again going back.
Yeah, school was prettystandard, played rugby, wasn't
that good at it but enjoyed it.
So that didn't go anywhere.

(05:41):
And then, yeah, join the jointhe sort of join the Army as a
young bloke.
I think I was about two weeksafter I turned 17.
And then it signed up and yeah,recruited out of Hamilton.
And then basic training andinfantry core training.
Yeah, yeah.
Down and, and then post down thesecond first Battalion down just
out of Crossroach and Burnhamand then Alpha Company

(06:03):
initially.
And then, yeah.
So then everyone, everything'spretty quiet in the late 90s
there.
And then Timor kicked on just.
Before we crack on the team,well, let's just I just want to
break that you're growing up.
I want to just want to breakthat because that's a it's a one
of those things to do with allthe podcasts.
We try and figure out howsomeone gets into the SSN.
There's obviously something, youknow, growing up in these

(06:25):
younger days that made you hard,made you resilient, made you,
you know, I wouldn't, you know,I don't know, subliminally or
there's something in there thatsparks that fire, you know what
I mean?
Like otherwise you could havegone the other way and become,
you know, unless a lefty.
Or something.
Yeah, yeah, maybe.
Yeah, maybe.
Yeah.
So, you know, like brothers,sisters, have you got, you know?
Yeah, second, yeah, secondeldest, but I suppose, Yeah,

(06:46):
growing up, growing up farmingand that it does, it does teach
you, you know.
Yeah.
It's a, it's a good upbringing,man.
I love that, you know, likeyou're outside all the time,
you're in elements, you'reworking until the job's done and
you're often working, you know,from sun up to sundown.
So I guess that sets you uppretty well for life in the

(07:07):
military.
To be honest, man, when I turnedup to basic training, I didn't
think it was hard at all.
It was just, you know, it waspretty crazy, actually.
Yeah, Yeah.
And then.
But yeah, I don't, yeah, I don'tknow.
I just, yeah.
Like you always you read booksand that I suppose in, well,
back in late 90s, you wouldn'tjust had to read books because

(07:27):
there's nothing else.
But yeah, you read books aboutthe essays, I suppose.
And you think here it lookspretty bad ass.
And then what?
What about school?
Like, how are you?
You again?
Like majority of the podcast,most of the guys were not
stupid, but they just neverapplied themselves.
Always in trouble, you know whatI mean?
Like teacher always says, if youapplied yourself, you'd be
awesome.

(07:48):
Yeah, that definitely got saidto me once or twice from memory.
No, I did all right.
They did OK at school.
Like then, yeah, grades weren'tanything to write home about,
but but now, yeah, did did aride at school.
But I think even from a youngage there was like, Yep, the
army.
I mean, I don't want to soundlike an old cunt, but yeah, like
the 1991 stuff and they gotfirst Gulf War, the old B20

(08:09):
yarns and all of that.
Was sort of like that was, youknow, when I was growing up.
You old enough to see that onthe news and and hear some of
those tales and it's prettycool, you know, get into that.
Yeah.
And what about family history?
You know, we spoke about, Ithink on our car ride.
You'll tell us about.
Yeah, a lot of family history,Yeah.
A lot of family history,especially from on, on both

(08:29):
sides.
Mum's obviously Australian.
That's how I had Australiancitizenship, made the jump
across the ditch easy.
Pretty proud.
Military service history allthrough there, going back to
World War One and Two and thenVietnam and then on the old
man's side, a lot of a lot ofwork in World War One and then
World War 2 and then and thennot too much after that.

(08:55):
But yeah, so the like there's,there's pictures of the old, old
guys in uniform through thehouse and things like that.
Yep, Yep.
And then there's we spoke aboutyou joining the New Zealand
Defence Force in 1997, mate.
What's the process?
You know this again, this ispre, you know this slow Internet
back then.
Yeah, no Internet back then,yeah.

(09:17):
Yeah.
What don't you do?
You just signed some.
Yeah, You just went to therecruit centre.
There was always those Rd showsaround the schools there and
they would, you know, they'dshow you your style and you
think, oh, that's pretty cool.
And you find out it's not lateron.
But anyway.
But they, yeah, you just fillout, fill out the old forms,
medicals, physicals and that andthen and then you're in there.
It was a pretty easy processfrom, from memory, didn't take

(09:39):
long.
Like I probably started it whenI was 16, you know, like halfway
through 16.
And then by the time I was 17, Iwas all done, dusted and I was
ready to go.
So.
Yeah.
So from there, you obviously youenlist, move down to basic
training.
Yeah, you know, or how, howLong's that basic training?
And as I said, you thought itwas quite because you're like,
you're a fit dude.
Like you're 47.

(10:01):
And the way you weremountaineering, like I was like
an old Clive down at the back,sky Joe's in the middle.
You're charging long.
You hopefully for a few yearsyet, no.
Fuck, what were we?
What were we just?
Yeah, basic training.
Yeah, basic training.
Yeah, it was three months, Ithink, Bob, from memory.
And then?

(10:22):
Any shock to the system likediscipline or or did your
parents give you?
A Nah not.
Really give you a marching man.
I'm a fucking Quambi man when itcomes to marching, man, Always
one of those pricks that wouldfucking just fucking square gate
that shit.
And I was teared and they rippedinto me too.
I was, yeah.
I was a spastic Yeah at thatstuff, yeah.
Could shoot a rifle, could runfast enough.
Yeah, no good.

(10:44):
And on on the programme.
Terrible.
Yeah, yeah.
So from you finish your threemonths and sorry back to the
basic training, is it justinventory or is it?
Yeah.
Compared to where it's at allcalled and then from the split
off you move into you know yourspecific you know inventory
training mate.
How did you find that movingfrom that basic, you know,
boring?

(11:04):
I wouldn't say boring, but youknow, basic military getting you
ready for the military movinginto that IET where it's guns,
grenades, rocket launchers, the.
Yeah, yeah, I enjoyed myeveryone, the Thai teas in
Australia, but my infantry coretraining in New Zealand, man, I
enjoyed that man, I thought itwas cool.
Yeah, yeah, we we actuallytrained not too far mountain

(11:25):
wise from from where we werehunting just out of Ticopo and
that you did a lot of infantrytraining down there.
And I used to think that placewas asshole in the world because
it was cold as fuck in thewinter time and it was hot as
fuck in the summertime.
But yeah, I'd probably live upthere now.
It's awesome.
And what did you think about,you know, was there any thoughts
of where you're going to moveinto like down the track in your

(11:46):
military career or did you justthink you have joined the
infantry and just the inventorylife?
No, I was always no I.
Was always set on.
Yeah, I was always set on 40forces.
Yeah, I was always going to do.
That any idea about the like theAustralian because obviously you
move into the Australian sidedown the track.
Did you have any idea about whatthey were doing the Aussies?
Yeah, No, no, not a clue.
It was just Kiwis.

(12:07):
Yeah, yeah.
Gotcha, gotcha.
So you finish your Riflemaninventory training, you
obviously move into two one.
Roll.
New Zealand Inventory Regiment.
Yep mate.
How'd you find?
And again, I've come from thatinfantry background and moving
into a battalion can be quite adaunting experience.
So I moved to the three area andtell you what, back in those

(12:29):
days was a rough, rough oldplace.
How was it for you guys?
Yeah, probably it was pretty.
It was probably pretty similar.
The old Baggies bar, the likethe junior Ranks bar in Burnham.
And it was, it was pretty livelike yeah, it was an interesting
place.
Like, yeah, man, I, yeah, Ithought, yeah, I really enjoyed
my time down there, man.
I thought it was.
I thought it was pretty cool.

(12:50):
Was there any talks what 98Timor kicks off?
Is there any talk of is it 9899?
90 late 90 yeah, mid late 99that, that all kicked off.
And from memory, the Kiwi, theKiwi's face and all these face
went in there first and behindthem went first, First Battalion

(13:10):
out of Linton in the NorthIsland.
They, they were over there for,I think it was 6 to 8 months, I
suppose.
And then we, we, we changed outwith them when they, when their
trip was done in sort of like Ithink May 2000.
So that was kind of the, thatwas kind of the, the first big

(13:30):
trip.
We, the first big trips we'dhad.
And for the army back in NZ,like before that, there was
really just like a few, fewcompany groups went to Bosnia
for some of that peacekeeping inthe early 90s and it was all
pretty quiet after that ones andtwos went to say Somalia or
Wanderer.
Oh, sorry, yeah, smiling orwandering that same as Aussies.

(13:51):
But it was, yeah, it wascrickets.
And a little did you know likeyou know 2001, that's when it
just.
Oh yeah, and then.
Game changing, obviously therest of your career was, you
know, all based off 2001,September 11.
Also in 1999, obviously you metyour wife.
Shannon, Yep, Yep, we met her.
Yep, she was, she was signallerin the in the army down there in
Burnham.
Yep.
And yeah, I actually met herjust as I was going into

(14:13):
military prison.
Yeah, I'd been a rat bag with amate of mine.
And we had a few beers one nightand decided it'd be a good idea
to pull out the platoon sciencelitter box dragged down the
street.
And my Falcon Ute and yeah,yeah, it wasn't.
The MPs didn't have to work toohard to figure out who it was.
And then, yeah, so we got 30days in the big house, and I

(14:35):
actually met my wife Sharon,just as I was going in there,
and she must have liked bad boysor something.
So yeah, recent history.
Yeah, right now shout out toyour wife.
She just whipped us up abrilliant meal up there, so and
hopefully we'll get her on thepodcast and talk about her life
and career, especially being thespouse of a SAS, SAS soldier,

(15:00):
trooper, I should say.
Now from there mate, youobviously spend a bit of time in
the infantry company and then asyou said 2000 you get your trip
to East Seymour.
Yeah, we, yeah, we replaced.
First deployment?
Yeah.
Guns, Bullets.
Yep.
Bombs.
Yep.
How was it?
How was that like?
Talk me through like the.

(15:20):
I guess I know what it was likefor me when I got my first trip.
You know, you carry a lot of.
Yeah, a lot of weapon.
You're like, oh fuck, this iscool.
And the boys, everyone's pumped.
Yeah.
Everyone, everyone's exciting.
Everyone thinks you're goinginto.
War.
Yeah, exactly.
Yeah, that's exactly what theythink.
Yeah, it was, yeah.
It was pretty exciting.
You know, it would've been onlyjust 1020.
And yeah, we replaced the firstbattalion over there.
And, and I remember driving intolanding there in Timor and then

(15:41):
driving into sewage would likegrab some gear and then fly up
to one of the Fobs.
And that bit we, we were goingto replace one of the companies
with.
And yeah, it was, it wasexciting, man.
Like, you know, it was like, ohman, first trip.
Yeah, it was sort of, but itwas, it was sort of dead quiet.
Like it was like all thatexcitement sort of just drained
away and it was like, oh,there's not much really going on

(16:01):
here.
And you know, a few prisonspatrols and used to check on the
locals and yeah, it was all, itwas all pretty standard.
I suppose.
That all finished for usactually 25 years to the day
today actually, that a mate, amate of mine who I joined up
with Golene Manning, we bothrecruited together from

(16:23):
Hamilton.
And yeah, he was, he was killedin action over there on, on a,
on a tracking patrol.
And he was from, he was not inthe same company, obviously.
He was in Bravo Company.
I was in Delta Company.
And then, yeah, they were, theywere tracking patrol.
They'd picked up some, they'dpicked up sign.
They were close to the border.

(16:44):
They'd pick, they'd cut somesign, followed it up, found a
whole lot of flattened areasthat, you know, they, they
deducted were like sleepingareas.
So they got started to get arough gauge in numbers and then
they decided to pursue the signup towards the high ground.
And then when they went upthere, as they were going up
there, they were engaged.
And from memory, yeah, Lin Linwas killed in the first sort of

(17:05):
volley of fire.
And then the team broke contactback down the hill.
The lead scout checked on thechecked on Lin.
He was, he was gone.
It's probably the terrain way tofirepower the numbers they had
on the high ground and, and the,and the small team.
I mean, they couldn't get hisbody out.
So he was initially listed asMia.

(17:26):
They cut the platoon I was in.
We flew out to support BroadwayCompany coming up the hill and
trying to conduct a search forfor Lynn and for any, any other
remaining forces that were upthere.
The boys and Broadway Companylocated his body up there, not,

(17:47):
you know, not far from where hefell.
Yeah, unfortunately, the militiathere mutilated his body.
By the time the boys had got toit, they they bundled him up and
got him down to the road and,and then and then repatriated
him.
Yeah.
But it was a bit of a it wascertainly a wake.
It was certainly a wake up.
Were you back in in New Zealand?

(18:09):
No, no, I was.
Are you in team or at thatstage?
No, I was on the hill.
Were they?
Oh, were you?
Yeah.
Yeah.
So our platoon and Bravo and oneof the teams and Bravo come
here.
Yeah.
She gone up and yeah, we stayedthe night up there and then see
if there was any other, anyother movement.
There wasn't.
I think those guys dipped backover the border wasn't far away.
And then, yeah, then we flewback.

(18:30):
And yeah, the whole tone of thetrip sort of changed in a bit
and went and, you know, sort ofleant away from that sort of
presence patrols.
And then we're sort of aftertrying to get our heads around
where these guys were moving toand trying to sort of interdict
them.
So a lot more sort oftraditional like like sort of
long duration patrols and a lotof ambushing a lot of like all

(18:51):
night ambushes and that on, onsort of avenues of approach and
things like that.
And but yeah, it was, yeah, itwas certainly a lot more
interesting than.
And just like just on that,obviously, you know, moving down
the track, you know, you lose alot more friends, especially in
SSR, You know, how was thatfirst time losing, you know, one
of your mates Like it's, it'sgot to be a yeah.

(19:13):
It's a, it's a, yeah, it's aninteresting thing, man, because
I always like, you know, and Iknew Lynn pretty well and he was
a ^2 away dude, man, you know,and he was like, he was a great
soldier.
He was on top of everything.
And I, and I wasn't, you know,it was just some fucking shit
bag.
And and then you sort of sit inthere and think, fuck man, you

(19:34):
know, fucking mate.
It's, he's a switch on dude,man.
And he and he didn't come back.
And then sort of makes you thinkand then and then you sort of
start to work it all out and yourealise a lot of it, man.
It's just like so much of it'sluck, really.
Like you can train and you cantrain hard and yeah, it
certainly helps.
But often you need a bit of luckon your side.
So yeah, that's.

(19:55):
But that's all that was.
Always remember thinking aboutthat, about Lynn and yeah.
And as we spoke about right atthe start of the podcast there,
this is where you have yourfirst interaction with, you
know, the Oakleys on the headand the black boots.
And you're like, oh, who arethose?
Yeah, those dudes.
Yeah.
So we, we start the, we start alot of a lot of patrolling
trying to pick these guys up.

(20:15):
And we're not having, frommemory, we weren't having much
luck.
And at some point the QSAreturned to to East Timor and in
the form of tracking teams.
And then they grabbed infantryplatoons from either of the
companies to come down andprovide extra security as they
were tracking.
And yeah, our platoon wasfortunate enough to get tapped
on the shoulder to do that.

(20:39):
And yeah, going down and seeingthose guys, man, because in New
Zealand you never saw the SAS.
Like they were up in Pepakuraand you were down in another
island.
And yeah, often I'd gone 3 or 4years and I'd never seen one.
And then suddenly there's, youknow, these guys are rock
rocking into camp and they'recalling the shots.
And yeah, I was always, yeah, Iwas like, shit, man.
It's like rock stars turning upto you, your BBQ or something.

(21:01):
That's what I always thoughtanyway.
And yeah, it was great.
It was great working with a man,just real professional, like
everything was, you know,everything was just even just
work like clockwork with thoseguys.
And it was certainly, yeah,certainly.
So that was.
And so the, the spark, the theflame was there.
But this is like, yeah, yeah,yeah.
There's more oxygen.
Yeah.
Absolutely.
Yeah.

(21:22):
I want to be those.
It's funny you say that becauseit's the same thing in
Australia.
You know, you never see the catsbecause they're so far West.
Yeah, on the East Coast or, youknow, up north, you'd only ever
see them maybe on a juniorleadership course or, you know,
a mortars course or a parachute,you know, course or whatever.
Yep.
So from there mate you how longdo you spend in teamwork?
Did six months on their firsttrip.

(21:44):
Six months, that's a long, longgig.
Yeah, yeah, right.
So just back to your parents,what do they think about you
joining the Defence Force?
Yeah, they were all supportive.
Because obviously a lot of yourfamily end up joining the
Defence Force.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Right.
So you do six months, head backto New Zealand and obviously
Taymor is just in full swingnow, pretty much.
You get back, get ready foractually you do Recon.

(22:08):
Yes I do my do my Recon coursethen send over to support
company and enter Recon platoon.
And this is you're only, what,three years in?
So now you're somewhat a seniorsoldier.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, sure.
That's a worry, isn't it?
Yeah.
People might be looking at mefor some sort of guidance or
inspiration.
No, yeah.
So yeah, did the, did the Reconcourse, enjoyed that.

(22:30):
That was good fun.
And then worked up and then wewent back in the back end of
2001 for another six months and.
And how was that you know thisis how long is it between
rotations?
Yeah, bang on a year.
Much change, much focus change.

(22:52):
I think the, I think the enemyactivity over there had had
disappeared.
Like there was like we did a lotof, we did a lot of patrols on
that second, on that secondtrip.
And yeah, it was like nothingsignificant to report every time
we were just looking at leavesand sticks.
So.
So the whole Six Mile was just ait.
Was crickets man just.
Peace time.

(23:13):
Yep, it.
It was, yeah, we were stillgoing out for decent, decent
stints and just.
Like a hearts and minds key typething.
Well, we were, we were doing, wewere doing just a lot of AO
clearances and O PS on, youknow, like river junctions and
crossings and things like that.
But so we weren't interactingtoo much with the locals in any
way.

(23:34):
But yeah, but it some of thosepatrols, like I still rate some
of those patrols as some of theharder patrols I've done in my
career, you know, and thenholding, you know, comparable
with selection, you know, sosome of them were some of them
were proper grinds on that on,on some of those longer duration
patrols.
So although I reckon I got a lotout of it, looking back, yeah,
it was.

(23:56):
No, it was good.
Did.
You go back as Recon.
Yeah.
Oh, yeah, yeah.
Yep, Yep.
Gotcha.
Yeah.
So that's where all that metnearing and all that again.
This is where it all starts to.
Yeah, well, we used to train afair bit, like not too far from
wheel hunting there on the WestCoast.
We spent a fair bit of time overthere in the battalion.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, you just got soaking wet.
And yeah, but.

(24:18):
Shave your legs.
Yeah.
What's that?
No, no, it wasn't the thing backthen, wasn't it?
Yeah, it was.
Been in Australia?
Yeah, yeah, we were.
Yeah, we were probably too poor.
Too poor to buy razors to shaveour legs.
Barely bought it to bloody shaveour faces.
Yeah, on that, obviously, youknow, again, you look at
Australia like the money wasreally good once you got on
deployment.
Yeah, money turned out to bepretty good even back in those

(24:39):
days.
How was it for?
Terrible.
Was it?
It was terrible, yeah, it washorrible.
Yeah, we are.
We we're often.
We had quite a bit ofinteraction on both trips with
the.
With the Aussies.
With the Aussies and it waslike, it was, it was apparent.
I mean, you've got to make waymore money, yeah.
Yeah, right.
So you do that six months againback to New Zealand and again
Taymor's still going.

(25:01):
So the following year, 2002actually just quickly 911,
September 11 happens.
Yep, 2001.
Yes, we were doing build uptraining for.
That second, your next, nextsecond.
Trip into Timor, late 2000.
Yeah, late 2001.
So yeah, so November, we wentover there for our second trip
and yeah, so yeah, September 11happened there.

(25:23):
I think we watched it whilewhile we were out on exercise or
something, someone was aimingand turn the TV on.
Look at this shit.
And he was like holy fuck and.
What was the talks?
Because again, like New Zealandis kind of like the, the little
brother of Australia when itcomes to obviously military
size, et cetera.
And you know, was, was there anytalk?
Everyone's like, oh fuck yeah.
Like in Australia, everyone'slike, oh fuck yeah, we're going

(25:43):
to War I.
Don't, I don't reckon, I don'treckon anyone in the regular
army thought that, yeah.
But everyone sort of figured allthe DSS will go, go, go and do
that.
Once it turned out that therewas going to be, you know,
subsequent action afterSeptember 11th, I was like, Oh
well, they'll get into that.
And then, and it did.
And then yeah, but no, for theregular Army, no one was really

(26:06):
sort of like, yeah, no, we'redefinitely going like, no one's
like, we're going to go back toTimor and look at bushes.
Which you did, yeah. 2002 you'reback to Timor again, mate.
You're pretty much a local now.
Yeah, yeah, speaking to themeverywhere.
Yeah, got a class for my one ofmy medals that says I spent a
year there.
Great reminder.
So how long was that thirddeployment?

(26:27):
Nah so I only did 2 to Timor sobut that was on the back half
so.
Got you.
Got you.
You know, O1 into O2 was mysecond trip there.
So in the other six months andthen got back and then that
year, so 2002, the QVSS ran 3selections because they're
starting to sting for numbersand they wanted a larger

(26:48):
reinforcement cycle.
So they run one at the start ofthe year which obviously we
missed and out and they ran 2quite close together in the back
half of the year and and I goton the one in November.
What age are you then 22?
So young, fit, fit, fit.
You have been Yep.
But you try.
You obviously did like a bit ofa training prep for it.

(27:09):
Or Yep.
Yep, but mainly just aroundcounting pack and then you know,
just pack marching definitelyand put.
It up in the hills?
Yeah, Up in the Downs.
Yeah, just doing that and then,yeah.
And then it's just normal likeyou, you look at all your, your
barrier tests, what you, whatyou call it a barrier test and
all the, but all you like yourbasic stuff like your RFLS, your

(27:30):
Bfas and all your, you know,your 2.4.
And we have a, a similar eventto the 3.2 which is like a, like
a, a force run in your patrolorder and, and rifle.
So you work up to that stuff andyou get a rough gauge of what
you can do.
And and then, yeah, we're justreally concentrating on just
caring that caring that pack.
That's a big thing.
Yeah.

(27:51):
Especially you're not.
You're not, you know, you'reonly how, how tall are you?
Yeah, Oh my.
On a good day I'm about 169centimetres.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
It's always harder for littleguys 'cause they've got, you
know, they've got little, littlesteppers.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
But out in the snow it's adifferent story.
Yeah, I'm, I'm, I'm thestruggler.
Yeah, mate.
And so you head on to selection.

(28:12):
How Long's New Zealand SASselection?
Kiwi.
Kiwi selection. 17 days is aweek of pre selection and then
there's 10 days of actualselection.
Yeah.
And how did you find selection?
Yeah, man, it's, yeah, it wastough, Yeah, like that man is
you won't find too many peopleto say it's not, but yeah, it
was tough, man.

(28:33):
But you know, if you all like tothink of it, all I like to think
of it of is like an exercise youknow you're doing.
You get stabbed to do anexercise in the battalion and
then you don't just pull off onday 2 of that exercise because
you, you know, missing home oryou've had a gut feel.
You keep doing it, don't you?
Because you don't really have anoption to just quit unless
you're a pussy.

(28:56):
And then so yeah.
So if you approach selection thesame way as like, hey, man, like
this 24 hours and this day isjust as long as the 24 hours
yesterday, man, it'll come to anend eventually.
And then you just hear just oneday at a time, and yeah, you
just chip away, I think.
That's what most dudes say.
Is that just one, one foot at atime?
Yeah, yeah.
Just just keep going.
Just keep going, man.

(29:16):
Just keep being.
Was it, was there any stagewhere you're like, you know
what, I'm a bit sore here or.
Yeah, your Dick.
Injuries coming up.
And I, or I can, I candistinctly remember when anyone
talks about hitting that wall.
And I can distinctly rememberhitting the wall and going, holy
fuck, man.
I've got another, you know, I'vegot another, you know, 5-6,
seven days of this and you thinkship, will I be, you know, will
I still be there?
But you just keep going and youget there in the end, Yeah.

(29:38):
Yeah, yeah, right.
So you get to the end of theselection, how many?
So how many guys start?
I think we had about 55 guys onour particular selection start.
And I think, I think from memorybetween sort of 6 or 10 past.
Yeah, right.
Maybe a few less.
Yeah, maybe it was under 10.

(30:00):
Yep.
And from there, what happens?
Yes.
So that was sort of the startof, I think selection finished
around the start of December.
And then, yeah, went on, wentand saw the CEO, yeah, told her
you'd been selected for thetraining and then the
reinforcement cycle will start,you know, and he gives you a
date.
I think it was like the Jan orsomething.
And then, yeah, you got here, itwent away and basically just

(30:23):
packed your shit up and andheaded up to Auckland for for
the cycle.
And like comparing, obviously weknow a lot more about the SSR
cycle.
How was it, you know, for NewZealand, is it similar, you
know, 1218 months or whatever itis?
Yeah, Yep.
It ends up around, it ends uparound 12 months once you've
taken to once you get qualifiedin your troop insertion.

(30:45):
But yes, it's around 12 months.
The format's not too, not toodifferent.
I mean, over the years, thecycles have changed to focus on
particular areas that need morethat they feel like need more
work or more important.
But and ours was ours waspretty.
Ours was pretty standard withthe first block of it would be

(31:07):
like most of your green rollskills.
So you do all your your Med sigscom serve your patrolling, your
ESF weapons and your and yourpatrol procedures or your patrol
calls.
And then the back half was moreof your back roll or what was
black rolls back then.
So more your DCT stuff.
So all your breaching MO, yourmanual and explosive Moe, all

(31:28):
your sneaky bee stuff and yeah,words or stuff.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was good.
Anything you struggle withthreat selection at the cycle I
should say.
No, no, not too bad.
Not too bad.
I was, I was pretty fortunate.
Didn't really pick up too manyinjuries and yeah, yeah.
And we got there and then Isuppose at the end of towards

(31:49):
the end, or, you know, in thatsecond part of the cycle, you'll
go and do a small boat, yoursmall boat handlers.
We powered our PTCO course inAustralia, but small boat
handlers in New Zealand and yourclimbing course.
And then you pair a course rightat the end.
And then sort of, if you haddisplay a bit of a, you know, a
bit of a, a flair for either oneof those 3, then then they sort

(32:14):
of steer down near the amphibmountain or, or free fall.
And for me, I, I went to went tomountain troop.
It shows, yeah.
So I went there and then with acouple of other boys and yeah.
And so we did mountain trooptraining after we got mountain
Berrys and then and then was.
And how was that, you know,looking back, getting a Berry

(32:36):
and after all those years ofwanting to do it, you know,
initially wanting to join theSS, Yeah.
How was it like receiving abury?
Yeah, man, it was like theproudest point.
Yeah, man, it was awesome, man.
It was right.
Great moment.
And then when and I was fuck, Iwas pretty fortunate, like one
of the originals from the Kiwiassassinated by Dan Ogilvy, who

(32:57):
was the honorary Colonel at thetime.
When I when we got badged, hegave me my, he gave me my bury
man.
So I thought that was cool, man.
He was one of the the originalguys that was stood up back in
the 50s to form the New ZealandSA.
So yeah, you handed my Berryman.
It was one of the proudestmoments of my life.
Yeah, right.
So from there, mate, as yousaid, you move into the mountain

(33:18):
troop.
Yep.
And again, September 11thhappened.
Yep, Afghan is spooling up mate.
It already has spooled up atthat stage, isn't it?
Yeah, there'd been, there'd beena number of deploys 2. 1002 was
the first yeah.
With obviously Aussie SAS, samething.
Yep.
Yep, Yeah.
So there'd been a number ofdeployments for the Kiwis over
there.

(33:39):
And then and then, yeah, we gottold that yeah, they're likely
to be a trip and O four and andB Squadron, which squadron we
were in, was going to go first.
Was it just on So your selection2002 was air stories coming back
from, you know, that first earlydeployments of Afghanistan?
Not, not much, man.
There wasn't too much.
And like, nothing was reallymentioned.

(34:02):
Obviously, nothing's reallymentioned about it on selection.
And then, yeah, you'd hear that.
But once you started the cycle,you know, some of the
instructors would share sharesfrom yarns in there about what
it was like over there and that.
And of course, you're like asponge at that stage and you
just want to know everything.
And did you hear about AndrewRussell's death in Australia?

(34:22):
Obviously, that was February2002.
Yep and I think from memory, andobviously this was before my
time, there was a similarsimilar incident with the Kiwis
as well.
Fortunately, the bloke didn'tlose his life, but he lost lost
a limb.
ID.
Yeah, I think so, yeah.
Yeah, Pretty sure I it waseither an ID or was an old

(34:42):
Russian mind.
I'm not too sure which, butyeah.
So we did.
Yeah, we did hear about that,but we didn't hear, we didn't
hear too much from the Aussiesback, back in those ages.
We still had a Nanzac exchange.
And so there was every now andagain there was a couple of
Aussies would come over andthen, yeah.
But no, I didn't hear too muchof what they were up to though.

(35:03):
Yeah.
Yeah.
And so 2004, this is where youget spooled up.
Yeah.
How was this?
You know, this is this is adifferent ball game.
It's not E Timor, it's notpeacekeeping.
There's an active war going on.
And obviously you look at Deltaand or CAG is I should say Navy
Seals, all them are in the thickof it getting getting right into

(35:26):
the thick of it, especially withthe CIA.
Yeah, yeah, no, it was, yeah, itwas exciting man, getting told
Oh yeah, you boys would be goingover there and we did our build
up training in NZ and and thenhere we got ready to go and
yeah, I was, I was bumped man.
I was like, I was going to beexciting.
Flew into yeah, we it was prettyyeah, actually not too much

(35:46):
different than the Aussies flewstraight into aimed, sorted our
shit out, flew into CAF and thenKiwis being Kiwis man, we had to
sort of big bar and steal someHumvees off the Americans
because we didn't have any likevehicle like we didn't have a
vehicle mounted capability likeback in the NZ, not at that
point.

(36:08):
So the previous rotations hadjust basically just cannibalise
some Humvees man, and thenrigged them up for like a long
duration patrol and, and hit itout.
And we did the same thing.
And so there was plenty of guysin the in the squadron that had
done it before and they sort oflike sort of showed everyone
what to do.
And you'd grip the back of theHumvee off and take off the

(36:29):
doors and take off the roof.
And then you'd make some boxesfor your ammunition and your
food and, and lay all your waterand fuel out and, and that was
it pretty much strap a bike ontothe back of it and, and off you
went.
And then because we didn't havevehicles back back in NZ to
train on, we actually headed outto, while it was Mullah Omar's

(36:53):
old compound on the other sideof Kandahar, I can't remember
who owned it.
A number of different Americanorganisations, like had like
sort of stewardship of a place,but I can't even remember the
name.
It was Gracelands, I think, whenthe Canadians might have been
there.
But it was just a big, bigmountainside where you could go
out there and you could train.

(37:14):
And we just went through a fewdrills and that vehicle mounted
drills and stuff like that,mobility drills, and got all
that sorted out.
And then, yeah, drove out on ourfirst patrol not long
afterwards.
Yeah, right.
And run me through I guess thatfirst if you you can recall it,
that first patrol mate, you knowagain this is stepping outside
the wire to to thick of it.
Yeah.
So we, yeah, the first one waspretty, yeah, it was pretty

(37:35):
uneventful.
And yeah, we just heated up thatmain MSR from Kandahar to Kabul
from memory and then cut intothe mountains West and then sort
of came down.
Fuck.
Strangely enough, we actuallydrove through TK when there was
almost nothing there.
And then because we come downthrough Casaruz gone and then

(37:56):
sort of patrol down that way andand hit TK when it was just a
dirty airstrip and there wassome some just Constantine of
barbed wire around some borderleaves.
And yeah, there was a few USguys there and not much else.
And then, Yep, that, yeah, itwas cool.
And then headed back downthrough what would I suppose,
become root beer, and then down,and then down, down, back to

(38:19):
CAF.
How sorry, how long is thatdeployment?
I think we did about 5 months.
So it's quite long.
Yeah, Right.
And, you know, as we spoke aboutright at the start of the
podcast, mate, your firstengagement turn out to be, you
know, something that's lockedinto New Zealand history.
Yeah.

(38:40):
Yeah.
So that was the.
Yeah, it was the second or thirdtrip, I suppose, third patrol
and we'd gone and this is thewhen you look back at it now,
it's pretty, pretty crazy whenyou think we'd drive out of of
CAF so and into Kandahar Cityand then out West towards what

(39:02):
would be be Bastion where theBrits were or would be
eventually stationed.
And we'd drive out there andwe'd head up north, sort of up
the Helmand and then up andwould come sort of up round the
top and then come down into thewhat is now that or what we
become, not what was COD Valleyand but all through, you know,
that area that was so costly forBritish and and US servicemen

(39:25):
there in the later stages of thewar.
We were driving through thereand it was crickets like.
And this was in 2004 and we werean unarmed vehicles and well, I
don't think we got a shot firedat us all through the helmet in
2004.
But once you got up into likethat COD Valley, Shahidi, Assas

(39:48):
area, then that's you knew thatit was going to be a fight.
Everyone knew that that well,you'll get into a you'll get
into a fight up that way becausethey that's just what was what
happens up there.
And yeah, the night, the night,yeah, we got we got lit up
there.
We'd we'd gone in initially intothe village.

(40:09):
I think there was a short KLEand then maybe?
An I like with an idea of havingassure the following day, just
trying to get the layer of theland because that was what most
of those long range patrolswere, was just trying to figure
out who was who in the zooreally and.
Just quickly KLE for thelistener.
Key leadership engagement, Yeah.
So just a bit of a meeting ofall the elders and stuff like

(40:29):
assure and then, yeah, so thatwas the idea.
So we just pushed out of thepushed out of the village and
then up onto a bit of highground.
And then what's the idea ofcoming back down there in the
morning?
And then those dudes obviouslyhad other ideas.
So about it would have been itwas pre dawn but it wouldn't

(40:51):
have taken them too long to movein there and.
And you guys had no MVGS?
That's right.
No, we had.
No, we had MVGS.
Was it single or double?
I was running singles, yeah.
Yeah, At that stage, yeah.
I was just running a single.
Single tube, no, we had nothermal.
We didn't have just.
Primitive technology.

(41:11):
Yeah, yeah, just yeah.
Good old.
Yeah.
Early days.
Early days.
And then now, yes.
So yeah, they basically movedthe, the, you know, the Taliban
moved into the utilising a bitof low ground and a some dried
Creek beds that moved into movedin pretty close proximity to
where we were, split their forceinto fire support and then

(41:34):
assault group.
And yeah, commenced commencedthe attack just on just before
first light and.
So traditionally, like that'swhat a traditional attack was
going to be or it's always goingto be.
Well, yeah.
Because right on first light,you've got to have a bit of
light to see what you're doing,don't you?
And then and then, yeah, so theinitial, the initial burst from

(41:55):
that fastball was heavy like alot of RPGs, a lot of pecan
fire.
And just the way that the thethe troop were laid out in six
different cars from memory, twoor two or three of those two or
three of those cars bore thebrunt of that because they could

(42:16):
be seen.
I think if they were right downthe bottom, they there must have
been a silhouette or somethingand they were able to see what
was going on, see the see ourvehicles.
And obviously the Ford vehiclewas the one that Willie was in
and then that copped A floggingand then and then the one just
behind it and took hits as well.
And their patrol or theirvehicle commander was injured.

(42:40):
And then the one in the centrewas pretty much well suppressed
as as well.
The vehicle I was in was backdown with the other three on the
other side of the Ridge.
So we were, we were in cover sowe could see the rounds and
everything flying over the topof us and then off into the
distance.
But nothing was effective forus.
So we were, we were out of it.

(43:03):
The my, my vehicle commanderswitched on to like real
switched on to be real quiet,real unassuming bloke.
But just everything was whatthat dude was just, you know,
100% real good dude.
And I like, I like, I look atthe way he sort of ran, you
know, like he, he ran out.

(43:23):
It was just a three, three manvehicle team.
I look at that and the way hedid it and a lot of his
mannerisms, man.
And like a certainly, certainlya big mentor for me, this bloke
real, real good.
But he, he could tell that therewas no fire coming back because
you couldn't hear the mark 19going and you couldn't hear the
50s firing or any of the, theGPM GS on the on the door.

(43:45):
And he made a, he made a call.
We had a, an analyst guy doingour driving because we weren't
really getting too much in.
So we had this guy out with us.
So he basically told the man todrive, drive their vehicle up
and park it right, right on thatforward slope.
And then that's what we did.
And then so we drove straightinto that contact just as

(44:08):
William was making his run backup that hill with with his
wounded team commander on hisback.
And you could see that, yeah.
And so just as we parked up, he,he ran past us and always
remembered, even in the, it wasprobably low light at that
point, but Willie was covered inthis dude's blood, Man.
He was, he was not in a goodway.

(44:30):
I mean, there's no doubt at allthat Willie saved his life that
that morning, one of the otherguys that was on the vehicle
that was hit badly, that Williewas also on a good mate of mine.
We did the cycle together.
So we were badged together theprevious year.
He come running up to he comerunning up to me as soon as we
pulled up and just reached upand grabbed my M4 off the off my

(44:53):
turret because his one was onfire in his car.
Whole whole vehicle had lit upand the ammunition was starting
to cook off and rockets werestarting to fly off and I think
that gas bottle blew up too.
What they were cooking theirfood on that was yeah, the whole
bloody car just started tostarted to cook off.
Yeah, but so we, as soon as weparked up the poor old end guy

(45:14):
man, he just put the handbrakeon man and he got out of there
to be fair to him was probablyhe wasn't going to be much use
anyway.
So he just ran back over thehill and yeah, me and the
vehicle managers hooked in andyeah, we just keep suppressing
the main, what we could see wasthe main fire coming in, which

(45:36):
is a fire support on the on theother Ridge.
So we're starting to fire atthat.
I think the guy that grabbed myrifle alerted us though to the
fact that there was someonecoming up the hill.
And as we turned and lookeddown, you could see that assault
force coming up to to roll upour position.
And we both fired back down onthat position and fortunately

(45:59):
got the got the leader of thatgroup, man just by she had luck.
And what you on the 50?
Yeah, and he went, he went down,and I think that's what probably
broke that assault.
That close well.
He almost got hands on thevehicle.
That close.
Yeah.
So he was probably, he'dprobably, he was probably maybe
four or five metres down infront of us.

(46:20):
Like from memory, it wasn't.
It was close, man.
Yeah.
And then and.
Obviously with the 50, you'vegot to pull the pin to yeah to.
Reverse it down and then and getit down there and then.
So that close and then like howmany at the vehicle is it just
just that one?
Yeah, that.
One guy, and there was a coupleof others scattered around.

(46:40):
And they all got cut down.
Yeah.
And then so it was just the onein front of our our vehicle.
And then that assault broke upand then they moved back down
into the dead ground and thenout back towards the village in
the MSR.
And at some point I suppose theold fire support collapsed as
well.
And then?

(47:00):
Were they carrying a KSRAGS?
Is the.
Regular and then most, most ofthe way back down the Wadi when
we when we followed up dragMarks and wounded and and bits
and pieces of military equipmentjust ditched and and then they
basically got into a vehicle andheaded South.
We yeah, we weren't really inmuch of A position at that point

(47:21):
to, to to pursue them.
We had two, two prior onespretty much and two of our
vehicles were, were just prettymuch destroyed.
One was burned down and one was1 was inoperable or taken an RPG
straight through the the side ofthe vehicle.
Yeah.
But interestingly enough, I knowhe, he's been mentioned on the

(47:41):
podcast before.
Steve Askin, good mate of mine,he was and we did the same cycle
and that he pulled up on hismotorbike during that gunfight
and started hooking in.
And then when it had finishedand then the casualties were
sort of like starting to bestabilised and everything.
And that's starting to call inAME.
He he said to me, so we shouldprobably pursue these guys.

(48:05):
So I jumped on the back ofSteve's bike and we hear it off
after in the direction of wherethe Taliban had fled and.
Like how long is this after thatinitial not?
Too long afterwards but wedidn't catch up with him and
then another vehicle eventually.
Fucking what do you?
Mean like you should, you justjumped on the back of his dirt
bike and used to just just justpeer off into the mist looking

(48:25):
for these.
That's.
Yeah.
And obviously we spoke aboutlike, you know, I had Jamie
Penelon and he spoke about it.
That was what Steve was like.
He was just at a high charginghuman being he was that wanted
to do the job.
Yeah.
Yeah, he was a great, Yeah, hewas a great bloke.
Like, yeah, fact.
Brave as fuck.
Like he was a fucking top two.

(48:45):
Yeah, he can't speak hardlyenough.
Yeah.
And then obviously, you know, aswe know, Steve was killed in a.
Helicopter crash later on, yeah.
Fighting fires, yeah, here inNew Zealand.
Yeah.
Yeah, he's absolutely animal.
I'm sure you've got a few morestories which we can talk.
About yeah, there's no shortageof Steve's stories.
That's and they're all good.
There's no bad ones.
They're they're all goodstories.

(49:07):
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah, no, we consolidatedafter that after that contact.
And then, yeah, the patroldidn't finish.
The other thing we kept, we gota couple of vehicles falling out
to us and sort of salvage whatwe could of some of the of one
of the vehicles, one of them wasjust gone.
And then interesting thing aboutMark 19 MO when it cooks off, it
doesn't go too far.

(49:29):
Like they were just like soundslike popcorn going off.
And then all around the vehiclethere was just probably about 3
or 400 gold tops.
And then I think we picked themall up and then just put them
into a pile and then then blewthe whole lot.
But yeah, so yeah, keeppatrolling.
And I think from memory, fuck,did we hit SI?
Think we headed South?

(49:50):
Look, just quickly, hey, was itfor you?
You know, again, this is yourfirst contact, first engagement.
Obviously you've had to takelife.
You know how it like you, youguys just obviously just regroup
Yeah.
And it's it's just the mindsetto carry on like you have to
carry.
Yeah, you can't go back to thebase and cry, but.
No, no, no.
Still had another couple of,well, I think we had another
couple of weeks to go and thatnow it was, it was well, yeah,

(50:13):
well.
Fuck, I don't know.
And little did you know, therewas AVC.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
I mean, you know, it was Yeah.
I don't know if you, I don'tknow if you dwell on it too
much.
You just there's yeah.
It wasn't like you could headback to basin sort of re think
about it too much or you justkeep keep doing the crack on

(50:33):
with the cracked on.
Yeah.
Because you're already in.
You haven't even completecompleted the mission yet, so
you're still.
Going to No, we still have.
Carried.
Did you obviously have the twoprior ones?
One of them was a trooper.
Nah.
No.
Both troopers, vehiclecommanders, man.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
When you said they brought outnew vehicles, did they bring out
new?
I don't think it did, you justrun too less.

(50:55):
Yeah, no, we just buddy.
Yep, we just buddy.
I think we just loaded acrossand then some of those trucks
may and may not have been fullymanned.
Like yeah, I'm not too sure.
And how did those guys go?
Obviously the prior one this is.
Yep.
No, they both.
Yeah, they both were.
Covered.
Yep, Yep, gunshots.
One was and and the other guywas RPG freak.

(51:17):
Yep, he was.
Yeah, right.
So you carry on with that andhow long is this in on that
deployment, that five monthdeployment?
Oh, I think we're probably abouta month and a half, maybe two
months in.
And how was the rest of thatdeployment then?
Yeah, quiet.
So it's usually been one massiveengagement and it's just a quiet
period.

(51:37):
Yeah, then it went pretty quietagain and there was like, you
know, you, you know what it'slike when you're driving through
there.
Sometimes there'll be shotsfired here and there, but
nothing, nothing like that.
So that was the stand out sortof point there and and the trip
so.
And just moving forward likewhen do, when does Willy, when
does that all start ramping up?
I forgot.
The award.

(51:59):
Yeah, like when does it all getI?
Think it was, I think it was acouple of years later.
Yeah, they, yeah, they theysworded.
Yeah, they got that sworded out.
Was it O6 or O7?
I can't remember.
Yeah, and it's pretty wild thatyou literally witnessed it with
your own eyes when you're likehim running past, just covering
the blood.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah, you did a great job.

(52:20):
Yeah, fire.
And just on that enemy force,how big were they?
They seemed to think it wasbetween 18 and 18 and 20.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Yeah.
And heavily armed.
Yep.
And how many were killed in thatengagement?
Fuck, I couldn't tell.
You maybe 10/11/12.
No, no, it wasn't that many.
Wasn't it?
Wasn't it?
Wasn't that many.
Most of them around yourvehicle.

(52:40):
No, yeah, there was, there wasvery few, there was very few
confirmed.
It's wild how close they got,yeah.
That's yeah, I know.
Yeah.
Which like, yeah, fuck.
And it was only by chance.
Yeah.
Really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
Just.
There we actually saw them likewe were told, hey, they're down
there.
And then from one of the boysthat was already that had come
up with with Willie and then.
Yeah, Amen.

(53:03):
And you had no option to grabyour rifle.
Because it's not there givenit's already given to him, mate.
Yeah.
So you've got 350.
Yeah mate, absolutely wildbecause that that could have
turned bad quickly.
I think yeah, once, yeah, likeit, Yeah, once.
If they'd gotten into that sortof and, and taken one of those
not taken like, you know, takenover one of those vehicles and
then they were inside yourharbour, yeah.

(53:24):
Mate, moving forward 2004 sothat trip ends five months, you
head back to New Zealand mate,how is it now?
You know how it is coming backfrom Timor, You know, we look
down the track now, you know alot of guys have had issues with
deploying etcetera, especiallylosing their mates etcetera.

(53:46):
How'd you go assimilating backinto, I guess you know, going to
the the local convenience storeand.
Yeah, Yep.
You know, just.
Just silly life.
Yeah, it's definitely, Yeah, Ireckon it's definitely
something.
You get better at it the moreyou do it.
And I think a big one, you know,looking back is, and the, the

(54:07):
easiest way to describe it islike when you're overseas and
you're on deployment and itdoesn't matter if you're
infantry or, or special forcesor whatever you're doing, it
wouldn't matter.
I would imagine on a, on a boator, or wherever that you're
with, all of these things arereal important.
You know, like for, for infantryguys and for special forces,

(54:29):
it's, you know, you know, you'rebriefed up or you're all over
your mission, You know, are you,is your gear sorted?
Are you sorted?
You know, you've, are you fitenough to do the job?
Are you maintaining that?
And then, you know, whateverspecialist skills you've got
that you bring to that, whetherit's an infantry section or
whether it's a special forcesteam, are you all over those
skills?
You know, are you given how todo to hand?
And all of those things areconstant and you get up in the

(54:50):
morning and those are the thingsyou do.
And the things you don't do islike pay the bills, mow the
lawn, go and pick up thegroceries, shit like that.
So they're not important.
And then suddenly within, youknow, 24 hours of or less,
you're back home and all ofthose things that suddenly were,
that were really important forsix months aren't important

(55:11):
anymore because you're home andyour team's not there and the
job's not on at the moment.
And then all those things thatweren't important suddenly are.
And I reckon that that catches alot of people out because, you
know, you just want to, when youcome home, you just want to
probably catch up with the boysand talk about something.
And then, but there's all theseother jobs and responsibilities
that you've got for your home.
And I think the more you do itand the more trips you have

(55:35):
away, then you get better atthat.
Of course you get used to.
You get.
Used to it.
You go hang on back now.
So I gotta put that shit asideand now I'm gonna put this shit
up.
But looking in as a civilian,you know they're looking and go
fuck these guys.
Like, how can you stay at thetop?
And we've seen it with the, youknow, SSR or two commando where
they're doing back to backrotations and, you know, 24

(55:56):
hours you're getting into agunfight at the Taliban.
Next 24 hours you're back inCoogee Bay Hotel sinking beers
and getting pissed off with thenightclub bouncer.
You know what?
I.
Mean Oh no, it's yeah like it'sa it's a hard thing to it's a
hard thing to bounce, bouncebetween and and the thing with
those short, you know those backto back trips when you're back

(56:18):
for a short period of time, youdon't really like reintegrate
back into you can't into societybecause you're always you're
going into work and you'retraining up for the next gig.
So you get briefed on the nextjobs.
You're looking at the news, youknow you're doing.
You're always trying to keepkeep up with whatever events are
happening on that on thatdeployment that the boys are

(56:39):
overdoing.
And so you don't really have anytime to to seek and press,
decompress and then come back.
So, you know, and actually justsit down and unwind and you
know, and then there's alwayssomething to do.
And even if it's not important,like a fucking promotion course
or something, oh, you've got togo and do this and like.
What do I really have to dothat?
I mean that and they're all,they're all words up.

(57:00):
But I think what I think thatwar, though, was quite unique in
that sense where it just keptgoing on and on and on.
And there was no real, like, noone, no one really could tell us
what victory was going to looklike.
Yeah.
Or, or how it was going to endor how it was going to wind
down.
Like, it was just like, oh,we're going back and doing it
again, aren't we?
You know, So yeah, another trip,another trip after that.

(57:21):
Yeah.
And it's funny because we justlook moving forward again,
you're moving to the SSR andthen there's deployment,
Deployment.
And there's no time to let offsteam back in Australia when
you're in the SSR.
So you got to let off steam.
Yeah, and the fat lady's arms,you know what I mean?
Yeah, well, that's true.
Yeah, keep.
That we that turns into your ownlittle world of, you know,

(57:42):
that's that's our bar and that'skind of like being it yeah, you
know, the colours are like.
Yeah, well, that's it.
And then the and the fact thatwe had like when we did that
trip in O four, we had a boozer.
Yeah, we had a bar and we sharedthe base with the Seal team that
were there and that with thatcoming for beers and you know,
and everybody, it wasn't asecret thing.

(58:02):
It was literally out the frontof our compound and it was under
some cabinets and there was abar there.
And I think it's needed.
I think one point, yourdecompression, I think one
point, Al Mundef was over thereand he gave an award to one of
our terps for helping out inthat battle.
So it wasn't like it was likesome hushed up thing that you
needed to keep away.

(58:23):
I mean just.
For the regular Army, can't dothat.
Yeah, well.
Yeah, I don't me personally, Idon't understand the the fear of
alcohol.
I've always thought that alcoholon a deployment is like that
Canary in the mine shaft.
If you look at one of those boysover there and he's absolutely
just tying one on at everyopportunity he's got.
There's probably something thatyou need to talk to him about me

(58:44):
or he probably needs, you know,he needs support.
Yeah.
And without that, then you know,well, how do blokes, how do
blokes wind down and decompressand coming back after a job and
nothing matter what happens onthat job?
It's not a normal job.
But having a beer at the end ofthe day is normal.
And that's a good way to justget out, man.
That's a good way to processsome shit.

(59:04):
I always thought anyway, youknow, you don't need to destroy
yourself, nor should you whenyou're overseas, but you should
be able to have a beer at theend of the day.
You're an adult too.
Yeah, like you know what I mean?
Yeah, I like, I think so.
Now, 2005, I guess this iswhere, you know, you get a bit
of a team trip out to West andthis is where you meet some cool
dudes.

(59:25):
Yep.
And you're like, you know what,Australia's better.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, I did, yeah.
Got a trip out to CampbellBarracks and probably like the
winter of of 2005, I think.
And we were over there doinglike ACT exercise, sort of
symposium sort of thing.
There's a whole lot of othercountries that were supposed to
turn up and bring a team to likedo a lot of combined training

(59:48):
and stuff, but we were the onlyother team that that actually
turned up the risk to sendofficers and shit.
So anyway, yeah, we turned up.
It was, I think it was 3squadron that was there at the
time and, and say sort of tookus under their wing and we sort
of, and then, but I wasimpressed man with that base.
Like there was cool as fuck.
Like, oh, look at these guyslive right next to the beach.

(01:00:08):
I mean, like South Auckland, youknow, I know some people like
South Auckland, but there'sstray dogs eating your rubbish
in straight in South Auckland.
We don't have wheelie bins backthen and they were just pulling
those rubbish bags open.
Like, I didn't have that inCottesloe.
I'm just saying.
And I was impressed, yeah.
And then, Yep.
So you know, you made a coupleof polarising figures.

(01:00:30):
Yep, that has.
Entered the news in the last fewyears?
Yep.
Bumped into the few of the theold and bold that well, we're
the old and bold become the oldand bold and three squadron and
then bumped into Bannon andtalked to him.
Surely he actually taught me howto make a a breaching charge
that I took back to New Zealandand then and that wasn't, Yep,
that was fucking cool.
And then, yeah, good, good tripover there with those boys.

(01:00:54):
We didn't steal that much stuff,like a little sold a little bit
of stuff, because that's whatKiwis do when they deploy
somewhere where there and otherarmies got more money than them.
But yeah, came home, man.
And yeah, just, yeah, just keepchipping away.
But yeah, definitely impressedwith with Australia, man, when I
was when I was over there, I waslike, oh man, it's.

(01:01:14):
Did it plant the seed?
Did it was it?
Was there thoughts at that stageor was it?
Yeah, Yeah, it was.
Yeah, that.
Just because there's no, yeah,no dogs rummaging.
Yeah, no dogs rummaging morerubbish.
And then and then the beach wasreal nice.
Like I can't, can't go wrongwith Cottesloe Beach.
And then, yeah, no, it did.
It's like it did plant a bit ofa seed and then came back and
but we'd just come off that tripin O four and then we had we're

(01:01:38):
on team in O 5.
So that's pretty standard.
And then we thought, oh, youknow, following year we'll
probably be back there.
So that was sort of at the frontof your mind.
But but the unit, the Kiwis atthe time went to a bit of a
quiet period.
Our the other squadron had atrip that year.
We were in 2005, but then afterthat from sort of 678 and

(01:01:58):
probably maybe, yeah, it was along time between drinks for for
the Kiwis.
Oh, was it there?
Yeah.
And for the SAS, Yep.
Because the regular Army,obviously they deployed.
Yeah, they did they, yeah, theydid.
The Army and private.
And private stuff up there withthe reconstruction team.

(01:02:19):
But yeah, it was a little bitquiet for the for the Kiwis SAS
for a bit.
Why that don't I?
Yep.
Because this is where, you know,I guess for Australian special
forces, this is where itstarted.
Yeah, it started to wind up.
It started.
To wind up yeah, in the regulararmy as well.
Yeah, 2000 and six 2007 yeahreally got busy and and onwards
but so yeah, sort of made ADwhen there was no trips at the

(01:02:41):
start of 2007 so end of 2006 wasall right this is it on me.
They're gonna head over and give22 SAS a crack.
And then I had a good mate ofmine and had come back from
ANZAC exchange from Perth and hesaid well fuck, why don't we
just, he goes, I'll, I'llprobably head back to Australia.
And I was like, well yeah, wecould give Australia a go.
So we contacted them.

(01:03:04):
Through we did just make a phonecall.
Yeah, contacted them.
Well, pretty much because he'dcome back from exchange and,
and, and he said, well, we'lljust, I'll just reach out to him
and see what the selection datesare and then come back to us a
little later on.
And they said, hey, well, thisis the deal.
They'll, they'll do electoraltransfer, you can come over, you
won't have to do selection, butyou'll do part of the Rio and

(01:03:26):
then they'll send you to asquadron.
And then, and then we startedthat paperwork process and we
had to sort of keep a sort oflike on the down low for a bit
because we didn't want anyoneraining on our parade.
But yeah, now we did all thepaperwork seen all across.
And then, yeah, got theelectoral transfer signed off.
And then, yeah.
So start of 2008 I got out ofthe New Zealand Army for one day
and I joined the Australian Armythe day after.

(01:03:48):
Yeah, right now just quicklyback, we spoke about Willie
before he gets his VC.
What, 2000 and six 2007?
Yeah, I think so.
How's that, mate?
Like, yeah, to to be, to be apart of it.
Yeah, it was like, it's yeah, itwas.
And it was real.
It was quite hush hush.
Like when he got us a like noone, no one knew about it.
They did a great job keeping itunder wraps because no one had a
fucking clue.

(01:04:09):
And then all of a sudden, like,oh, Yep, he's been awarded the
VC and it's like, oh fuck yeah.
And yeah, so yeah, got a handthere or Ki Kiwis or OPSEC
there.
As you said, made 2008 move intothe Australian SASR made.
How was that and which squadronto move into?
So we're down to initially wewere just sent down to OSS like

(01:04:33):
the the training squadron thereand then while we did a stack of
courses and while they marriedeverything up.
And then so we sort of finishedoff the back end of the TPC and
we were doing a bit of that.
And then what's TPCS?
Target prosecution continuum,Yep.
Fancy word for CDB course.
Yep.

(01:04:56):
And then so finished all thatand then got all that stuff
ticked off.
And then and then it was we hadto all do it, an assertion
course.
Obviously no mountain troop inthe Aussie essays.
So so I ended up doing the AMFIBcourse.
I was already freefall quo backin the with the Kiwi says,

(01:05:16):
although didn't have I'd donethe course.
I hadn't really done that manyjumps afterwards, man.
So I was sort of just I waspretty junior that sort of shit.
But yeah, I did the assaultswimmers course and then ended
up end up going to E troop andtwo squadron and then Yep.
And you went there?
How did you find a lot of thetraining and I guess SO.

(01:05:37):
PS Are they?
Were they similar or were?
They, a lot of, it's realsimilar, Yeah, a lot of it's
real similar.
They the, the layout of, ofCampbell Barracks and the budget
was something I probably noticeda lot.
Like you can literally walk outof the hanger and then go to go

(01:05:58):
to a range and you can run thereon foot if you want to, and
you'll be there in a fewminutes.
Everything's right there andthen and I suppose the big thing
with that is like you haven'tgot any of this travelling time
to to go to venues to train.
It's all just right there.
And I think the amount of hoursthat you extra hours that you
can train in the day becauseeverything's so close.

(01:06:19):
Ammo is just there, the rangesare just there.
You know, the beach is justthere.
You know, everything's like PSair base is just on the other
side and that's everything'slike you could get.
I felt like there you couldjust, you could really just
drill down into that trainingand you could just, yeah, you
could really get sharp, yeah.
And you said there was a coupleof other guys that come with

(01:06:40):
you.
Yep.
So two, yeah, two other guysthat one of the guys that had
done the ANSI exchangedpreviously, he went, he went to
1 Squadron and then another goodmate of mine that I'd actually
been in the battalion with since1998 and en Recon together.
And we did selection togetherand he come, he come as well.
So and he was, he went to threesquad, yeah.

(01:07:01):
You're right.
So they kept us all out indifferent squadrons so we
wouldn't form some sort of likelike a little collective thieves
Guild or something.
And SASR, at this stage you'vedone multiple deployments to
Afghanistan.
Was there any talk of deploymentcoming up for you?
Yeah.
Well, so at that point thetroops were ongoing.

(01:07:23):
So there was a squadron oversea,you know there was the sorry a
troop overseas when when we weredoing that initial training and
then our our insertion coursetraining.
I think that that cleared Ithink the back end O 8.
Obviously they had the, they hada lot of guys injured from the
ID strike that took SeanMcCarthy's life.

(01:07:46):
And I think they flew a fewreinforcement guys, junior guys
over there to to replace theblokes that have been injured on
that or it was.
And then they had the engagementwith when Mark went his VC and
then there was a lot of woundedthere.
So there was other guys goingover the backfill fulfil those
blokes as well from memory.
And then so, yeah, there wasliterally no question about a

(01:08:07):
trip because you knew that.
Oh well, we were going at thestart of next the start of 2009.
Yeah, right.
And what's the training entailof moving into a again, that
you're in a different army thistime?
Yeah, yeah.
Yep.
So yeah, it was always quite.
Yeah, it was quite.
It was different, man.
They just, they had a like the,you know, the hit, the hit the

(01:08:30):
sort of senior leadership in thesquadrons, they knew what they
needed to do to get their boysup to speed.
So they get hit, hit thosedeployments running and yeah,
there was very little timewasted and like, you know, long
field exercises or any of thatsort of shit.
It was like, this is what we'redoing.
We're concentrated onparachuting a lot because we,
look, we were looking to usethat over there.

(01:08:52):
And yeah, just a lot of a lot ofrange work, plenty of time I've
been doing just going throughsome of the urban facilities and
stuff, all the breaching stuffand all of that.
So it was, yeah, it was, it was.
I reckon it felt like it was areal slick process.
You know when you turned upthere from and then the you did
notice the budget differencefrom moving from the Kiwis to

(01:09:12):
the Aussies, man, Yeah, like,yeah.
And the like over the years, theevolution of training as well,
because there's, you know, welook at that 2008 period, This
is where Afghans startedtransitioning to more ID, you
know, slowly gravitating towardsthat.
And obviously that's the reasonwhy, you know, the SF moved into
that Hilo born operation side ofthings.

(01:09:35):
You finish this pre deploymentand then you get your first trip
over to Afghanistan with theAussie SASR mate.
How was how was this?
Yeah, it was good.
It was good.
Yeah, it was good.
Yeah, it was good trip like the09 trip.
And I enjoyed that trip, man.
It was great.
Yeah, yeah, we were busy andthen just sort of started to

(01:09:56):
really, yeah, So yeah, likethat, that sort of that era of
the old, you know, the LRPVS outon patrol and that had sort of
wound up and then it was movingtowards more of the more the
targeting the JPLS and stuff.
So that was the focus and thenwe were just sort of moving into

(01:10:19):
that O9.
We'll probably like big barn andstealing like Rotary wing a bit.
I mean, I think that Brits flewus and a couple of different
platforms, the Chinooks and theold Sea Kings on some stuff.
And then we'd sort of get a bitof the Aussies did fly us on a
few jobs.
The Aussies, Chinooks moved us abit.
And then, but towards the laterstage of that trip, that's when

(01:10:42):
the US turned up with the combataviation, Combat Aviation
Brigade and TK.
And then that was that wasprobably a bit of a game changer
when those guys, when those guysturned up, because now you had
four Black Hawks and you had twoApaches they escort.
Run me through the first time,you know, your first JPL, you
know this is something youprobably didn't do in the NZSAS.
No, no.

(01:11:03):
So this is the first time, youknow, landing in.
Yeah, yeah, we're also.
Knocking over a target.
Yeah.
So the first, the first one thatthe squadron got and it it took
it took a decent amount of timeand, and a couple of false
starts to actually get it tocome off.
I mean, I think we've moved outand this is all vehicle.
This is all vehicle born in thein that initial stage because
there was no helos there.

(01:11:28):
And then, yeah, the first onewas probably in the Mirrenbad
Valley.
And then yeah, we got, we gotthat guy depth charger didn't
have a lot to do with it.
We were sort of holding back ourteam was tasked with like some
the security of the the offsetVDOP while while a couple of
teams moved in on that and theyand they prosecuted that and it

(01:11:50):
was a success.
And yeah, I think that gaveeveryone the confidence that it
could be done.
And and they used some like theyused some technical means there
and and then achieved it.
So that was, yeah, it was, itwas pretty good.
It was and majority of this isall by night.
That one was yeah, yeah, yeah,yeah.
Back then.
Yeah, back.
Before it changed.

(01:12:11):
Yeah.
Back then everything was wasnight.
That's not to say we didn't dostuff during the day, but if, if
it was generally if you weretargeting an HVI or something,
it was at night.
You were doing that thing atnight.
Yeah.
And he said this was quite ahigh tempo deployment, a lot of
engagements with the enemy.
Yep, yeah.
Yeah, we're busy enough.

(01:12:32):
Yep.
There was always just a steady,Yeah, there was a steady, there
was a steady amount of jobs.
I mean, and you know what, we,we had our fair share of dry
holes as well.
You know, still what I think wereally lacked over there and it
didn't really get, it didn'treally improve that much was
our, our we didn't have enoughISR like we needed to do to do
that sort of job effectively.

(01:12:55):
You need layers of ISR, not justone that you might get tomorrow.
And it's, you know, after acertain job that it's been doing
somewhere else that's come andcome and give you a hand.
You need it dedicated and youneed it to be yours, really.
I reckon that's why that's whatmakes the US guy so good at it.
They've just everything there,you know, and it's just like,
and it's, they've got backups onbackup and yeah, that's how they

(01:13:18):
get it done.
SF in general, I think 2commander have lost a couple of
guys at that stage.
I think the regular army lostone or two guys as well.
Yep, you know, are you guyscopying any casualties or?
Not for that, no, not for that,not for the O Nine trip, no.
We're pretty fortunate there.
I know.

(01:13:39):
I remember a couple of the,there was, there was one of the
engineers, I can't remember hisname.
He was, he was Kia at the startof that trip.
And then there was anotherinfantry bloke, Hopkins.
Good.
Was it Hopkins?
Matthew Hopkins.
Matthew Hopkins, just give me aSEC.
I'll just add a bit of respect.

(01:14:00):
Let's give me a second.
Sorry, listeners, we will justquickly just, I do this every
time too.
I just want to make sure, youknow, just give them the
respects that they're owed whatyou were talking. 09.

(01:14:20):
That's right, 09.
So obviously Greg Sherman, oneof my good friends, 4th of
January 2009.
And then Matthew Hopkins, 21year old from the 7th Battalion.
Yeah, that's 16th March 2009.
Yeah, right at the start, rightat the start of the trip.
Yeah, does it with with thosedeaths, do they give, you know,

(01:14:41):
a bit of fuel to the fire or,you know, what is it like a, you
know what I mean?
Like just fuck these prickslike.
Yeah.
It's got to be because thisthat's at that stage, just 99
deaths.
Yep, it's a growing list.
Yeah, yeah, no.
And you certainly feel like,yeah, whenever, whenever they

(01:15:03):
occurred me and you're likeback.
Yeah, we need to, you know, isthere something more we could be
doing out there to bloody, youknow, to try and target that,
you know, that group that's, youknow, that's doing that.
I mean, there's always going tobe the odd angry shot, isn't it,
man, that gets blokes.
But yeah, you certainly want totry and be out there having an
effect and you can't do thatback at the FOB, yeah.
And then obviously a couple ofdays later, the Bret's Hill,

(01:15:23):
yeah, yeah, yeah.
And I think who was speakingabout that?
Scotty Mack, he's got the nineline.
He actually wrote the online forBret's Hill, which I'm going to
try and get in the warm whilewhen we get hands on it.
I know one of the one of thesolar guys that was with us on

(01:15:45):
that deployment was obviouslyreal good mates with him and he
was out on on a job with us andnot it wouldn't have been long,
long after he was, he was Kiaand we rolled over an ID in the
in the Bushmaster and did Sonysort of half went off and it had
blown off a bit of the the backof the beam, but no real damage.

(01:16:09):
But there was a crater in theground.
And I always remember watchingthis engineer go like get out
and he had a dart in his mouthand he walked up to this crater
and he's just looking into thecrater.
And then he gets on his guts andhe's just scooping around with
his with his product and he justpulls out this half detonated ID

(01:16:29):
and he shakes the dirt off.
It still got the dart in hismouth.
And then he carts it back andhe, you know, he's an expert
man.
He knows it's.
He's.
Just looking at it going, yeah,this thing's no no longer a
threat to me.
Carter back puts it in one ofthe bins in the in his
Bushmaster, and he takes it backas a learning tool for some of
the junior engineers and histeam.
And I always remember that man,because we're watching this guy

(01:16:50):
walk up there and like, man,look at that fucking dude.
That's ballsy.
Yeah, yeah.
And again, I've had a lot of theI double arrow soul dudes on a
couple of them like Hemo.
They they those guys are nuts.
They how often did you guys usea lot of those solo guys?
They they, yeah, they came outwith us like every if we were
vehicle mounted, they werealways there.

(01:17:12):
And then if the only time wherethey started, we started to try
to have to thin them out as ifwe were restricted with lift in
the Hilo.
But they were, yeah, they were,they were always there.
There's only a handful of jobswhere where we wouldn't bring
them out.
Yep.
And what was the the area ofoperations for you guys?

(01:17:35):
For us, mainly for that trip,we'd be all out, Kazu's gone all
up towards Gizab, the bowl,obviously Bellucci and then
Chora and then I'm trying tothink where else didn't go.
Didn't go South too much on that09 so they.
Did get up to Gizab from thatone.

(01:17:57):
Up that.
Yeah, up that way.
Yeah, little did you know.
Yeah, but I'd actually beenthere with the Kiwis and oh, did
you know 04?
Yeah, we're driven across quiteyeah.
Oh, you crickets.
Yeah, crickets.
Yeah, we did a we did an OP taskup looking into Giza.
So we walked in, I think the160th guys flew us in there.

(01:18:18):
Night stalkers.
Yeah, in an O4 and we did a 2/2day, sort of two night walk in
and set up this OP looking downinto an area in vicinity.
The geezer.
Geezer.
Yeah.
And man, it's one of the hardestfucking walks I've done in my
life.
I think I had some fuckingridiculous amount of water in my

(01:18:38):
pack because it was like themiddle of the, you know, it was
the middle of the year.
It was hot as fuck.
Yeah.
You're right made to end howlong is this deployment?
A shorter 1, so 4 1/2 months orfour months.
Yep.
And so you finished thatdeployment, made 2009 back to
Perth again.

(01:19:00):
How did you go get back into theswing of being back in Perth?
Because Perth is it's a reallyrelaxed place.
Like it's just, yeah, it's like,it's like mountain time over
there, out there.
Yeah, people just just.
Long Yeah, I locked it overthere.
And yeah, I mean, it's a prettyspecial place there, right by
the beach in the in the GoldenTriangle.
What they're talking?
About Are you married at thisstage?

(01:19:20):
Yep, Yep, marriage.
Yep, Shannon's left the.
Yeah, we came.
Yeah.
So he.
Left the New Zealand DefenceForce.
Yep, she, she left the, the NewZealand Defence Force quite a
bit before we packed up andmoved to moved to Australia.
And I always remember moving toAustralia because we, we lived
in the army housing in NewZealand and they're old chip

(01:19:41):
boxes and they're damp asfucked.
They're full of mould and Ithink they were made in the 50s
or something.
And then we moved to Australiaand we had this lady from DHA
come out and, and she's shown usaround the the patch and and
Swanbourne and the 1st house wewalked into, my wife comes out
and goes, there's an en Swedenthere.
We're taking it because we'dnever seen an en Sweden an army

(01:20:03):
as before.
And then and then, yeah.
So yeah, we'd we'd moved inthere and then yeah, did that
own on trip and then there, thenback.
And then I think we'd already wewe handed over.
I think in in O 9 we handed overa three squadron I'm pretty sure
and then we come back and thenwe knew we were going back there

(01:20:26):
at the start of 2010 so that ithad already been been ironed
out.
In 2010, you know reading everybio and obviously spend the last
couple days with you talkingabout it and turns out to be one
of your craziest deployments.
Yep.
Yeah, yeah, definitely.
Yeah, yeah.
Definitely and obviously thebirth of your son.
Yeah.
So your first son?

(01:20:46):
Yeah, Yep.
So Yep, first, first child onthe way, found that out in O 9
and then and then Yep.
And then back back overseas inthe start of 2010.
And did the, I guess again, likewe spoke about early with Timor,
was there a different, you know,method of, you know, operation?

(01:21:11):
Did it, did it change much?
Yeah, so.
I don't, I don't know whenexactly we got, we got told, but
at some point between 09 and 10,the, the ability to conduct
night raids got harder and gotbecome harder and harder and
there was more restrictionsplaced on it.
And I from memory, it was anagreement between the

(01:21:33):
government, the Afghangovernment and the, and the
Aussie government that weweren't really allowed to raid
at night unless there was likean extreme circumstances or
there had to be like a highlevel of justification to be
able to conduct a, a raid by, bynight.
And you know, the othercoalition partners that were

(01:21:55):
conducting the same operationsas us, they obviously.
The US and British.
Yeah, the US and Brits, theydidn't do that.
Like they obviously, I don'tknow if they just said no, no, I
think they may have just said noand just continue to do it, to
do it or Yeah, I don't.
Yeah, I don't know what whatdiscussions were held there, but
yes, when we came, when we cameback there in, in 2010, most of

(01:22:17):
our almost all of our jobs.
Were and just explain to thelistener how that shapes and
changes your operation or whatyou're doing.
Yeah.
So if, if we were like, if yougo back a year and then if
you've got approval to conducta, you know, to target a
compound of interest to order tokill, capture a JAJPL target,

(01:22:40):
then you know, you would think,you know, the, the senior, the
senior guys in the troop wouldgo away.
And that, that plan, that planand the main emphasis on that
plan was keeping that your, yourFe, your troops move in there as
clandestine as possible and thensetting up a cordon around that,
that compound of interest andthen conducting, then conducting

(01:23:03):
that, that mission.
Then the advantage that if youhave of doing it in the middle
of the night is pretty obvious.
We've got technologicaladvantage, thermal, the training
and, and, and, and our MVGS andour systems to follow them.
And, you know, you walk into anarea in the night and everyone
who's walked any distance inMVGS will know you're sitting

(01:23:26):
there with, and you can gainsituational awareness and
pattern of life by simplyobserving that area as you're
walking through it.
You're not disturbing anyonebecause you're being quiet and
you know, you've reducedeverything down in terms of
your, your rates of movement andeverything's slow and
methodical.
And you can watch a person outin the field for, you know, 5-10

(01:23:47):
minutes.
And is that guy a threat?
Well, no, he's not.
He's just sorting the water outin that field or he's moving
from there to there, but hecan't see us.
And that's not suspiciousbehaviour.
So then, you know, and then youdisregard and you can,
everything's slow andeverything's methodical and you
own the night and, and then youtake that same compound and then
you hit it by day with fourhelos and then you're audible at

(01:24:10):
4 minutes.
So you've got 4 minutes, whichis a long time.
You've got 4 minutes that thosepeople in that area that you're
trying to target, they, theyknow something's coming.
They can hear that those heloscoming up the valley or coming
over the mountain or whatever.
And I mean, and that's best casescenario because most of the
time there was a spotter networkbackup base that alerted them
when 4 Black Hawks and twoApaches left and what direction

(01:24:34):
they were going.
And so they probably hadsometimes up to 40 minutes
notice that someone waspotentially coming and they
could take measures. 1st atnight they can't see where their
heroes are flying.
They don't.
The heroes don't fly in and ontoonto that compound at night
because that's not how you doit.
You walk in, drop in short,Yeah.
And yeah, so that same, thatsame compound of interest, you

(01:24:58):
suddenly you've got seconds todecide, you know, is that person
running for their lives or arethey running for, to lift a, to
lift a weapon or something likethat.
And suddenly now you're, you'vegot, you've lost all and you've
lost all initiative in there.
You're trying to trying to gainit back.
And, and the success that we hadwas, would have been far greater

(01:25:18):
if we continued to, to work atnight.
Of course we had.
We would have lost less, lessguys.
That's.
That's it.
Yep.
And then we would have inflictedless casualties and we would
have been more surgical becausethe our, our, the advantage we
have with our training andtechnology meant that we could
be, we could have been moreprecise.
Yeah.

(01:25:40):
That's that's the biggest thing.
As you said, you would havereceived less casualties and
obviously inflicted less damage.
Yeah, because it's concentratedat night, because again, you're
literally landing 500 metresout, stomping in, hitting that
one target in that one compound,that one koala, that's it.
Whereas they, they said there'sgoing to be a network, you've

(01:26:02):
they've had a 40 minute warningby the time you get out there,
there's going to be peoplerunning and scattering.
And again, by that stage youdon't know who's who and that's
correct.
It changes everything.
So just quickly on it, like it,I've spoken about it again on
multiple of the podcast and itdoes piss me off because like,
why did the Australiangovernment know who's
responsible?
Like who is responsible withsaying, Oh yeah, no, we OK, it

(01:26:23):
sounds great.
That's a great idea.
Yeah.
Whereas you know, the US likefuck off, the British, like fuck
off.
Yeah, that should have been ourresponse.
Yeah.
From whether if it's the chiefof the defence for us or one of
our gutless prime ministers thatwe've had over the last fucking
forever.
Yeah, yeah, 100%.

(01:26:43):
Man, they need to figure thisshit out because this, that
stuff should be investigatedbecause that led to further
action down the track.
Yeah, Yeah, exactly.
You don't.
Yeah, I don't.
Yeah.
I never understood why you wouldwhy you would handicap or hobble
your, you know, your guys goingout there to do those high risk,
those high risk missions withsomething like that man that

(01:27:06):
serves that serves no purpose.
Man, I I never understood.
And the Australian Defence Forcebeen the most risk averse
Defence Force, yeah, one of themin the world.
You wouldn't.
You wouldn't think they'd signup to it.
No, but no.
Exactly right.
Yeah, you're like, no.
Yeah, no, you do, right.
Mate, it's absolutely crazy.
Who was like we spoke about theJ Pell stuff before, Who

(01:27:29):
designates that stuff?
Like where does that?
Where does that come from?
Like is it a, you know, ACOthing or is it a NATO thing?
Right.
You know, we're talking NATOand.
Yeah, goes right to the top.
Yeah, that's and it's like amulti force because it's
obviously the US they prettymuch give his JPL for the US

(01:27:50):
here's the JPL for or is it justfor those area of operations
Well.
No, because you could if ifsomeone, if one of those
individuals came into your areaof operations and he may not
necessarily be on your list, buthe would still, you could still

(01:28:10):
go out and prosecute thattarget.
You can still do that.
Yeah.
And then other like other F ES,like whether it was the Brits or
the US guys would often, youknow, they would come, you know,
if there, if, if that personthat they were after was in, in
your AO, they would come andthey would hit you up and
gotcha, gotcha.
Do you want to do this jointly?
And sometimes we did that and.

(01:28:32):
But these were constructed atthe top.
Yeah.
They were like, I'm talking top,top like 2 stars, three stars, 4
stars, 5 stars.
Yeah, right there on in theircomfy air conditioned rooms.
Yeah.
Well, that's all offices.
Yeah, it's a whole lot of otheragencies come together.
Yeah.
And then they put that.
Yeah, it's not.
Just one philtres down.
Yep.
And then it's just, yeah, thisis spread.

(01:28:53):
Out to the different just yeah,different.
I just want to clarify thatbecause, you know, this is where
we've fallen short with thisside crap.
You know there well.
People seem to think that it wassomething that was.
You're just made up by a teamleader.
No, it's not.
It's fucking.
It's some nerd up the top.
Yep, some fat general likegiving the order again, this is

(01:29:13):
what you guys are doing, justfollowing the orders.
And that's what you have to doin the military.
Yeah, right.
So we talk about these nightraids.
They start transitioning intothis day raid and again, there's
2010.
This is where it this is whereyou make your money and your
money, I should say.
And I remember we, a handful ofus went over as a bit of an

(01:29:36):
advance party in 2010 to just tosort everything out sometimes,
Yeah, you know, I don'tsometimes those, those lines,
man, like the Effie Alpha andEffie Bravo lines and then the
other neighbours lines and someof the stable areas and that
where we kept all our vehicles,some of them got rat fucked over
the Christmas period.
Man, I don't know.

(01:29:58):
I'm not pointing fingers atanyone in particular who did it.
I don't know, I don't care.
But sometimes you turn up there,man.
It's like, man, this fuckingplace looks like a fucking tip.
So we went over there early andwe got did a bit of a clean up,
got some stuff ready and thenand then so we did that.
So I was over there probably onthe tail end of winter.
So maybe it could have been lateJan, early Feb.

(01:30:19):
So I was over there andinterestingly enough, because of
the one of the we've been, we'vebeen looking at, we've been
looking at an alternate rifleaside from the M4 because we
were going into daylightoperations.
We're trying to get our hands onthe H and K417 and some of them
were coming in, but not many ofthem.

(01:30:41):
And I think the, the Navy Sealsgave us or lent us a whole lot
of Eprs, the, the mods, the Mark90.
Oh, sorry, Mark 90.
Fuck Mark 1414.
Yeah.
And yes, I grabbed one of them,man, mainly because they look

(01:31:02):
cool.
And yeah, I wanted like A762rifle battle.
Rifle.
And this is like an open bolt,yeah.
Yeah, yeah, it's badass, man.
It's like, yeah, it's likedriving AH key holding around.
It's a modern day M1.
Yeah, it's just then you justit's proper gangster gun and.
Calibre is it?
762 Yep Yep just a big twentyround magazine and then open

(01:31:25):
bolt so you can see the actionworking and people some people
hated them.
I personally liked it.
I thought it was a great, greatrifle, but.
Like that with any rifle, somepeople love them, some.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You can't keep, you can't keepSAS blokes happy.
That fucking one person loves itand the next one hates it.
That's just normal.
Yes, I'll get managed to snatchone of them and had that.

(01:31:46):
So you got that from the seals?
Yeah, yeah, they they justdropped the whole lot off.
I don't know.
I don't know how.
America, they left.
Yeah.
Doing the dolls worth at the endof the.
Day yeah, they turned up atCampbell Barracks and they'll
just like oh, who wants one ofthese and one Yep.
So, yeah, no, that was all good.
And then.
Just on that, like we, we talkabout these firearms, do they

(01:32:06):
become kind of like yourpersonal weapon that goes in
your cage and that's it?
Yep.
Yep.
That's yours.
Yep.
No one touched.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
And I, I guess, you know, insideyour cage, yeah.
Do you have an M4?
Do you have your ABR?
Yeah, you have both.
Yeah, you could have both thereor you might just tuck the the
M4 away in a in a case somewhereand.

(01:32:27):
Was there a choice with pistolsas well?
Said it's the same thing it.
Was really just what if if youget your hands on Yeah, the old
the old Browning high power, theold 9 millimetre had it stay in
the sun.
Yeah, probably with yourgranddad, but now you've.
Only just got rid of it so.
Yeah, yeah, that thing.
Fuck that.
Thing going around like it's2025, we've only just

(01:32:48):
transferred.
Yeah, it's probably there's someof them there that'd be 100
years old.
Must be easily, easily a centuryof service.
It's a.
Billion rounds to.
Give it an award.
It needs an OAM, Yeah.
Yeah.
So your pages, your cage at thebarracks is pretty much, you
know, whatever is in there,that's your stuff.
The batteries do.

(01:33:08):
That's right.
I remember.
Yeah, that's, that's your stufffor the entirety that you're
going to stay in the SASR.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So and then overseas we had likea ready room where you just had
like a locker space.
Like say, if that was yourshelf, you'd just have
everything sitting in there.
Your armour, Yep, or your gear,your rifle, helmet, MPGS, blah,
blah, blah, everything there.
And then you'd go in for a taskand then you'd receive orders

(01:33:32):
for that.
You'd go out, you'd rig up andyou'd, in fact, you'd hit out
vehicles, be waited and I'd takeyou down to the ramp and then
you'd board the helos and thenyou'd launch and then.
Yeah.
So that was, yeah.
So all that stuff was yours andfor the for the duration, Yep.
Now, Geezab, This is where youfinally return back to Geezab,

(01:33:56):
however.
Yep.
It is a rainstorm.
Yeah, Yeah.
So.
No one's really spoken aboutthis.
So again, I've had a lot of catson the potty.
Yeah, one or two have beenaround, but no one's really
spoken about it.
So let's.
Yeah, so get started.
How it kicked off was, we had agood, we had a good working
relationship with the ODA guysover and who were based in TK as

(01:34:19):
well.
And for some reason they would,they would do a stint and then
they'd rotate home and then we'dboth come back together and it
was like seeing you bloody yourneighbour again, man.
It was awesome.
And then so we we had a goodrelationship with those guys.
They had a couple of guys up in,well, a guy up in Gizab that
would supply them informationabout stuff and no idea what his

(01:34:44):
affiliations were, but he was asource for the ODA blokes.
And then this guy and one of thegot another bloke up there who
happened to be a JPL got into a,a shooting match over, I think
it was hobby fields orsomething.
And it was getting pretty spicy.
And then the bloke who's who'sbeen talking to the ODA had his

(01:35:06):
compound attacked and rings upfor an assist.
And ODA, well, like we probablycan't get up there in time
because it's probably about afour hour drive, but we'll send
word to the Australians and theycan probably come up and give
you a hand.
And then so we, we got the wordthat we're going to go up there
and give them assist becauseit's the way it sounded or the

(01:35:28):
way it, it was sold to us.
It was like, hey, man, like thishere's some just good, honest
farmers, good, honest opiumfarmers just trying to make
good.
And they've been bullied by thelocal Taliban thugs.
So we, yeah, so we launched andI think we, we crashed through
some real quick orders.
I think we were probably out thegate in about 20 minutes or
something.

(01:35:48):
And then two commander weregoing to reinforce us on the
second turn.
So we flew, flew up there notreally knowing what we were sort
of in for.
So we sort of bought enough gearto sustain ourselves for a few
days, but enough fighting gearas well.
And the helos landed and I thinkone team moved straight away,

(01:36:15):
straight into a like a fastballposition, Overwatch.
And then three teams started toassault forward where you could
hear the gun, the gun battlebetween the the two factions
were were happening.
And then one team held held therear.
But as soon as they went wheelsdown, they were contacted in the
rear.

(01:36:36):
So they started to break contactand kept up with the assaulting
teams.
As we got closer to the villageand where the fighting was and
we pushed off the pushed off thethe guys that were trying to
roll this what we ended upcalling the geezer good guys and
then we pushed them off and thencalled in some cares that was
successful and then and theneverything went quiet.

(01:37:01):
I'll always remember that job aswe are sold in forward when we
took a couple of compounds andthen started to suppress the
guys as they were withdrawingand then subsequently called in
the cares.
But you could see a compoundwith movement in it just off to
our right.
And we went around there andmade entry in there.

(01:37:22):
And I remember cracking thatdoor and there was just armed
Afghans in there.
And they were like, we both hadthat sort of pause and we're
looking straight at each other.
We're both armed.
And then one of the guys, Ithink he was the leader, sort of
came over and just waved hishands and like, ushered us in
for a cup of tea and what, Yep,this, this is the Gizab good

(01:37:44):
guys.
And then?
How like how close were you tolike raising?
Oh man, like the gun was up thesafety was up visiting man oh
man, would like really like youcan only yeah, and then fuck and
then but that they were theGizab good guys.
They weren't the bad the.
Gizab good guys.
And then yeah, so that we we didthat consolidated all of that.

(01:38:06):
I think by that stage, yeah, ifyou Bravo had come up and then
and then that landed as well.
And then I think at some pointwe'd we'd intercepted the the
comms that they were going to doa stand off attack on our
position the next morning.
So we the troop pushed outbasically within like our just

(01:38:31):
on RPG, what we assess as RPGrange and laid an laid an ambush
that night as a troop and whichis, you know, I've never done a
no fuck, I've never done a I'vedone plenty of like ambushes,
never actually like sprung one,but it was pretty exciting.
So he's moved out there about2:00 in the morning, took up
five positions and our pairsjust along the tracks.

(01:38:55):
And yeah, sure enough, firstlight, just after putting our
MVGS away, guy comes walkingdown the track with an arm load
of rockets and a launcher.
And as you come around thecorner, yeah, we engaged and
then to IC and myself and hewent down, searched the body,
pulled the Rockets and the, andthe launchers off and then,

(01:39:16):
yeah, collapsed, waited a littlebit, nothing.
No one else has come in and thencollapsed back and moved back to
our compounds, these sort ofpatrol areas.
And yeah, it was quite a thingbecause the, the old RPG is sort
of sought after device therefor, for the guys that the Geez
had good guys.
So we quickly gave that to themand they were pretty stoked with

(01:39:38):
that.
We'd cut up a a marker panel andhung like a paracord around it
for all the guys that werecoming out from the Geez had
good guys and we just hung itover them.
So they had like a little minimarker panel on them.
So we knew who was who in thezoo and then they'd accompany us
out on a few patrols and thatand we got into a few more
engagements with those guys andyeah, they were, they were good.

(01:40:01):
Always remember one of thoseengagements with we're moving
towards I think the bizarre areaand Giza on the northern bank.
And the first sign that we knewthat something was up was the
AMP partner force was runninglike back down the track away
from us.
And then as soon as they'dgotten right behind us, then

(01:40:23):
and.
Everything.
That's the national police.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And then SO didn't decide to tryand fight, they just ran off and
and then many.
There's time.
Just fucking dipped.
There was, yeah, they just likemaybe six or seven of them and
they beat it.
They were straight down thetrack and couldn't stop them.
And then the geez, they havegood guys.
They shook out.
And then we, we, we took up fivepositions.

(01:40:43):
They had a short engagement, butI don't, I don't remember the
the outcome of it.
But yeah, I always just rememberthe AMP running away, Yeah.
Far out.
Yep mate, back to the geezer.
How?
How long did you spend in thatarea?
It got bigger than been here.

(01:41:03):
Geez, AB because I thinksomewhere along the line it got
briefed up to Obama who wasthere because this was a an
example of normal Afghansstanding up to like Taliban
rule.
And then are also got to MullahOmar, who was the de facto sort
of leader in exile, I suppose.

(01:41:25):
And he sort of briefed them totake it back.
And then so it was quite it wasquite a politically it become
quite an important job.
So a lot of generals ended upflying up there obviously a few
days later.
And then it turned into just afull fuck fight.
Everyone was up there.
And then there's a big Congoline of courage from the area
that we initially held on thenorthern side over the over the

(01:41:45):
bridge.
There's a single bridge crossingthe Helmand there and it comes
round to the main village centrewhere they're having like a mega
Shura.
And yeah, we, yeah.
So when it got that silly, Ithink we just flew home and then
yeah, one would flown home.
So when when you said it gotsilly, like there was just
different force, everyone, justeveryone flooded the yeah, the
Americans obviously flooded thearea.

(01:42:07):
There was.
British.
No, there was a lot of, therewas a lot of Australians there,
I think.
I think MK turned up there.
Matilda Khan, who was like thepolice chief at the time, he
turned up like.
All the officers.
Yeah, all the officers turned upthere and then.
Yeah.
So it was like, oh man, this is.
Yeah.
And there was.
They just come for calling thebattlefield to Kentucky, to us.

(01:42:30):
Yeah, yeah.
Little little waterist, littlejaunt outside the wire.
Yeah.
But yeah, so yeah, that got abit, yeah, it got a bit stale.
So we ended up just coming home.
It was all done, yeah.
And when you say come home, ohsorry, back to TK from there
mate.
What?
Again we move into T Zac now.

(01:42:52):
Again, this is again right atthe start of the podcast.
Is that right?
Yeah.
So Yep, but in between there andbefore, after sorry, after Giza
and then before Tzak, my son wasborn.
That's right.
Yeah.
So Yep, your son was born.
And this, this is aninteresting, a wholesome story,

(01:43:13):
as we'd say.
Yep.
It's because, you know, you hadthe opportunity, obviously, to
come back to Australia.
And Shannon, you know, we spokeabout it before.
She thought it was just going tobe a breeze, which turns out
childbirth is.
Not but not, but harder than,yeah.
A bit harder than ever thought.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
So run me through this storybecause again, this is it's it's

(01:43:36):
selflessness as well.
This is.
Yeah, well, I, yeah, so and I'llprobably, and it was not my
experience, but there was ayoung bloke in in the Kiwi army
that was rotated out from a teamto head back for his birthday.
He was like the youngest blokein battalion.
This is in Timor and my mateLynn took his place and and then

(01:44:00):
obviously he fucking was killedin action.
And I've like and that alwayssort of stuck with me a bit and
I'm like, well, you know, I'mhere now and then.
So I don't want someone toreplace have to replace me and
do my work while I got home andalways knew I was going to get
home anyway because it I nevernever entered my mind that I

(01:44:20):
wasn't going to come home.
So yeah, so we both me and me,my wife both made a decision,
said now I'll stay and then andthen I'll, I'll see the young
fellow when I get home and.
It's a big deal, mate, Likeit's, you know, your first
child.
Yeah.
And I was big.
Bloody deal.
And we've, you know, Sky Joe'sgot kids.

(01:44:41):
I've got kids.
Yeah, yeah.
And I was we were walking in ona on a target in the Mirrenbad
Valley and.
And came over the radio that.
Yeah, congratulations.
I did it.
Yeah, yeah.
Congratulations.
Trude McLaughlin, your dad,you're a healthy young boy.
And my team commander whodoesn't hug anybody came up and
gave me a hug, which was quitenice.

(01:45:01):
And then.
Yeah.
So now that was good.
And then.
Yeah, managed to that did thattask the following day and then
came back and.
And rang my wife and.
Yeah, 'cause we had, we hadSkype.
Skype back then, Yeah, vehicleat least.
Yeah, I think I just just phonecall.
Phone call.
Yeah.
That was it.
Marshall was it?

(01:45:22):
Which one was the Forben mirrorbed?
I can't remember.
No, I can't remember.
I can't remember.
Yeah, yeah.
But yeah.
So that was yeah, massive.
Yeah, obviously a massive event.
And then hair stoked, and theneverything was good back home.
Yeah, and it like, again, whenyou speak about the chat with
Shan, you're on the phone andshe's got obviously, you know, I

(01:45:43):
don't want to get, you know,men, woman here, but women can
be quite tough sometimes.
And yeah, if they come back, I'mfucking throwing all your shit
out.
But she's like, you know, that'sthat.
Yeah, yeah.
No, no, no, she's she's tough.
She's pretty tough.
Yeah, yeah.
And obviously she knows the lifebecause she's served her time
using the Defence Force.

(01:46:04):
I guess she understands whatyou're doing and what you're
going through.
Yeah.
And I mean, I'd like I'd be, youknow, it is it is probably like
her support through all my tripsis probably the reason that, you
know, I can't even begin tothank her enough for all the
support I've had, you know,through all those trips, man.

(01:46:26):
It's probably the reason I'm,you know, semi well adjusted.
Now you know why he laughing?
Yeah, but yeah.
But it's true, man.
You know, like you can't.
Yeah.
The the the wives and thegirlfriends of the guys employed
man.
It's so crucial that they youknow what they do.
Massively crucial.
And this is one thing that Iguess the media here and these

(01:46:49):
journos have forgotten, youknow, these these families are
sending these guys overseas herelike Dids Matthew Locke, they
never come back.
And there's kids involved.
And obviously where we, youknow, we all know these these
kids and they're all grown andthey're great dudes.

(01:47:09):
And that's what the mediadoesn't see.
Like it's, and we know that fora fact.
It's the, you know, the thespouse that maintains the
livelihood at home and raisingthe kids and yeah, yeah.
Working at the same time and,you know, juggling life.
It's.
Yeah, it's a, it's a highquality man.

(01:47:30):
It's.
A spouse, yeah, yeah.
And obviously we know thatthere's, you know, females that
are served overseas with, youknow, their husbands back at
home, same thing, like it's viceversa.
So yeah, mate, definitely ashout out to the spouses out
there that's moving forward,mate, Obviously, T Zach.
Now this is where, again, thegame changes.
You know you've been involvedwith one VC, now you're hanging

(01:47:52):
out and you get involved withanother.
Yeah.
So, yeah.
So after a few more, few moretargeting jobs between Geezab
and then TZAC and then, yeah,then they, they, there was a
large operation on down downSouth.

(01:48:12):
And then to try and give yousome background into that
particular region that that youknow, Shanatu sort of Arghandab
sort of north Kandahar provinceregion, man like so historically
very hard area to get into andvery if the fighting down there
is is always fierce.
TF Viper, the Dutch SF guys,they, they weren't even able to

(01:48:38):
get off their HLZ down there.
They they moved down there, flewdown there to establish an OP
and as soon as they landed andthat Hilo took off, they were
just absolutely rinsed on theiron their HLZ.
The ODA that we had a goodworking relationship with that

(01:48:58):
take their guys down there,their Indige forces and they
would take up all the time andthey could not get in there
without taking serious losses.
A number of J Sock units had tocall off jobs amount of fire
coming at their helos forvehicle and addiction in that
rate in that area and.
So this is the hornet's nest.
Yeah, it is, man.

(01:49:18):
And what a lot of people don'tknow is like, you know, we were
even cautious of going downthere because we knew that
that's traditionally all thoseother units I just mentioned
that had a hard time down there.
So we knew that we'd need ourshit in one sock to operate down
there to have any effect.
So we did what everybody does,man.

(01:49:38):
We found a friend and, and threesquadron came over and, and
those boys came over and we didlike combined jobs down and down
in that Shawali Court area priorto the battle at Tezak.
And they sort of like, yeah,they sort of looked after us and
we sort of held each other'shands down there and got the job

(01:49:59):
done on a few jobs.
And yeah, we had, there were afew engagements down there
during that time and, and then,but I think them being there
gave us the confidence to go,well, yeah, we can, we can
strike down here.
But you know, as long as we'veas long as we've as long as
we've got everything right.
And yeah, so we did.
And but the yeah.
So the operation kicked offfirst, obviously with two

(01:50:23):
commander going down there andestablishing a a footprint down
there.
And they were pretty, they, theyhad a fair few engagements down
there from that position.
And then obviously that createdthe chatter or the, the, the,
the sort of fucking interest inthe rest of those fighters

(01:50:44):
coming up to have a crack atthem.
And the guy we were after, theJPL was quite a way from T Zac
the night before.
And we'd gotten gotten orders togo and hit that, that compound
of interest where he was lastseen.
And early morning on the day ofwhere we rolled into T Zac, he'd

(01:51:07):
actually disappeared from thatvillage and he'd reappeared at T
Zac.
We didn't put ISR over the top,probably because it wasn't
available.
But in hindsight, that probablywould have been handy.
But regardless, we, it wasprobably about eight, 8:30 in
the morning.
So sun was well up before wedecided, oh, we'll hit him at
this new area.

(01:51:28):
And all we knew it was like,yeah, it's a small collection of
compounds that Tezak.
And then so we jumped on theheroes and, and hit it down
there.
We put a bit of a dog leg inthere.
So we sort of flew W towardsDoralwood and then hooked S came
around and then approached Tezakfrom the from the South.

(01:51:48):
And then standard way we wereworking it at the time was 2
heroes would put the assaultteams down in the South of the
of the compounds.
And then one Hilo would put theOverwatch in on, on a selected
piece of high ground.
And then one bird would stayairborne with a reserve of salt

(01:52:08):
that could also do AFS likeaerial fire support.
And so yeah, we're approachingfrom the South.
And then, and I think the theApaches gave the cherry on the
on the on the LZ, which meansyou'll give me the cherry ice.
It's pretty obvious what theyare.
See, they get cheery on there.
These guys armed dudes on theLZ.

(01:52:31):
Do we still want to land?
And then they came back, Yep,we'll land.
And then so his pilots put us inthere.
And I mean, that was probablythe first like decent actor
gallantry I saw that day, manwas those pilots, man, they just
had their the LZHLZ that theywere going to land on it and
they flew straight into thatthose machine guns, man.

(01:52:52):
And they were cracking thewindscreens.
The bubbles out of the bottom ofthe Black Hawk were getting shot
and the bottoms were gettingraked and they were taking
rounds into the blades.
But they didn't pull off.
They just put us in and thenbrowned out.
Hilo touched.
And then we got off.
And then as soon as we come outof the the brown out, the dust

(01:53:13):
cleared.
You could just see fighterseverywhere, man.
And it was just on.
Yeah.
And not only the guys down atthe same level as us, but they
had guys scattered all throughthe high ground off to our east.
And they were, they were firingdown upon us.
So we were not only gettingengaged from the, the village
area, but then from the highground as well.

(01:53:33):
And shortly after that we hadtwo, 2 friendly wounded.
And then so AME was brought into get those guys out.
And and so they were, they werebundled up and they were they
they got those guys out of therenot too not too serious.

(01:53:53):
They were, but they obviouslycouldn't stay in the in the
fight.
And then at the same time, theOverwatch team, they were on the
high ground and they were notjust normally they'll land and
they'll start to give USA, butthey landed.
And as soon as they landed, theywere getting engaged from the
high ground as well.
So they were having a run inbattle with, for lack of better
word, the Taliban Overwatch onthe other side of the valley.

(01:54:16):
So yes, it was, it was.
It was busy.
What was the force number?
So they they estimated it wasaround 100 fighters and there's
25 of us that that had got offthe helos at that point.
The aerial fire support that hadepic 1 and it was still airborne

(01:54:38):
and they were still firing uponthe positions of the Taliban
fighters on the high ground.
Eventually they came back down.
They landed in the South andthen they rejoined us after the
the casualties were medevacedout.
And yeah, we were down in thebottom of the in the South of
that village, just sort of inthe dead ground in a couple of

(01:54:59):
dry Creek beds, decent coverfrom the fighters that were in
the village.
And then we sort of had to comeup with a plan.
And the there's a quickdiscussion between the team
commanders went up to the troopboss and the troop boss
basically said, yeah, clear thetown.
And then that was acknowledgedand then.
There was no other directionfrom him, but he just said clear

(01:55:21):
the town.
Yeah, yeah.
Do do what you do best.
Yep.
Yeah, that was it, man.
He just delegated it to the tothe, to the team commanders that
were down there in the in thegreen.
And, you know, like when wethink about, I think about, you
know, all the, you know, theDSCS and DSMS and that I said
that was probably the only timeI saw an officer make a call

(01:55:45):
that.
Deserved one of those.
That ensured missions, thatenabled mission success.
And he could have said, hey,man, we're going to break.
This is we're bit.
We're bitten off a bit more thanwe could chew here.
This is the plan.
And you know, we probably wouldhave said, oh, you know, we
maybe we should have could havegiven it a go.
But ultimately we would havedone whatever.
You know, the true boss gave theorder, but now he said clear the

(01:56:05):
town and then, you know, so.
Yeah, So props to him.
And then the the commander forthe for that particular target
was my was my team commander.
So that was how that wasdelegated.
So because it was his job, wewould lead in first into the and
then lead, lead the assault intothe into that village.
And then so we stepped off.

(01:56:28):
We had an FUP area like justclassic straight out of the old
infantry.
And then it's what it was, man.
Like there's nothing fancy aboutwhat we're about to do, man.
It was a straight up infantryattack.
Like that's it.
Like there was, you were goingto break in somewhere and then
you were going to just bound andyou were just going to just push
and fight forward, fightforward, man.
That's what you were going todo.
And I think one of the reasonsthat I'm, you know, like I'm

(01:56:50):
obviously immensely proud of,of, you know what, what we
achieved as a troop that day,because we knew we were
outnumbered and we hadn't gotoff to the best start.
We had no initiative.
It was daytime.
We'd already had wounded on theinitial, on the initial landing,
but we went forward and youknow, I was, I'm immensely proud

(01:57:12):
to be part of that because, youknow, things were not working in
our favour at that point, Butwe, we decided to fight forward,
go forward.
And yeah.
So we, we started, we step, ourteam stepped up and we stepped
off, sorry.
And we started moving forward.
And I remember looking across atEpic ones team commander who's

(01:57:33):
an SBS guy who'd come acrossbefore I did on his electoral
exchange and he yells out to meand I look over at him and he
gives me like a big Maori Poohgunner, which is like a bit of a
challenge.
And I'll, I'll see it and I giveit back to him.
And and then we we patrolforward and we advance the

(01:57:54):
contact And probably about 1520seconds after that, man, we just
get absolutely rinsed by some Pgames and we all hit the deck
and yeah, start crawling forwardand take up a piece of cover.
And it's a shit ass piece ofcover, but it's the only one I
got there.
And I'm trying to fucking gumbymyself into this fucking crack
in the rocks to and try toreturn fire, but it's it's not

(01:58:17):
looking good.
And then, yeah, so we've likeheavy fire coming, coming into
our position.
So we're pretty much checked inplace.
Sorry, are are the insurgents ina defensive posture or are they
advancing as well?
Nah, They're in a defensiveposture.

(01:58:37):
They're holding and it's comingfrom a number of different
positions.
But at the time it was very hardto try and pick them out just
with the vegetation and and thefoliage and that that way the
orchard was going up or that.
But the rate of fire was fuckingit was.
Heavy, man, it was chewing upthe ground around us.
And as we, you know, we're inthat riverbed and you could hear
the rounds, just that and thatdisturbance of the air going

(01:58:58):
past you.
And it was, you knew it wasclose.
And they decide to bring in cornCares to give us a hand so.
Close their support.
Yep.
So that was just.
Wanna break that down for thelistener.
Just yeah, yeah, I get I getrinsed all the time on
Instagram.
Yeah.
What are what are they talkingabout?
What's he talking?
About so, yeah, yeah.
So they caught and so it goes upto the the JTAC on the hill and

(01:59:20):
it's delegated down to the theJtacs and the teams and that I
think.
And then and it's danger closebecause it was, you know, just
in front of us.
And so they called in dangerclose on our on our position.
And I mean, we're looking overand I can see the Apache.
The Apache stayed on target longafter the helos left.
More of those helos were damagedwhen they dropped us off, but

(01:59:41):
the Apache stayed on stationwith us and they were down in
the weeds and they were workingthat ridgeline as well.
And then so we when we calledand cares, he, he pulled back
South and then he lined up andhe made his run.
And I remember looking back andI can see that Apache is coming
in on its run and it starts topick up speed and you can even
see the gun starting to wiggleunderneath the 30 millimetre

(02:00:03):
cannon as it lines up.
And then the fire comes off usand they direct it straight at
that Apache and it's, you canhear it and it's just clanging
off the Apache and you can hearit far and it's not around us
anymore.
It's going up.
At the Apache and yeah, thecannon starts firing and then,
you know, everything's gettingchewed up to the front.
But I don't know how effectiveit was.

(02:00:23):
He might have done a couple ofruns, I can't remember.
But that fire returned back onthe troop shortly after.
So we were sort of pretty muchstuck there.
And that's when the Epic Oneteam commander gets on the
ratings.
Hey man, I'm going to take myteam around to the right and
we're going to flank thatposition and and then I'll watch

(02:00:47):
those guys.
We put in some.
Who's in that team?
Ben's there.
There's some, yeah.
Hey mate.
Yep, Ben.
'S in that team, yeah.
Ben Robert Smith.
Yep.
And then so we put a bit ofcover and fire in for them and
then they they bound across.
You're what?
You're watching them.
Yeah.
So just in the corner we're notthat far like we're we're sort
of checked at this point hereand they're still back, but
they're fortunately they're incover and then I'll watch them

(02:01:09):
out of corner my eye.
They fucking?
Maybe like 100 metres.
Nah, it's close, man.
They probably 30 or 40 metres.
Yeah, gotcha, gotcha.
And then they they bound overtogether all it like so the
whole team just moved as one manand it was fucking cool to see.
And they just move around to theflank and then they sort of
disappear out of view.
And then the next thing thefire, you can see that fire
directed at their line ofassault man.

(02:01:31):
And they those guys assaultforward and they sold on to the
position that we later know isthe mosque.
And that's where been wins asVC, they're taking that mosque
area.
There was a wall, it's probablyabout hip height, pretty thick
sort of lowish wall that theywere using as cover.
And that's sort of foyer orfoyer area.

(02:01:52):
But well, like a foyer foyer, Isuppose outside the mosque that
they were fighting from.
And yeah, when they take that,when they clear that mosque
area, I think from memory therewas about 10 fighters in that
area.
And then so those boys, fuckingso CQB, yeah, they did a hell of
a job, man.
And then that fire came off usthen, and that was fucking done.
They called them, they called itsecure.

(02:02:13):
And then we were out.
And you've watched most of that.
Now, because most of it had likeas they sold it, Ford, you just
lost sight of them in the green,Yeah, in the in the orchard
trees and that but.
But you're still under contactas well.
Yes, We're still holding thatposition where we initially got
brassed up and then when theyheld that, when they took that

(02:02:33):
mosque, three of us on one, onone side of the fire line.
They had fixed guns, did they?
Yes, Yeah.
And they were firing.
It was straight down this Creek.
So it was like a natural sortof, yeah, like an obstacle they
were firing down.
And then so the three of us areall on the left hand side on the
western side, myself, the scoutand the team sniper.

(02:02:55):
We start bounding forward andthen we re engaged as we bound
forward.
Probably we get forward about 50metres and then we start coming
under fire again and there's adepth position in an orchard and
and they so we start firing,manoeuvring forward.

(02:03:15):
We get to a low wall and thenbasically almost like a base of
fire.
The sniper is not carrying asniper rifle that day in four
with two O 3.
He starts dropping 40 mil intothe area, gets a few of them and
then we bound forward again andwe hit this low.
Oh, sorry.
We hit a wall that's about twometres high and it's like a

(02:03:35):
terrace.
So then the watch is above us ona on a terrace and there's a
like a sort of maybe A2 metrehigh like Rockwall that's
stopping us.
We try to climb up it, but thenwe start taking rounds.
So there's still fighters in thein the back of the orchard.
One of the guys posts up therestarts throwing frag into the

(02:03:56):
into the orchard area and thenthe sniper and myself, We head
around to the flank and thenthere's nothing out to our
waist.
It's just a dash.
That's the end of the village.
There's nothing further outthere.
So we move around to the flankand as we peer over the low wall
looking back into the orchard,you'd see the fighters firing

(02:04:17):
from the from the back of theorchard and they're like in a
drain.
And we basically just give eachother a nod and pop up and
engage those guys at the back.
And then that's it.
That's the fight that they'reall done in the orchard.
And I think there were sevenfighters in there.
And we move back and then pickup the scout and then we move up
together and then just do aquick battlefield clearance of

(02:04:41):
that of the dead fighters inthere.
And then probably around thatpoint we, we marry up with one
of the other teams.
I'm pretty sure was epic oneagain, that move forward from
the initial mosque that theytook.
And then I'd cleared a number ofcompounds after that and we
linked up with them.
And then from there we, webasically consolidated on the

(02:05:02):
mosque and, and use that as abit of a reorg.
And then we sort of come up withan area.
There were a few outlyingcompounds that needed to be
cleared as we moved through andwe sort of delegated that.
But probably at some pointbetween when the mosque was
taken and the and we clearedthat orchard bit as a secondary,
our partner force at the back,which was comprised of AMP cat,

(02:05:25):
a sorry cat C turp from the USor U.S. citizen that that was
interpreting for us.
So like a vetted and clearedU.S. citizen that was acting as
an interpreter and we had an SAShandler with, with that group,
that AMP group or that AMPpartner force had had contacted

(02:05:48):
the Taliban that we're currentlyfighting and offered to change
sides.
And, and the deal was that theywould kill a number of us if
we're, if they were allowed toleave the valley.
Now, to the Taliban's credit,they basically just told them to
fuck off and that they'd justclean them up as well once they
were done with us.
And the interpreter interceptedthat fucking conversation over

(02:06:11):
VHFI believe I could be wrong,but that's how he intercepted
it.
And then and it relayed it to tothe SAS guy that was handling
it.
And so potentially now we had,we had another force at the back
that we'd flown in that hadturned code on us.
And yeah, so we didn't knowabout this till we got back.

(02:06:32):
And then but potentially, youknow, that was, you know, June
2010, there'd be no green onBlues in within the Australian,
you know, commitment toAfghanistan at that point the
their current contribution.
And that if they'd decided to gowith that or if that was
something that they wereprepared to do, then that would
have been the first.

(02:06:53):
So I don't know if that wasbriefed up or if that was that
news of that sort of betrayalwas spread across the ADF or how
often or how well people knowabout it, but that that
definitely happened.
Yeah.
And where was the the other?
So we talked about SAS Handler.
Was there another team backthere?

(02:07:13):
Yep, there was.
Yep, there were another.
There were a number of.
There were two other teams inthe rear there.
Yep, and.
They didn't get involved with.
No, they wouldn't have knownbecause they as soon as the the
fire was quite heavy, you know,from the very get go, Yep, that
a the A&P force just refused thesoldier.
So did they hear?
Yeah.
So they, they just fucking tookcover under a wall and they
would not go forward, man.

(02:07:34):
And then, yeah, did.
Yeah, right.
So all that comes out and that'sall passed up the chain, but
obviously.
Yeah, well, I don't know if it,I don't know if it reached.
What doesn't fucking sound likebecause we lost a bunch of
soldiers.
Yeah.
So I mean, I mean.
You know, we should have atleast stood up, you know, like

(02:07:56):
like they did after the incidenthappened, a bit of a security
presence and disarm some ofthese pricks inside the inside
the wire.
Well, this is where it getscomplicated because the guy that
made that call was Mutula Khan'snephew.
And yeah, so there's that.
You know, like if you were goingto detain, you know, you're

(02:08:16):
going to detain him, then howwould that look for the
Australian relationship?
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Which is interesting.
When the Dutch that were alsoshared, the base of us refused
to work with him, but apparentlywe had to.
So yeah.
Yeah, right, far out.
So that was that was T Zach.
Yeah.
So that was.
That turned out to be a success,obviously.

(02:08:36):
Yeah, so that was once.
And multiple awards were.
Yep, yes.
That was that.
Whole fight, I mean, it soundslike it didn't take that long,
but there are the subsequentcompounds that we that we
cleared along the way and thenwe consolidated it and that and
then also, you know, importantto remember that the Overwatch
team on the high ground, man wason the exposed on that high

(02:08:58):
ground for that duration of thatday, man.
And they back man, they did ahell of a job, man, because they
were engaging all of those guyson that opposing Ridge that were
firing down on us and werefiring down on us for most of
the day.
And they now they did.
They did a hell of a job.
And Ben's VC was never inquestion, was it?

(02:09:19):
It's probably one of the bravestthings I ever saw in my life,
man, was that team, you know,taking that option to move
around and flank their position,man, they could have, you know,
there was an equal chance wherethat whole team could have been,
could have been wiped out.
I mean, you just don't know, doyou?
But he, you know, that team cameout and took that risk.
And then he had the guys and histeam, man, that were willing to,

(02:09:41):
you know, like, like being a netthat were willing to fucking go
into that combat or go into thatmosque area and then get it
done, man.
And I mean, that's yeah, it waspretty incredible.
This is after.
He got an MG, isn't it?
Yeah.
Sorry.
I'm just just putting it outthere.
Yeah.
Brave man.
Yeah.
And obviously you're real goodfriends with Ben.

(02:10:02):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah.
Real good friends.
So TZAC after TZAC?
What?
What?
What dates are we talking?
Was this TZAC?
That's mid June.
Mid June.
So you probably only got anothermonth or so in the country.
Yeah, what happened is it is,you know, what happens after and
actually just quickly, how areyou going?

(02:10:23):
You know, your tempo is fuckingnext level.
Yeah, You know, you get into thegunfights on the regular, losing
guys here and there, morewounded in action.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, we're.
Pretty lucky the regular armyand two commander have lost.
Yeah.
I think we're, you know, at thisstage we're looking, you know,
2010 ish June, you know, theboys two commander had their

(02:10:47):
Halo incident obviously hadScott Ryder on the podcast.
He was involved with all ofthat.
You know, this is too intense.
So, you know, we're looking at1617 guys that have been killed
at this stage for the AustralianDefence Force, you know.
It was it was starting to turnfrom just the odd one and two
into a steady into a steadyamount at that stage.

(02:11:07):
And I remember we'd we'd done,you know, we'd when we'd gotten
back because all the helos weredamaged after T, after they put
us in that day, we had to waituntil about 2:00 in the morning
before they were ready to comepick us up.
And they come pick us up in thenight.
We flew us back and I think theyparked up a Hilux down by the

(02:11:29):
ramp there and every bloke justhad a number of weapon systems
and we just walked past thisHilux and just chucked them in
the back.
And the the Co and R seem we'rethere to, you know, welcome us
back.
And that was good.
And I think we literally wentback, man, and everyone had a
beer, man.
You know, I don't know if that'sfucking a bad thing or not, but
but.
Fat ladies.
Yeah, I know.
I think people just went intotheir team rooms, man, took
their shit off, and then it'slike, I need a fucking beer.

(02:11:50):
Yeah.
And then as.
You do?
After hard days of work, yeah.
Yep.
But yeah, so we had a couple ofothers, we had a couple of other
jobs after after that, but theydon't they don't really nothing.
I don't think they were toosignificant.
But then yeah, the next one wasthe crash.
And I remember getting woken upin the morning and and getting

(02:12:12):
told, hey man, you have one ofthe that helicopter I think was
token to was at school sign.
And that was a helicopter thatwe often flew in.
It's like, hey man, yeah, it'sgone down and there's been a
number of friendly killed inaction and like back and then.
So we, yeah, we, we stood up andthen most of the commander guys,
from memory, they'd, they'd comeback and, and we'd flown down

(02:12:35):
there with a Dutch Chapter 47and an Australian Chapter 47
and, and recovered thatwreckage, man.
And I remember seeing thatfucking wreckage up close
because we were packing upwhatever we could salvage from
it and then, and then, and thenget it ready to be moved to
Kandahar Air Base.
What, what remained.
So it wouldn't be a propagandawin for the Taliban to have this

(02:12:56):
downed aircraft out there.
And I was amazed that anybodysurvived that fucking helicopter
crash, man.
It was fucked.
Yeah.
And yeah, it was a hell of athing to see me.
Yeah, yeah, You know, it's oneof those things, isn't it?
Like obviously we lost 3Australians and one US personnel
and eight I think survived.

(02:13:20):
I think it was 8.
You know, it's it's as you said,and I've seen think Scott Ryder
has put the photos up and yeah,there's not much left for that
chopper, so.
Yeah, there nothing, man.
Yeah, it's just luck is on, youknow, on our side sometimes,
mate.
When do you get back to Perth?
So Perth, yeah, start of July, Ithink.

(02:13:42):
Start of July.
We hand over with one squadronand then and then, yeah, then
head home, yeah.
And then?
Again, mate, back to Perth, backto yeah got yeah and.
Obviously you get to see theyoung fellow.
Yeah, mate, how was that?
Yeah, it was awesome, man.
Yeah.
Is that is that all that's onyour mind really as well?
Yeah, it's a good way to gethome, man, you know, And then
just yeah, thing.
And how does your perspectivechange?

(02:14:03):
You know, obviously kids change,it changes a lot.
Sometimes some people, somepeople leave the Defence Force
or leave their police jobbecause they've had kids,
because, you know, the lessrisk, yeah, spend more time with
the kids.
Did it change any your aspect oryou know you're just in the mood
of?
Yeah, I don't think it changedmy perspective, you know, I
think, but it was like.
But it's good to see.

(02:14:24):
Yeah.
Oh.
It's great, you know, it'sgreat, great to see, you know,
and.
Shannon can probably get somesleep.
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah, probably fucking puttingup more snoring.
Do you get any time off?
Yeah, we've got a bit of timeoff, yeah.
But yeah, I think we juststayed, stayed local and yeah,
Yep.
And moving forward, I guess thisis where the first time you're
involved with a ramp ceremonyfor, you know, one of your own

(02:14:47):
guys and you know, Adam Slot andAndy White obviously spoken more
about that situation becausethey were there.
And again, you're back inAustralia, mate, receiving.
Yeah, they run me through thisbecause this is.
Yeah.
This is again one of thosethings for the journos,
something they're probably neverexperienced.

(02:15:07):
Yeah.
So it's.
Just a different scenario.
Yeah.
So I think yeah, one, yeah, itwas in, it was July.
Well, it was July, August, Ithink it's. 13th of August 2010
he was killed.
Yeah.
So yeah, we get the news thatthat Brownie had been killed in
action.

(02:15:30):
And he was like one of thoseworld liked guys.
Oh me, he was man, and I did theI did that back half of the Rio
with Brownie man and he was afucking great dude.
Man.
A lot of time from good buggerand then just real fucking
relaxed, fucking real personabledude, man.
You always have a yak to you andyeah and then yeah, you know,
real good dude.
And then yeah.
So when and two squadron was athome, so we it it was so we were

(02:15:52):
going to do the we were going toescort his casket off the off
the aircraft and guard honour onit.
And so we started doing a fewrehearsals and that and getting
the Pollys out and, and then theaircraft landed at at peace.
And then we carried his casket,carried his casket off.

(02:16:14):
And I was not, I wasn't carryingthe casket.
I was doing the guard and yeah,escort the, the unit had put
like a small pavilion to theside of of the, the main
buildings where the the aircrafttaxied.
And it was just for his familymembers, man.
And so we escorted his casket inthere and then laid a dress and

(02:16:37):
then basically gave the familythe space to, to, to, you know,
to firstly see their, their formson, you know, and, and all, you
know, the C70 powered down andeverything was quiet.
There was early morning and, andat Pierce in the winter and
that.
And so she did quiet man.
And all you could hear man was,was Brownie's mum weeping man.

(02:16:57):
And of all the sounds that youknow, and things that I've seen
in that, in that conflict, man,that probably that sound is
something that will probablystay with me for, for the
longest, man.
It was, it was a it was anuncomfortable, it was an
uncomfortable thing to hear,man.

(02:17:17):
And you don't see it when you'reoverseas because you just,
you're too busy and you're doingit.
And then, you know, if a blokefell, you know, and like we saw
with with dids later on, youknow, you you land there and you
you know, you see his casketthere at TK and you escort down

to the C 1 (02:17:32):
30 and then you farewell it and and you you
know, and everyone's everyone'sthere and everyone knows that
that's the risk.
But I think when you see thefamilies back home and the
effect it has on them, then youthink, yeah, man, that's that's
a tough one, man, you know.
And yeah, and especially for hisold man who was a Vietnam
veteran as well, you know, youthink, fuck, that's it's yeah.

(02:17:55):
Like And that was, yeah, thatwas.
Yeah, that was certainly bringsit home, you know, when you see
that, you know, yeah.
It's crazy.
Like I did a podcast with Mick,D2 Commander and he's got a flag
that has Branny, Todd Langleyand Josh Porter on it like fuck

(02:18:16):
made like and it's them one houris 1 hour was one hour.
Yeah, one hour Recon, this oneteam all flag and it's got those
three names on fuck made likethat's.
That's crazy, isn't?
It but you're right made likeit's one of those things that
you don't really get toexperience unless you're back
home and you see the familiesand you know the aftermath.
It's that's, you know, you know,I think we've spoken about it

(02:18:39):
multiple times and you know,there's not one guy there's got
PTSD from smacking a bad dude.
It's you know, it's one thingyou'll never forget is mother
wow, you know, the death oftheir child.
It's yeah, mate, it's again themedia then go fuck themselves at

(02:19:03):
my words.
My words.
Yeah, mate, you're back inAustralia, you know, we've had
to deal with that.
You've got a young child now.
Yep.
And what's happening 2000, So2011, it's a bit of a, it's a
bit of a downturn for you guys,a bit of a.
Yep, still busy.

(02:19:24):
But.
Not yeah, on team.
Yeah, we're on team 2020112.
Swanners on team.
Yeah.
And when you say team, it's theblack roll stuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Got the DC.
Tag West.
Yeah.
Holding the DC teamresponsibility for the West
Coast and then and then anythingoffshore as well.
And then, yeah, so but thatdoesn't mean you don't get out
the door.
And I was fortunate enough inthe start of 2011 to do a trip

(02:19:49):
to Norway with the and trainwith the Norwegian FSK, which is
their like their special forces.
And so I went over there and didtheir their winter patrol course
because of my mountain troopbackground.
And probably down the line, Iwas probably going to end up
down and climbs the Bible sellat OSS as an instructor.

(02:20:10):
So go over there and train withthe Norwegians.
I loved that trip, man.
It was fucking.
That's probably in the top fivehardest things I've ever done in
my life as well, man.
Like that.
The Norwegians man are toughmother fuckers like they.
So when you do that snow thing,yeah, it was like 30 days or
something.
Yeah, we spent 30 days out.
Me and Skyjo spent three daysin.

(02:20:31):
We've had enough.
But yeah, man, like it's it wasan eye going over there, man,
and yeah, but good, good dudes,man, hard, hard dudes, you know,
just fucking miles and miles onthe skis, heavy packs, deep
snow, fucking cold, like minus,you know, 2530 and then but

(02:20:54):
fucking learn heaps from theman.
They were just a wealth ofknowledge, man, and just.
Operate their background.
It's their background they don'teven like.
Imagine if they come to fuckingAustralia.
Yeah, they'd be the same.
They'd.
Hate it.
Yeah, they'd hate it.
They'd be looking at all thatsand.
Yeah, but they don't even teachskiing on the fucking course
because it's just assumed thatyou know how to ski.
Oh yeah, Yeah.

(02:21:15):
Did you know how to ski?
Yeah, I could ski.
Yeah.
Yeah, I could ski.
And we've got a few jumps inover there and it was cool, man.
Yeah.
And then I came back from thatand then and then had a couple
of, you know, the old trainingassistance teams and that.
So we did a trip to Thailand anda trip to Guam working with the
Navy SEAL was over there in oneof the Subs.

(02:21:36):
So that was that was real good,real good training with those
guys.
And yeah, and then the backafter the year.
Fuck, it might have been a see asubject course in there
somewhere.
And you suck my will to live.
And then, oh, they're justterrible, aren't they?
Somebody, of course as fuck.
They're a pain in the ass.

(02:21:57):
Yeah, it anyway.
They're a necessary evil, Isuppose.
And then you gotta do them.
But yeah, did those.
And then, yeah, then found out,yeah, another son on the way.
So Chan's, Chan's pregnant.
And then.
So you're due at the end of theyear in 20 in 2011 and then
yeah, that that time was therefor the birth.

(02:22:19):
Yeah, yeah.
And yeah, it was quite, it wasquite funny because I had the
car already and I'm like, right,Yep, driving down baby's on its
way and and the flash to bang onthe last one was real quick.
So I knew I had to lady, I hadto drop the hammer.
And so I'm speeding down fromfrom Camel Barracks down to or

(02:22:43):
the merry patch down toFremantle Hospital.
Speeding down on the speedlimit.
No, no, I was speeding becausethe baby was coming in the car.
Yeah.
And then, and then get in thereand I, I bloody park right
outside the hospital.
I run in there to grab awheelchair or something and and
I come back out and I park mytruck up and I back into the
midwife's car.
Fuck.

(02:23:06):
Already off to a bad start, butno, no, no complications.
Baby was born, no probs.
And then, yeah, another wee boy.
So that was great.
And then yeah.
So yeah, another.
So we spoke about Norway,Thailand, you know that that

(02:23:52):
2011 period, you have a secondchild as well.
And then 2012, I guess Afghan isstill in fucking full swing
11-12.
This is where it starts.
You're only pretty much doingday, day gigs as well.
And obviously day gigs turn intowounded in action and obviously
killed in action.

(02:24:13):
So run me through this next tripmate, which obviously includes.
Yeah.
So yeah, start at 2012, gettingready to go back again.
A lot of the older personalitiesfrom 2 Squadrons sort of circa
2010 had moved on, beingpromoted or posted in different
areas.
So, so it was a bit of a newer,newer, newer crew, but not all

(02:24:39):
good dudes.
And then, yeah, I did my CQBinstructor or TPC instructor
course at the start of the year.
So I was busy with that.
And then did the build uptraining for the rotation for
2012 and back half.
And we were replacing 3Squadron.
And then those boys have beenbusy on their trip.

(02:25:02):
And then we'd got all theupdates.
And then and then, yeah, justbefore we flew out, we got the
unfortunate news.
Dids had been killed an actionman on what was his last job on
his eighth trip, and which is ahell of a thing, man, when you
think about it.
And yeah, man, like Dids was amuch loved character in A

(02:25:23):
Regiment Man.
And the way to describe it, Isuppose, is it's like, you know,
losing a book man, that there'sonly one copy of man.
And that's what fucking Dids wasman in the in the unit and his
death was was felt pretty prettykeenly across all of the
squadrons men because that's thesort of dude that he was.
And so we arrived in in TK manto his ramp ceremony and then

(02:25:47):
had the service for them.
Then loaded them onto the LRPVlike you would have seen in
countless, countless picturesthere of all the different boys
and that that didn't come back.
And then we put them on the put

them on the C 1 (02:26:02):
30.
And this time all the boysaccompanied them home because
that was the end of the trip forthem.
And yeah, so then we started, westarted to get to work and yeah,
it was a it was a it was, it waspretty tough that trip.
Like a lot of lot, like the, thedaytime stuff restrictions were

(02:26:23):
were obviously still there,which Hanford, us and the
partnering ratios had crept upand up and up.
So as a percentage now that theyformed, they were starting to
form a higher percentage ofoperators on the ground.
Then sometimes then you sorryyour partner force outnumbered
your operators on the ground.

(02:26:45):
And and you know, that made ithard, man.
Like, you know, you, it's likethe guys we were partnering
with, they were, they were gooddudes and they were, they were
capable guys.
But like the type of work wewere trying to do, man, it's
it's tricky to do it when halfof your force, I mean, you can't
even talk to them now you've gota language barrier in between

(02:27:07):
them.
So yeah, it was was.
That getting fed back up to yourchain of commander saying COM
like we can't fucking do this.
I don't think, see, that's notin the, I think a lot of blokes
were probably too proud to say,hey, man, like, you know, no,
you know, because you just don'tdo that in the military, do you?
You don't say you can't dosomething.
You'd try and find a way to doit, which not it's not

(02:27:30):
necessarily the right thing.
But yeah, it was.
Yeah, it was.
Yeah.
So yeah, that did that did makeit hard, man.
And then yeah, later on in thatsubsequently later on in that
trip, then we lost the threeguys to the green on blue attack
with Hikmatullah and that andthat was probably, you know, we,

(02:27:52):
we burned it down man, trying totrying to get after him down.
We were working days and nights,although we couldn't raid at
night.
We'd we'd fly the fact we'd flythe the OR the roads out of the
province at night.
So teams would do it everynightmare.
We'd board the helos and we'dfly up and down those roads

(02:28:14):
every night.
And if we'd saw any vehicles onthere, we'd try and we'd, we'd,
you know, we'd interdict themand stop them and search just,
you know, on the off chance thatmaybe we could keep them, you
know, persuade them to stay inprovince or maybe even in to
put, put our hands on them andand bring them in man.
And yeah, it's, we were unableto do it, man.
He, he got out and he, heobviously got away to Pakistan.

(02:28:34):
And we, we felt real bad aboutthat.
We, we felt like we owed it tothe, to these, the MRTF boys men
to, to give them some closure onthat.
And we're unable to do it.
Which was, yeah, not good.
Yeah.
But yeah.
But that's.
Again, you may of had a betterchance if you had the ability to

(02:28:55):
operate at night.
Yeah, possibly.
I think, I don't know, man.
I, I felt like we probablyneeded a hand, you know?
I mean, if we.
Yeah, if we, you know, And thenyou know how you often think,
man, we were.
We're supposed to have a goodworking relationship with the
bloody district police chief.
OMK, Surely he could have lockedthat place down, you know, and

(02:29:19):
then, you know, made it harderfor him to get out.
And then maybe.
Yeah, I don't know.
But yeah, we gave it a good, wegave it a red hot go, that's for
sure.
Did it give you any flashback?
But memories of what happened,you know, to you guys with you
know that and you know what Imean?
Like, did that bring up a bit ofa oh fuck, we told these, we

(02:29:43):
told the, you know the rankabout this.
Yeah.
Why wasn't there something in?
There was there was already abit of a pattern there that
wasn't there, you know, likethat was happening in remember
as well, like it wasn't justhappening to Australians, it was
happening to them.
No, exactly right.
The US skies in it was.
Happening in one of the messeson Brits.
Yeah, the Brits as well, man.
So it was at that period it wasrampant, man.
So I don't think even if we'd,yeah, it's inevitable, really.

(02:30:09):
Yeah, it probably was, man.
That's sort of, you know.
You can mitigate.
But you can't stop.
Can't stop it, man.
Like that's just, you know,Yeah, I can't do much about it.
And for that 2012 trip, becausethis become a quite busy kinetic
trip as well, didn't it?
Yep.
Yeah, we were.
Yeah, we were busy.
And then it.
Was only doing the J Pell stuff.
Yep Yep.

(02:30:30):
Is that the main?
Yep, still doing that.
Yep, still doing that.
So pretty much when we talkabout AJ Pol job, you're you
spun up, you head out, you dothe job, you come back.
So you're you're back beforedinner.
Yeah, No, normally, Yep.
So you can't really.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So it's a short, it's a shortduration mission as opposed to
say something like a disruptiontask where you'll go into an

(02:30:51):
area and maybe you'll try and,you know, your presidency will
cause an effect or something.
And you're going to be therefor, you know, a 24 hour period
or a number of days.
You know, generally thetargeting process was short
notice.
So you had to be able to standup quickly, receive a set of
orders that were pretty barebones in terms of detail, and

(02:31:12):
then launch on that, on thattask.
And then and then, and thenyou'd become, you'd be coming
back within that same period ofdaylight more often than not.
Yeah, 3 or 4 hours.
So 2012, obviously AustralianDefence Force continuing to lose
a whole bunch of guys killed inaction.
Yeah, there was another Hilocrash from 2 Commando.

(02:31:33):
Yep, one of my good mates onthat Hilo and was that. 2012 or
2013?
2012 that was 2012 August YepAugust 2012 Yep, Yep, Yep, Yep
and you know again how's how dothose deaths affect what you
guys do on the ground like doyou guys work harder or do you

(02:31:55):
want to get out there and.
I think they.
Find more You know what I mean?
Just like, and we like me andSkojo, know what you're like as
well.
You like.
You're always looking.
Looking.
You know what I mean?
Yeah.
You're always looking for work.
Yeah, yeah.
You know, Yeah, it does.
Yeah, I guess it does.
You know, you think, Yep, that'sfucking, that's terrible what
happened.
But, you know, you've got to goback out there the next day,

(02:32:16):
don't you?
And you can't just, you can'tjust sit there and dwell on it.
You've got to, you know, you'vegot to go back out because.
And I think that's important forfor everyone to see.
And I know and I know after thatcrash in 2010, we went down and
saw that pilots, man.
I said we will like the dayafter I said, well, well, we're
we're ready to work again, man,if you guys are.

(02:32:38):
So we'll roll like we don't.
We're not stopping, you know, wehave to keep going.
And yeah.
So yeah, you can't really, Iguess you can't really dwell.
Yeah, because obviously that wasthe same day as the as the green
on blue.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, that was essentiallythe deadliest day in Australia's
history since Vietnam.
Which was it was, I remember itquite fondly held that rotation

(02:33:02):
four months.
Yep.
Yeah, Four months.
Yep.
Any significant wounded inaction or anything or was it?
Nah, not too bad are you?
Just not, Not for two schoolfucking one.
No, not for two quarters, No.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, that onepretty good.
So moving forward, you finishedthat rotation and I guess not

(02:33:23):
knowingly known that that'sgonna be your last combat
operation.
Yeah.
Technically, yeah.
Yeah.
Yeah, it is.
Yeah.
And did you know that at thatstage or no, did you think
you're gonna deploy again 13maybe?
I thought I'd go back in 13 but.
Which you did, but.
We did not know what we'redoing, it turns out.

(02:33:45):
Yeah, I did that.
I did that DST trip.
So which is another sort of rolethat we would we another
commitment there.
We had over there a lot quieter,not really going out and doing.
Of a grey roll.
Yeah, Yep.
Yep, Yep.
So Yep.
Not too, not, not too busy onthat one, but pretty just
steady, steady work, man.
It's nothing too crazy.

(02:34:06):
Yeah.
And then, yeah, so we did that.
And then but that sort of periodthere, everything was getting
packed up.
Like the literal office where wewere working out of, the
compound we were working out ofwas getting retrograded and
packed up and abandoned becausetalk.
Of the withdrawal was.
Happening.
Yeah, it was everywhere.
It was always happening.
But you know, I think that 12period, 11/12 period, that's

(02:34:27):
when it started on.
It was all over the US news.
Obviously they're talking aboutit and.
The drawdown.
Yeah.
Did you, did you guys feel likethere was you, you accomplished
what you needed to or was?
Yeah, it's a never ending war.
We know that.
Yeah, I and I'll tell you whatman, like I think if you'd ask
any soldier on the ground overthere, like how do you think

(02:34:49):
it's going?
And then every so like itwouldn't matter what job you did
over there.
If you were, if you had a jobwhere you were out on the
ground, you would have said assoon as we leave that they're
going to come straight back,man, I guarantee.
It which they did in 10 days,yeah.
We might have debated over howlong it took them, but we said
they'll come back.
Yeah.
And that was the onlydifference.
Some people might have got thehow long it, you know, but it

(02:35:12):
didn't, you know, once you sawsome of those provinces that
were never really, you know,like a real benign province or
that's a pretty safe area of thecountry.
And once you saw that go to togo back to Taliban rule, you
think, Yeah, these fellows areon a roll.
And they're it's going to be alot shorter than we think.
And as you said, 2013 you dothis great role stuff. 2014 move

(02:35:32):
into, you know, I guess you it'sprobably a good thing because
you're starting to spend a bitmore time with, with the family,
young kids and, you know, 14you're doing some just courses
and climbing and which I'm sureyou love and survival, of
course, which you probably loveme and Skoda, not so much. 15
This is where I guess you stepup then, you know, move into

(02:35:54):
that patrol commander.
Yeah.
Side of things, yeah.
So at your own team.
Year 2014 spent the year down atOSS at climbing survival Cell,
helped run roping court likelike airborne roping, military
climbing, the macro course andthe Comm serve course.
And yeah, that was, yeah, it wasa Goodyear bit of a reset year,

(02:36:18):
still pretty busy, but you know,you're back in Ecken, Aussie for
the whole year, so that wasgood.
What was the outlook for SSR atthat stage?
Yeah.
There's the war was done.
So 2014, so the boys in twosquads and shot over for the
Malaysian Airlines crash in theUkraine and they and they had a

(02:36:38):
few different commitments there.
So they did that and it took a afair amount of time.
They were over there for adecent amount amount of time.
But as in combat operations, no,no actually deployment.
Yep, they were done.
Yep.
And how was the mood like again,how was the mood?
In, yeah, I suppose.
Everyone's like fuck is everyoneis everyone like oh fuck this
kind of like a forced arrest nowor.

(02:37:00):
Yeah, we one was sort ofwondering what the next thing
was because everything was stillkicking, kicking over and and
like on OCRA and things likethat.
But then but we, yeah, it was alittle bit, yeah.
We were sort of told, no, youhaven't got a, you haven't got a
job role over there.
So you're not going like, OK,sweet.
I think a few handful of guysmight have got over there onto

(02:37:20):
those strike discs, but it was.
You were in 2016.
Yeah, yeah, pretty sure it was16.
Yeah.
You're just, yeah, fightingaround, not doing.
Yeah, yeah.
And more of a like a like a LOjob over there.
So it was, you know, it waspretty, pretty benign.
Yeah.
Right.
Yeah, yeah, right.
Did you swing through Baghdad atall?

(02:37:41):
You obviously.
Never, ever stepped foot inIraq.
Yeah.
Oh, you didn't?
Nope.
Oh yeah?
Well, that's all right then.
Yeah, Skodjo said.
Lid.
Yeah, that's right.
I am bothered.
Just quickly mate, when you'rein Afghanistan with SASR, did
you ever run into the Kerryboys?

(02:38:03):
Couple of times a year, yeah, Isaw him a couple of times at
AMEB and then a couple of acouple of the maybe one of their
troop bosses might have poppeddown and down at TK and had a
corner with him.
But fuck, I'm trying toremember.
No, I didn't read.
No, I didn't bump into defected.
Yeah, yeah.
Ben, you're you're nosy now.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

(02:38:24):
Popped me away.
Yeah, right.
And then, you know, this iswhere I guess 2017, you know,
tempo's fucking completelyslowed down.
It gives time, you know, forpeople to think and make up
allegations, which they didBurden.
Yep, it's starting to.
Yep, that's all starting to comeinto play now.

(02:38:44):
And what, you know, I think Ispoke about on Brenna's podcast,
he spoke about how the moodchanged and, you know, people
started stabbing each other inthe back.
And you know, at the end of theday, all this probably wouldn't
happen if people didn't stabeach other in the back.
But that's always going tohappen in organisations where
it's just out for dudes.

(02:39:07):
You know, generally that's it'snot Peacocks, there's Peacocks
and Peacocks and people getjealous of, you know, obviously
BRS getting the VC and probablypeople jealous of Donna getting
the VC, same thing and then notgetting recognition.
So you know where does it startfor you?
Like where does you?
I mean, I suppose you go backand yeah, I suppose the start

(02:39:29):
near the start of it when wewere probably a little bit
oblivious to a lot of the stuffthat was going on behind the
scenes and that which clearlythere was.
So when you say behind thescenes, they went to the media.
Yeah, but yeah, so we had noidea about any of that, man.
Like no fucking idea at all.

(02:39:50):
So the first thing we're hearingabout it is this unacceptable
behaviour stuff.
And then Singleman, who was sockoff at the time, said, I all
want you to write this letterand to me about if you've, you
know, done anything that wasunacceptable or saw anything
that was unacceptable overseas.
And everybody took it as toyou're talking about the
drinking.
Yeah.

(02:40:10):
And we're like, yeah, OK.
And then so everyone wroteletters like, yeah, man, I've, I
deployed this many times.
I Yep, I drank at the fatladies.
End of story.
And then we submitted thatlater.
And then that was, yeah, theonly thing we really sort of
knew about it.
Like the Krompovitz stuff andall of that stuff.
No idea that was going on.
Like literally news to, youknow, when that report come out.

(02:40:33):
I was like, man, I never sawthat person on base.
Like, I don't even rememberbeing briefed about it or
anything like that.
But anyway.
But yeah, So year 16, 17, I'd,I'm slinging.
Yeah, it's time to probably lookat a few options.

(02:40:53):
Now, my PC time or my patrolamount of time was coming to an
end and I was probably going tolook at an external posting.
So because I'd gone back to twosquadrons into a free fall troop
and I'd accrued a fair amount ofjumps and gained a few
qualifications like tandemmaster and, and, and all that

(02:41:13):
sort of stuff.
I thought, well, you know, I'll,yeah, I'll entertain the idea of
going to, to school, the parishtraining school and I'll, I'll
do a stint there.
Like, you know, it's fuckingthat's what I know.
And so I'll let the, I'll letthe, you know, let the let work
know that I was keen to do thatand I was probably going to get
pushed that way anyway or, or anexternal, like they were keen on

(02:41:36):
external postings at that pointfor some reason.
And you're going to get onesomewhere.
So Miles will be the one thatyou want.
So I'll see you, I'll put myhand up for that.
And then, but it would be easierfor my family at the time if
they went back to NZ and then Ican just jump over the ditch and
go and see him while I'm on theEast Coast.
So, and we're always going toend up back in New Zealand

(02:41:57):
eventually.
So, so that's what we did.
And then, so towards the end of2017, yeah, packed, packed
everything up and we all headedback here to, to NZ and sort of
started to put in into planslike building house and all that
sort of stuff.

(02:42:18):
And and then I went back and didmy free for instructor course at
the start of 2018 and then tooka bit of long service leave to
build a house after I qualifiedas an instructor.
And then even I was all sort oflocked in and then, yeah, then
get the get the message that I'mto attend an IG interview.

(02:42:38):
And which wasn't surprisingbecause everyone was getting
interviewed, man.
And so it, but what did surpriseme was the way I was told.
And I would have thought that,you know, when you get informed
of that, you have to attend thisinterview, your chain of command
would inform you where Watsonwas.

(02:42:59):
My sister, who was a captain inRHQ at the time in Perth.
And she just gets a posted noteput on her computer up at RHQ
that she's to tell her brotherthat he needs to attend an IG
meeting.
And that fucked me off, man.
Because it's like, well, where'sthis?
Where's the chain of command?
And that like, where's my troopcommander or my OC or the CEO?

(02:43:23):
Like he's not the CEO of thatmany people.
And not everybody was a lot ofpeople getting interviewed, but
not everyone was gettinginterviewed.
It's like, where was the chainof command?
And that and that put my fuckingback up.
Do you?
Think they did that on purpose,They just fucking away just so
they you'd go in swinging.
Go fuck you and fuck this andfuck the Defence Force.
I don't know if they were just.
Because it's told like it I.

(02:43:44):
Don't know if they were told notto do anything or not to support
the boys or they just didn'tknow what to do because they
were frozen with an action.
Well, it's not hard like.
You wouldn't think it would.
Be especially if in the SAS age.
Yeah, you'd like to think, yeah,you sound smarts about it.
Yeah, you'd like to think you'dhave some moral fibre.
But so this is The thing is so.
Yeah.

(02:44:04):
So like I get the.
I get the I get the yeah, getyou, get you get told to attend
this interview.
So fucking that gets jacked up.
And then I messaged back RHQ andI said, well, look, man, like
I'd like to have a look at theAA Rs from some of those, some
of those jobs that were startingto pop up in the media at the
time.

(02:44:25):
And because you know, it's beenfucking, it's been a while.
It's been 10 years been sincesome of the stuffs, you know,
since some of these these jobshave passed and what you're
talking about, I can't rememberthem.
And then so and then they justsort of pay me off.
And then it's like, Oh yeah,we'll get them to you.
We'll get them to you.
Like they never turned up.

(02:44:45):
So I couldn't, I couldn't lookat any of them.
And and then I raised that pointwhen I attended the interview
and then they said, oh, yeah,well, we're not going to let you
look at them.
I'm like, well, wouldn't that beyour first go to the documented
report of what we did?
Wouldn't you be talking?
Wouldn't you want to?
Wouldn't that be your firstport?

(02:45:07):
Yeah.
And yeah, we were unable to lookat any of that.
So we were, you know, you'retrying to remember, you know,
one job from hundreds of fuckingmissions.
Anything.
I'm like, I mean, I, you know,some stick out, some don't, you
know?
Yeah.
So there was that.
So, yeah.
Attended the interview.
So I flew over from New Zealandto Sydney and yeah, sat down for
8 hours and then, yeah, just,yeah, walked out of that

(02:45:33):
interview process.
Yep.
Thinking that's me.
I'm done, man.
The manner, the way thatinterview was conducted, the,
you know, the questions of likecirculating rumours and, you
know, hearsay and shit likethat.
Like, man, this isn't, thisisn't a fact find man.
We're not.
You're not trying to get to thebottom of this.
This sounds like a fucking witchhunt.

(02:45:55):
And I walked out of that goingnone.
I mean, I'm done.
You know, I'm not.
Yeah, I'm not putting theuniform on for you lot anymore.
And yeah, it was pretty easydecision to make really.
And then I informed work notlong after that that I won't be
yeah, I'll, I'll be getting outand then, yeah, just discharged

(02:46:16):
and then.
And not one phone call.
Not one.
Hey mate, you know, should youmaybe maybe reconsider and stay
in longer?
You know, like, yeah, yourexperience is fucking
invaluable.
Nah, none of that, none of that.
It was just so, yeah, went overto Perth and yeah, just handed
my shit in and then just likethat, yeah, saw the RSM and yeah

(02:46:39):
left and he went back to NewZealand and then.
And you weren't the only one.
There was.
Multiple.
Oh, it was heap.
Yeah, that happened heaps, man.
And a lot got pushed out aswell.
Yep, Yep.
So it wasn't just the guys thathad findings, it was guys that
bloody were just simply deemed,well, you're part of the
furniture from that era.
So we've had a gut full of youso you can go.
I thought really, you know, andit was a pretty yeah, it was a

(02:47:00):
pretty disappointing end really.
But you know, when I look at,when I look at the way the ADF
was starting to turn, then maybeit was a blessing in disguise
meant to leave because.
Yeah.
Because they stopped celebratingstrengths and they started

(02:47:20):
promoting and celebratingweakness.
Dudes wearing skirts, yeah.
That shit, man, Like that shitcripped in while we had guys
dying on the battlefield inAfghanistan, man.
And then we had the chief ofarmy wearing fucking woman shoes
around, man.
And it's like, I don't even knowwhat that is.
Yeah.
What the hell is that?
Yeah, yeah, diversity is nowstrength.

(02:47:42):
It's not.
That's rubbish.
It's it's to bind answers.
There's there's a common placewhere it's not in a in a Defence
Force that's not actively 4thwars.
Yep.
It's not you know, we, we leftAfghanistan obviously what what
two years later, Afghans 2019yeah, 19 yeah, obviously full
withdrawal from Afghanistan hasbeen taken over.

(02:48:02):
It's it's pretty much justspitting on all the guys,
regular Army special forces thathave passed away and all those
families that have stood onthose ramp ceremonies.
Yeah, it's just.
Yeah, yeah, no spat on.
Yeah, and this is our Australiangovernment and our Australian
military leadership.
Yep.
No, you're not right.
Yeah, yeah.

(02:48:23):
So yeah, in some ways, man,probably, you know, good thing
to, good thing just to walk awayand then, yeah, come back to New
Zealand and then, yeah, quite athing getting out of the Army,
especially when you've been init longer than you haven't been.
Yeah, 23 years, Yeah, 20, Yeah,23 years, Yeah.
You go.
You know, I guess it's, it's tobe honest, we're in this place

(02:48:45):
now and it's Yeah, you fucking,you can get cuddled with you.
I could tell you that for afact.
But still, coming from that hightempo to yeah, sitting on the
couch and yeah, fucking watchingDateline and then just roasting,
Yeah.
SASR, Yeah.
No, it's, yeah, it was, it wasinteresting getting out, man.
And I can see where blokes, Ican see where blokes struggle

(02:49:07):
when they, when they do stepoff, it's like stepping, you
know, off a fucking train.
And then it just fucks off andyou're standing at the train
station and then there's just,there's just nothing there.
Yeah.
It's like, fuck, what do I donow?
Yeah.
And I was, yeah, I was fortunateI had some.
I got into a bit of hunting,guiding and adventure guiding.
And there's a drop zone 10minutes down the road.

(02:49:28):
So I started throwing drugs forthem.
And yeah, it kept me busyenough, man.
And, and it's exciting enough.
Like some of the worst jumps Ihad in my entire parachuting
career were like, yeah, somefucking crazy fucking tandem
passengers that don't speakEnglish.
So yeah, way, well, way moredangerous than a night jump.
Yeah, way more dangerous.

(02:49:50):
And then?
Which you've done inAfghanistan.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
So yeah, I think I've spokenabout on a couple of other
podcasts, Yeah.
First ever jump into.
Yeah.
That was, yeah, that was combat.
Yep.
Hundreds jump.
I'd only done 100 fuckingfreefall jumps.
And then we're into the Chora.
Yeah, but yeah.
And man, I don't know what thefuck I was doing there. 100
jumps.
No one does.

(02:50:10):
Yeah, but you just follow thebloke in front of you,
unfortunately, and and thesquadron at time there was heaps
of experience with parachutingmen.
A lot more probably than here inNZ because asset, asset rich in
that term in those, in thoseterms over there just plenty of,
yeah, we have plenty of aircraftand plenty of allocated

(02:50:33):
parachute training time.
So it was, yeah, we got prettyslick at it did.
Did everyone jump on those jumpsor, you know, were there people?
No, no, well the whole troopnormally like wouldn't be
freefall quote because you'llhave all your water operators
who you normally there might beone or two of them that are that
are quoted in it as well.
But and because I was at thetime in a freefall troop then

(02:50:55):
yeah.
So you'd probably put in twoteams or two teams with a small
sort of headquarters would go inand do those jobs and everyone
else ready is is QRF.
Yeah, right.
Yeah, pretty cool.
Obviously that was what year wasthat?
090.
No, fuck.
So that was that busy period.
Yeah, yeah, right.
So moving forward again, you'reout of the Defence Force SSR,

(02:51:18):
you're sitting on your loungeevery fucking morning.
You know, for a good, there wasa good period there where we
woke up every morning and, youknow, your best mates faces on
the TV every, you know, then,you know, all these squeeze and
media journos questioning, youknow, the integrity of one of
the, you know, most decorated.
He is the most decorated soldierin Australia.

(02:51:39):
You know, how does that feellike, Yeah, if you'd be let down
by the Australian government.
Yeah.
But fuck, man, you look at allthe regiments woes, man, then
the predicament they foundthemselves into and they can
only if you want to blamesomeone, you can blame any
external organisation that youwant and you can blame them for

(02:52:00):
for all of it if you wish.
But really, if you were to lookat it from, you know, a from a
real cold perspective, becausewe did that to ourselves.
Yeah, the regiment did that.
It wasn't another organisation.
And so command that fucking didthat to the regiment.
We we imploded men.
And then really, we probablyneed to have a good fucking hard

(02:52:21):
look at that because, you know,and it wasn't, it wasn't about
this moral outrage or anythinglike that, man.
It was, it was jealousy, man.
And I saw it.
And you can't tell me I didn'tsee what I saw, man.
Because I'll tell you what, whenwe got back from T Zac, I said
the fucking suppressors hadbarely cooled down, man.
And fucking people were startingto get upset about who got what
or who deserved what.

(02:52:44):
And it was a shame to see it.
And it only got fucking worsefrom there.
And that's the fucking truth,man.
But you know, shouldn't thatstuff be shut down by a shrink
officer?
Like, yeah, that's generally howit works in the rest of the
army.
If something happens, an OC willstep in, say shut your fucking
mouth.
If you don't shut your mouth,you can fuck off.

(02:53:04):
Simple.
Yep.
But really, it's the senior.
NCO should have fucking grippedthat.
Yeah, of course.
Yeah, yeah, they should havebeen the first ones.
Hey, man.
Yep.
This is the fucking stop, man.
Because it is.
But if they can't do it, that'syeah, yeah, that's what an
officer is for.
Yep.
To maintain control, butobviously the Sergeant is kind
of like.
The dad, Yep.
And the Sergeant and they seemsure.

(02:53:24):
Hey, man, like if I hear aboutthis shit fucking and the
easiest thing to do is like, ifI get in the fucking office,
what is this fucking problem?
Yep.
Talk.
Yep.
And fucking get it out.
And I don't want to hear itanymore.
Oh, you're jealous about this oryou're jealous about that?
Well, fuck me and grow up.
Yeah, yeah.
But that was that was thefucking start of it, man.
It's it's jealousy overall.

(02:53:45):
And how's it been over the lastfuck it's been?
You know, it's 2017, It's 2025now.
We've seen one charge and youknow the where does it go from
here?
Where do you see it going fromhere?
You ought to know, man.
Like, Yeah, well, one charge andone bloke's taken his life over

(02:54:06):
the over his treatment and that.
And how many families have been?
Yeah, that's probably one of thebiggest things.
Yeah, you count them you need.
Yeah, that'd be.
There's a lot, man.
It's certainly taken its toll onblokes, I mean, that have gotten
out or been pushed out.
Because the house is gettingraided.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
You know, they're constantlywatching their back as they
think, again, the house is goingto get fucking raided and turned

(02:54:28):
upside down.
You know, there's multiple guysI've spoken to personally and
the the house has been turnedup, the Australian fucking war
heroes.
And this other side goes in andturns their fucking houses
upside down and, and obviouslyfamilies can't cope.
Yep.
They've got to send kids toschool next morning.
Your house is upside down.
Yeah, yeah.

(02:54:48):
So you know, like surely thisthis ends?
Yeah, well, it's got it.
Yeah, it's got it.
It's got to end.
It's got to end sooner.
It's costing the taxpayer.
As well.
Yeah, a lot of.
Fucking you'd like to see you'dlike to see it come to a close
room and and you know, and andbut you know, as well as that,
you know, for individuals for itto fucking come to an end.
Fuck the army with ADF, butreally the army and they need to

(02:55:11):
fucking they need it needs tofinish, man, because this is not
helping.
You know, you know, you can paymillions of dollars to an
advertising company to try andrecruit, yeah, you know, young
men and women into the DefenceForce, man.
But for every one of thosecompanies, man, if you've got

(02:55:31):
1520, thirty, 100, I mean, Idon't know how many guys got out
in that period there from theregiment over the treatment and
then over, you know, overperceived wrongdoings getting
pushed out.
You've got 7080 operators therethat are now out.
And they will talk to people andthey will tell them, hey, man,
do not join up because yeah,look what happens, man.

(02:55:55):
If you do, you know, and thenthat's far worse than you can't
counter that, man.
That needs to be, they need tofix it, man.
They need to draw a line underit and then and then move on.
Go, hey, yeah, mate, we've doneit.
It's we've looked at it.
And now let's just crack onbecause we're still, we still
can't, the Army still can'trecruit soldiers, man.
And they, they still haven't gotthe numbers that they need to,

(02:56:15):
you know, compete in the currentenvironment that we're told
that's, you know, the worstsince World War Two.
Well, you know you're not goingto fix those problems by
hounding the fucking blokes fromthe last war, right?
And just quickly, you know, Ithink we're coming to the end of
the potty.
It's been absolutely fuckingwild.

(02:56:35):
You know, again, just to hearGizab and Tizak, you know, and
obviously Willie's vase, youknow, you're the guy that's
pinned to, to that's, it'sabsolutely wild.
But you know, over the last, youknow, few years, how how you've
been travelling, busy working.
Yeah, obviously.
Yeah, real good man, real busy.
Yeah.
No, it's been it's been goodlike getting out and about like

(02:56:56):
what we did the other like thislast few days.
You know, that's you know, we'regetting we're doing that like
most weeks throughout the yearand that skin about into those
hills flying around thehelicopters and stuff and it's
it's.
Sick.
It's honestly one of the bestthings I've done and one of the
scariest.
You know, literally.
Yeah, no, yeah, it was good.
It was great.
Yeah, it was a great few days.
We got good weather.

(02:57:18):
And got myself a ball.
Yeah, that's it, man.
Yeah, that's the key.
Yeah.
And yeah, they're a they're atough creature to hunt, man, as
you saw, you know, But yeah.
Oh, no.
I mean, it's yeah, it's been,yeah, it's been good.
So that's the business.
Yeah, Yep, Yep.
So I just, I mean, I, I've, I'vegot, I, I work for a great
company at the moment for thefirst, for that main block of

(02:57:43):
the hunting season.
And then I've got some time offand, you know, into the, into
the midwinter, into the springand that.
So I've got a little windowthere where, you know, if people
are keen I can go on, you know.
I'm going to tag it in becausefor the listener that's
listening right now, it waspossibly the best 3-4 days that
me and schedule have had.
You know, we're, we're countrycity slickers and don't get much

(02:58:06):
snow in Australia, obviously.
And it was, it was just like yougot to experience it and the,
the, the view, like I was takinga shit just looking at the
fucking Swiss Alps, you knowwhat I mean?
It was amazing.
So yeah, if anyones out there,I'll definitely tag it all in.
Just mate, yeah, people gottajump on board and come out for a

(02:58:28):
bit of a getaway.
And I suppose you can do somesurvival stuff I'm sure some
person wants to learn about.
Oh, start a fire with a Flint.
No, I'm not.
You know what men don't?
They don't bother me about theirsurvival shit.
Oh, I'm not a hunt.
No, I'm just going to go for ahunt, man, OK.
I want a big feed at the end ofthe day.
Yeah.
And my fucking just thatmountaineering stuff and just.

(02:58:49):
I'm not living.
Yeah.
I'm not living under a fuckingBush.
Yeah.
Eating fucking frogs and shit,mate.
Jam that up your ass, man.
Fucking pains you enough.
You obviously do that survivalstuff.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
And that was that Pretty hard.
It was pretty.
Yeah, I did.
I did mine back in with the Kiwiessays and me and my mate Steve
were in the same littlesyndicate and we, we'd grown up

(02:59:12):
like mucking around in the Bushand, you know, hunting and
everything.
So it was all pretty easy forus.
Yeah.
You know, for two weeks we justate eels and BlackBerry and and
Fern France and it wasn't toobad.
Yeah, but yeah, I fucking hateit though.
Yeah, it's like fair, justliving in the fucking, just

(02:59:32):
living like a just some sort ofpossum man in the woods, and
that's no good.
Yeah, All right, well, I'll takeit all in.
But mates, obviously a couple offinal questions on the party
that I generally ask everyone.
And 1st question is what advicecan you give to people just keep
on keeping on complete any goalthey set their mind to?
Again, you're you, you had thoseaspirations to join the SAS and

(02:59:54):
New Zealand SAS 1st and youknow, that's, that's the top.
This is the top of, you know,the Southern hemisphere,
especially, you know, the SASR.
Yep, yeah, I mean, yeah, youdon't, I suppose.
Odd, odd court, Yeah.
Guys that want, if that's theirgoal, man, just in to serve in

(03:00:15):
one of those units, man.
Like fucking like a menu, man.
It's a fucking, it is a toughRd, but it's a rewarding
fucking.
It's a rewarding fucking career,man.
It is, you know, So yeah, man,put your mind to it, man.
You know, you can fucking, youcan do it, man.
I would caution blokes againagainst getting too much
information from the wrongpeople, man, because I think in

(03:00:37):
this day and age, there's justthis wealth of bloody
information out there.
I don't know if I'll call itknowledge, but it's certainly
information, whether it's goodor bad, you know, on social
media and everything, but howyou should train for something
will do this, will do that.
But really, like, you know, yougo back 20 years, none of that
2025 years, none of that wasavailable, but blokes still
managed it, you know, and Ithink if you yeah, don't look

(03:01:01):
for a, don't look for an easyfucking fix, you know, you know,
everyone sort of knows what theyneed to do, you know, to pass
those types of, of selections,no matter which unit they're in.
And it's just hard workmen arebeing consistent.
And if you can fucking do that,and if you can March fucking 25
KS with a 35K pack and the nextday you don't feel like a piece
of shit, then you're probablyfit enough to do selection.

(03:01:23):
And that's all there is to it,man.
And then the rest of it is justall fucking mental, man.
You just gotta fucking justdon't have to stay there, man.
Just don't give up, yeah?
It'll end soon, yeah.
Yeah, it'll, it'll end.
Yeah.
And then they won't take your,you know, they won't take your
birthday off you.
Yeah.
And then, yeah, that's it, man.
Add that to the Quiet book,yeah.
And then, yeah, but yeah, no,that's, yeah, that's that.

(03:01:45):
And, and I reckon for the blokesthat are, are out, you know,
fuck man, you, you got to findsomething that you like doing.
And it's probably going to haveto be something that you like
doing when you were in, youknow.
And for me, you know, I'mprobably fortunate in some ways
where I get to go out into theoutdoors and hunt and do all the
things that I really love doingand I could still do when I was
in the military.

(03:02:06):
But yeah, you gotta findsomething that you really, you
really look forward to, youknow?
Which is what you're doing nowtoo.
Yeah, and it doesn't matter likeyou might have, maybe it's not
the greatest job in the world,but man, if you've got the the
resources to have a fucking goodhobby or a good pastime and just
get cracking to that man.
And then?
Yeah, yeah.
And I guess that's what's helpedwith, you know, that transition
out of, yeah, the Defence Force,you know, and maintaining being

(03:02:26):
busy.
Yep, that's one of the biggestthings.
And then spend time with yourfamily, man, because that's what
the Army does take away fromyou.
They don't take your birthdayaway from you, but they do take
your family away.
Yeah, yeah, that's been a lot oftime away.
That's it, you know, just tohighlight that, you know, we
volunteered to join the DefenceForce, you know what I mean?
You volunteered to give all yourtime, all your devotion,

(03:02:48):
everything to the Defence Force.
And this is what's happened, youknow, to, to to the unit.
Yeah.
Another thing the media, thejournals don't understand.
Yeah.
It's you sacrifice a lot.
Yeah.
Yeah.
To do the job that theAustralian government told you
to do.
Yeah.
You know, you're, that's one ofthe things.

(03:03:08):
Mate, second question, whatscares you in life?
You know, what are you fearfulof?
Obviously not the edge offucking mountains.
No, no, no, no.
Just a sudden stop at thebottom.
Mate, just like we spoke aboutit, like when you went out one
of those ridges, Yeah, fuck ifhe goes down, like I'm not going

(03:03:29):
out there to get that fuckingGPS.
Device.
We have to wait till Thursday.
It'll be crushed anyway.
Yeah.
You'll be frozen on the side ofmountain like.
Frozen carcass.
Just don't put me in one ofthose dopey fucking positions,
man.
Like don't let the fuckingcircuit rescue people find me
like you'd be like.
Yeah, it's like, why do you lookat screaming?
Eagles screaming eagles like ohman, break my fucking arms man,

(03:03:49):
and put them down beside myself.
Yeah Song.
That's my last wish man, just.
Oh fuck, I'll say that for nexttime.
Leave my carcass looking prettycool, man.
Yeah, but yeah.
What?
What?
What are you scared of?
I.
Don't know what that scares meman.
Example mate, you know whatscares me the most is me
outliving my children.

(03:04:12):
Sorry, me outliving my childrenis what scares me.
Yep.
Yeah.
That would be a that would be athing, man.
Yep.
Yeah.
But you can't do much about it,can you?
You can't.
So you fucking probably don'tneed to be scared about it.
It's out of your control.
Yeah.
Out of moment, yeah.
But that is a fucking decentfear.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Mate move on. 3rd question, tellus something about you that
people don't know.

(03:04:33):
Guilty obsession.
Oh, black chocolate.
Or you talk a bit of chocolateout.
I did take some chocolate outand then I forgot about.
It I saw two or three bars andwe only got 1.
There was 2 bars and they'refucked.
Guilty obsession.
Fuck.
Fuck, you put me on the spot nowwhat is my fucking guilty
obsession?
I like not.

(03:04:55):
Well, it's not my guilty sin,but people don't know about it.
But fuck I'm I'm quite a keengardener, man.
I like gardening.
I think if I didn't join theArmy, I would have been a
gardener.
Yeah.
And that's why I've got this inmy greenhouse out there and my
little veggie garden.
Yeah, Brenna, I helped you buildthat one, Did he?
He sort of helped me a bit ofsupervisors, mainly supervising
them, but.
Those bloody young, young SASkeeps.

(03:05:16):
Having to look on YouTube to seewhat how to make the fucking
instead of reading theinstructions that are right
there, yeah.
Yeah right mate. 2 fun questionsMovie, TV show.
What are you?
What does Someone Like Youwatch?
You don't watch TV too much.
Oh.
I do like, but yeah, TV show beGame of Thrones movies, Lord of
the Rings.

(03:05:37):
Big Lord of the Rings fan.
Yeah, right.
Yeah.
Read all the books like beforethe movies come out, Yeah.
Yeah, interesting, interesting.
Actually I, I was speaking withFitzy the other week out.
I'm on the podcast.
I spoke about that guy thatdresses up of Gandalf in
Christchurch.
A police officer reached out tome in Christchurch, said yeah,

(03:05:59):
mate, the crazy bike stillthere.
You still fucking walk aroundthe wizard?
Yeah, the Wizard of Christchurchdressed like fucking.
Swear the guy he should havedied by now.
He's.
Still kicking around mate, justscreaming at people.
Yeah, yeah, he's got, he'ssliding into dementia.
Yeah, mate.
What music you listen to?
Obviously we had a bit of achance today in the in the heel.
Yeah, yeah.
Follow the team up, man.
The pilot put the headset onlike fuck, he's got some.

(03:06:20):
Fucking the pilot had some.
Funners and roses going great.
Some great fun.
Boots on in the fucking 500.
Fuck, probably, yeah, probablyskin Lynyrd Skynyrd, man, like
that's probably hands down.
Like you can't be fuckingskinny.
Yeah, yeah.
Nice, Yeah.
And all, yeah.
Was there any time, like inAfghanistan, where you sit in

(03:06:42):
your room and you know there's ajob you gotta go on, you just
relax out and it's LynyrdSkinned?
Is that what it is?
Yep.
Yep, listen to some skinny.
Sweet home Alabama.
Yeah, yeah.
Simple man.
Yeah, simple, man.
That's basically Yeah, free,bird free.
Bird.
Yeah.
Free bird.
It's a fucking yeah.
It's a banger.
Yeah.
Mate, All right, well, we'vewe've hit the end and I think

(03:07:04):
it's it's been a good podcast,yeah.
Not too easy, man.
Yeah.
It's been really good again,like to hear, you know, Willy's
VC and then BRSVC and just thelife of a trooper.
And you know what you guys did,you know, it was it was
extraordinary.
You know what you guys did forthe Australian government, for
the Australian Defence Force,for the safety of people here in

(03:07:25):
Australia was cut the head offthe snake in those locations
before they reach the mainland.
Yeah, they're all fucking here.
That's that's another that's,that's well, well beyond our
high grade.
But it's yeah, mate, it's, it's,it's the reason why I do these
podcasts, to share the storiesfrom the guys from the shooters

(03:07:47):
on the ground, because that'swhat really matters, not what
the clowns on, on the TV talkabout.
You know, that's, that's it'sit's an absolute joke.
But mate, for whatever reason,people want to reach out to you.
Where can they find you?
Just reach out to me.
And yeah, yeah, yeah, I'll pass.
Yeah.
Pass it on to you.
Yeah, that'll be.
Pass on messages and yes, ifanyone's keen on any hunting,

(03:08:10):
reach out to me and I'll I'llpass it on.
And yeah, mate, he'll get you abull, I'll tell you that for a
fact.
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I'm actuallygetting mine mounted.
We dropped it off and Yep and itall prettied up and hanging on
the wall up these ones here andput it in my office.
And I look good to scare peoplewith it, yeah.
Like that was, I was honestlythe best thing it was.

(03:08:31):
Yeah.
Yep.
Mates again, appreciate you.
And, you know, thank you forhaving us.
No, no, too easy bro.
Anytime we're.
Definitely going to be doingthis again.
Yep, as long as it's a bitwarmer.
Yeah, yeah, yeah.
Yep.
Oh yeah, I appreciate it mate.
Not too easy.
Cheers.
Not good shit.
Wait, wait, wait.
Now quickly just before you go Iwant to tell you about 3 Zeros

(03:08:53):
coffee.
As you know I like my coffeehell a lot.
My men long and black.
However, lately I've moved intothe cold brews.
I'm loving it obviously becausethe weather here in Australia at
the moment is quite hot.
So what I've been doing is usingthe seasoned Campaigner pour
over philtre bags.
Literally RIP open the packet,put the Philtre bag over my

(03:09:15):
coffee mug, few ice cubes, pourin some hot water, let it cool
down, add a sugar or two just tomake it sweet.
And I fucking love them.
Honestly, you get the kick thatyou need out of the caffeine and
the taste is great.
So if we're going to getyourself a supply of coffee,
head over to Three Zeroscoffee.com dot AU.
From there, you can choosewhatever you want.

(03:09:37):
You got the beans, you got thepour over Philtre bags, got some
merchandise.
And just to let you know, thatpercentage of their sales is
forwarded to organisations thatsupport first responders.
So while you're getting yourcoffee, you're doing a good deed
by getting some of this money tothe first responders and where
it needs to go.
While you're there, don't forgetto use the discount code 3Z
limits.

(03:09:58):
Now look at our buyer.
You see that discount code, Useit, get your discounts.
So again, jump onto 3 zeroscoffee.com dot AU and grab
yourself a supply.

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