# SAS Veteran on Ben Roberts-Smith, ANZAC Day & the Truth About Afghanistan

An episode of [Straight Talk with Mark Bouris](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1572546872), 22 Apr 2026, 1 h 05 min.

Audio: https://p.podderapp.com/2544644999/traffic.omny.fm/d/clips/2fb3740d-3436-44af-8cc0-a91900716aa5/1c4759f0-81fc-4f35-85d1-b305004fc1e8/673b102d-3bbd-47f8-9ee5-b4340081241f/audio.mp3?utm_source=Podcast&in_playlist=573776d2-4dbd-4f2f-a825-b305004fc1ef

Mark Wales is a former SAS soldier who served multiple deployments in Afghanistan, including intense combat operations that tested the limits of human endurance. In this profound conversation, Wales opens up about the psychological realities of combat, the bonds forged between soldiers under fire, and the complex moral terrain of modern warfare. He discusses the transition from military to civilian life, the systemic failures that prolonged the Afghanistan conflict, and his perspective on the controversial Ben Roberts-Smith case. Wales offers unflinching insights into fear management, the brotherhood of arms, and what ANZAC Day truly means to those who've served. • The psychological impact of combat and managing fear under fire • How military training prepares soldiers for high-stress combat situations • The unique bonds formed between soldiers in the theatre • Chain of command structure and leadership in combat zones • Australia's handling of veteran affairs compared to other nations • The systemic issues that prolonged the Afghanistan conflict • Perspective on the Ben Roberts-Smith case and war crimes prosecutions Join my exclusive Mentored+ community: https://mentored.com.au/become-a-member/ Subscribe to the Mentored newsletter here: https://mentored.com.au/newsletter See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.

## Transcript

[0:00] Speaker 1: Mark Wales, welcome back to meyaie a couple weeks ago
[0:02] Speaker 1: to come back to straight to it, mate, But it
[0:04] Speaker 1: is actually important for me to talk to someone like you.
[0:07] Speaker 1: And I reached out to the guys asked them to
[0:09] Speaker 1: do this because Anzac Days, you know, a couple of
[0:12] Speaker 1: days away, and I really wanted to talk to about
[0:13] Speaker 1: it because you know, what's happened this year. You know,
[0:16] Speaker 1: we'll talk there'd Ben Robert Smith, et cetera. But what's
[0:19] Speaker 1: happened this year in relation to Australian war vets and
[0:23] Speaker 1: things like war crimes, and there are things that we've
[0:25] Speaker 1: never really really heard about, and I think just seems
[0:28] Speaker 1: to be a lot more awareness given that Anzac Days
[0:30] Speaker 1: around the corner. I started asking myself what does Anzac
[0:33] Speaker 1: Day mean to me? And then I thought to myself,
[0:37] Speaker 1: I really should talk to somebody who's been in the
[0:39] Speaker 1: theater of war about what Anzac Day means to them
[0:43] Speaker 1: and just take it from there so I can sort
[0:45] Speaker 1: of understand. It's all very well for all of us
[0:48] Speaker 1: to go alounch the footy on Anzac Day and listen
[0:50] Speaker 1: to the last post and watch the helicopter drop, you know
[0:52] Speaker 1: something in and you know, perhaps watch the parade of
[0:56] Speaker 1: some Vets and et cetera, and that's great, you know,
[0:59] Speaker 1: that's that's a good good to go there to the
[1:01] Speaker 1: dawn service gat in the pub after maybe a bit
[1:03] Speaker 1: of too all fine entertainment. But it probably means a
[1:06] Speaker 1: lot different to people who've been in the theater war,
[1:08] Speaker 1: particularly guys like you, And I think it's important for
[1:11] Speaker 1: us to be able to talk to our audience with
[1:13] Speaker 1: some sort of truth and so of reality about what
[1:17] Speaker 1: end Z Day actually means to people like you. So
[1:21] Speaker 1: how do you feel about n Z Day, and particularly
[1:23] Speaker 1: in the light of what's going on.
[1:25] Speaker 2: It's such a big cultural occasion in Australia. I remember
[1:29] Speaker 2: watching it kind of get more and more popular as
[1:32] Speaker 2: as we deployed troops to ease Team. I think it
[1:34] Speaker 2: was like the late nineties, but I remember getting bigger
[1:36] Speaker 2: and bigger, and then over the September eleven and the
[1:40] Speaker 2: Iraq War, it just kind of grew as a national
[1:43] Speaker 2: identity thing and it started. My understanding is it started
[1:47] Speaker 2: all the way back kind of World War One, when
[1:51] Speaker 2: a bunch of Vets wanted to celebrate in Sydney in
[1:53] Speaker 2: Martin Place, and it's just growing and growing since then,
[1:57] Speaker 2: and obviously it's a big cultural thing and celebrates hugely
[2:00] Speaker 2: in the defense forces. But I remember watching it and
[2:05] Speaker 2: I studied history and everything. I always want to know
[2:08] Speaker 2: what those battles were like, and I think once i'd
[2:11] Speaker 2: been involved in some and left, the memories of it
[2:15] Speaker 2: for me are there kind of every day, but Anzac
[2:18] Speaker 2: Day is a chance where every in Australia kind of
[2:20] Speaker 2: has that consideration for the fall, and the you know,
[2:23] Speaker 2: celebrates it in that sense. So for me, it's a
[2:25] Speaker 2: good day. I try not to it's trying to be.
[2:28] Speaker 2: I try to make it more of a celebration than anything,
[2:30] Speaker 2: and that dawn service is always somber, but the rest
[2:32] Speaker 2: of it should be a celebration, I think, and I
[2:35] Speaker 2: shouldn't remember those people that were sacrificed. But for me,
[2:38] Speaker 2: I'm like, you've got to now use what's in front
[2:40] Speaker 2: of us. Well, that's it's kind of.
[2:41] Speaker 3: What we have to do.
[2:42] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you're right, we sort of you know, I
[2:45] Speaker 1: might just sort of try and sort of tease this
[2:47] Speaker 1: out a little bit more for more for myself than anything,
[2:50] Speaker 1: and this is a bit of a selfish podcast. Hopefully
[2:53] Speaker 1: my audience feels equally selfish, and then I touch on
[2:56] Speaker 1: what they're selfish about. But first off, it is about
[3:04] Speaker 1: remembering for me, those people who have made sacrifices which
[3:09] Speaker 1: I never was asked to make. And I don't know
[3:12] Speaker 1: whether I would have made it because I was never asked,
[3:14] Speaker 1: So I don't know the answer that. And a lot
[3:15] Speaker 1: of people say I would have gone. Now you're great,
[3:18] Speaker 1: you say that, but maybe maybe, maybe, or not. But
[3:22] Speaker 1: I was never asked maker.
[3:23] Speaker 3: So I am.
[3:24] Speaker 1: I am respecting and honoring those people who have gone
[3:28] Speaker 1: to war for Australia, whether it's World War II, World
[3:32] Speaker 1: War One, you know, Korean War, Vietnam War, or all
[3:35] Speaker 1: the other theaters that you've just talked about, Team or Afghanistan, Iraq, etc.
[3:43] Speaker 1: That's the first thing, and that's the song a bit,
[3:45] Speaker 1: I think, you know, because we've got to remember those
[3:47] Speaker 1: who have fallen and those who are injured and just
[3:51] Speaker 1: all those went who went. But then on the other
[3:54] Speaker 1: side of it, Anzac's about Austraia New Zealand. That sort
[3:57] Speaker 1: of tends to indicate to me about mate chip comradeship,
[4:01] Speaker 1: like works there together, men and women there together, and
[4:06] Speaker 1: there's something really important about that. It's not it goes
[4:10] Speaker 1: beyond madship, like the Australian style of makeship. I think
[4:13] Speaker 1: you know, and I just wonder if you could just
[4:15] Speaker 1: touch on the difference between maybe friends you grew up
[4:20] Speaker 1: with at school and maybe still your friends, but compare
[4:23] Speaker 1: to say, what's the difference between that and someone who
[4:25] Speaker 1: you stood side by side within the theater of war?
[4:28] Speaker 2: The mates I've got from the army, In some ways,
[4:31] Speaker 2: I know you're better than said anyone, because I've seen
[4:34] Speaker 2: you at your worst and your best obviously, but.
[4:37] Speaker 1: When you say you're worst, you mean at your most.
[4:40] Speaker 3: Most vulnerable, most vulnerable. Sure, yeah, just the.
[4:46] Speaker 2: Things that elicit being trying to survive a conflicts Basically,
[4:50] Speaker 2: you know, how are we going to do this together?
[4:53] Speaker 2: These guys I trained with from kind of day one
[4:55] Speaker 2: or joined infantry units with that. I then in the
[5:00] Speaker 2: selection training spent about two years training together, and then
[5:03] Speaker 2: you're in these conflict signs. So some of them I've
[5:07] Speaker 2: just eat eat kind of crap with them for years
[5:10] Speaker 2: and years and years, and you.
[5:11] Speaker 3: Know them really well and they know you well.
[5:13] Speaker 2: So for me, it was trying to survive and trying
[5:17] Speaker 2: to get out of those places intact, not just physically,
[5:21] Speaker 2: but intact enough to be able to live a life
[5:23] Speaker 2: after morally morally intact.
[5:26] Speaker 1: Morally in terms of dealing with the conflict you saw your.
[5:30] Speaker 2: Experiencing the internal conflict about doing things that you weren't
[5:36] Speaker 2: raised to do.
[5:36] Speaker 3: No one gets raised.
[5:37] Speaker 2: You know, we're going to go and harm all these people,
[5:40] Speaker 2: but you're having to do that as part of a
[5:43] Speaker 2: part of your job. You've got to find a way
[5:45] Speaker 2: to come to we not justified, but you've got to find.
[5:49] Speaker 3: A way to be at ease with that later.
[5:51] Speaker 2: On when you when you leave and go and live
[5:53] Speaker 2: a normal life.
[5:55] Speaker 1: So that would be a tough thing. If someone said
[5:58] Speaker 1: to me a marking case, mark mate, you know you're
[6:03] Speaker 1: got a license to go out and kill somebody. In fact,
[6:07] Speaker 1: you need to because if you don't, they might kill you,
[6:11] Speaker 1: which is not something I'm used to just walk around
[6:14] Speaker 1: street to Sydney. But then which might be sort of
[6:18] Speaker 1: fine because you can get your head into it, but
[6:20] Speaker 1: then you've got to come back back to normal, well,
[6:23] Speaker 1: back to what is considered normal civilian life. Is that
[6:27] Speaker 1: a hard bridge across?
[6:28] Speaker 2: It can be if if you put in situations often
[6:32] Speaker 2: enough where you need your compromising values that are kind
[6:36] Speaker 2: of a normal societal Western values.
[6:40] Speaker 3: Yeah.
[6:40] Speaker 2: I think over time you can degrade that kind of
[6:43] Speaker 2: whatever your moral foundation is.
[6:45] Speaker 1: That's interesting if that's an important one values. Because you
[6:48] Speaker 1: go to wherever it is you start your training, is
[6:53] Speaker 1: it pucketpone, you're still.
[6:56] Speaker 2: Pack has some and also single and yet.
[7:00] Speaker 1: Well yeah, yeah, so you go there with a certain
[7:02] Speaker 1: set of values. I don't hurt people unnecessarily. I don't
[7:07] Speaker 1: I don't start conflict, I don't start aggression. Maybe I
[7:12] Speaker 1: know how I know defending yourself say okay, there's sort
[7:16] Speaker 1: of some morals, you know, and then all of a sudden,
[7:22] Speaker 1: ethics will values. Then you get then someone says, no, no,
[7:26] Speaker 1: you're in our licensed to do that because if they
[7:29] Speaker 1: were a different uniform or they're a threat. So that
[7:33] Speaker 1: then means you've got to make the judgment out of
[7:35] Speaker 1: there a threat, and then then you've got to judge
[7:39] Speaker 1: how far ago? How do how does how does the boss,
[7:44] Speaker 1: the you know, the whoever's training you in the training program,
[7:48] Speaker 1: how do they get your head around that? Is there
[7:50] Speaker 1: a discussion about it?
[7:52] Speaker 3: There's actually not much of it. Well, there is, there's like.
[7:56] Speaker 2: There's classes around ethics and the laws of armed conflict
[8:00] Speaker 2: and rules of engagement, I think, and I don't think
[8:02] Speaker 2: there were many around the psychology of combat because when
[8:07] Speaker 2: I was being trained, there actually were't a lot of
[8:09] Speaker 2: people in the military that had that experience. And when
[8:12] Speaker 2: I went I went back after all my deployments to
[8:15] Speaker 2: done trun as an instructor, and I tried to impart something.
[8:19] Speaker 2: I was too burned out to be a good instructor,
[8:21] Speaker 2: but I tried to impart some of that to the
[8:23] Speaker 2: trainees about you know, this is actually it's a great job,
[8:28] Speaker 2: but it can be way more serious than you kind
[8:30] Speaker 2: of expect when you first start out. You're like all
[8:32] Speaker 2: that stuff that conflict is in the movies and will
[8:35] Speaker 2: probably never see it. But in a couple of instances,
[8:38] Speaker 2: and that's probably only one percent of my career, we
[8:41] Speaker 2: did encounter huge battles where we were trying to inflict
[8:46] Speaker 2: as much punishment as we could on an enemy. Quite
[8:50] Speaker 2: a surreal thing even now to talk about it.
[8:52] Speaker 1: So when you see trying and afflict as much if
[8:56] Speaker 1: you might be pressing a little bit, when so you're
[8:59] Speaker 1: trying to inflict as much damage as you possibly can,
[9:05] Speaker 1: does that mean you're not doing it personally, maybe you
[9:09] Speaker 1: might be shooting out it, but does that mean you've
[9:10] Speaker 1: got sort of you know, aerial sort of support and
[9:12] Speaker 1: you're watching them get bombed.
[9:14] Speaker 2: And I think everything you can get to make it
[9:17] Speaker 2: an unfair fight is what you need to And that's
[9:20] Speaker 2: what's harsh about it is it's not meant to be fair.
[9:24] Speaker 2: And the times the only times I got in serious
[9:26] Speaker 2: trouble is when I tried to fight a fair fight,
[9:30] Speaker 2: not deliberately but through accident. Basically, that's when you can
[9:34] Speaker 2: get into trouble. So you mean risk, that's the highest
[9:38] Speaker 2: kind of risk is if you're you've lost your air
[9:41] Speaker 2: support or your comms for just through tactics. Basically, it
[9:44] Speaker 2: only happened to me once, and I'm made sure it
[9:46] Speaker 2: never happened again. Basically, we came up against an enemy
[9:50] Speaker 2: in the cornfield and we're too close to them to
[9:52] Speaker 2: be out of use.
[9:53] Speaker 1: So you guys are walking out in the open and
[9:54] Speaker 1: they're in the cornfield.
[9:56] Speaker 2: They're in a cornfield. We're clearing that part of the value.
[9:59] Speaker 2: When once we came up against these guys at fairly
[10:01] Speaker 2: close range, we couldn't use all the air support that
[10:03] Speaker 2: we normally.
[10:04] Speaker 1: Would be able to because you hit yourself.
[10:06] Speaker 3: Yeah, would have got to hit ourselves.
[10:07] Speaker 2: So it was it was a fair kind of a
[10:10] Speaker 2: fair fight. Well they had the advantage actually because they
[10:13] Speaker 2: were in concealed positions. But it's the only time I
[10:16] Speaker 2: thought a fair fight. One of my guys was killed,
[10:18] Speaker 2: and I just said, that's never going to happen again.
[10:21] Speaker 1: So how would you avoid how would you avoid it
[10:24] Speaker 1: being a fair fight and making it making it taking
[10:26] Speaker 1: it to your advantage.
[10:27] Speaker 3: So I think it's experience.
[10:29] Speaker 2: I think experience and good planning and all the all
[10:32] Speaker 2: the avoiding surprises as much in risk mitigation, all those things.
[10:36] Speaker 2: If you do it well, battle is one before you
[10:39] Speaker 2: even walk out the door. If you plan it well enough, Yep,
[10:42] Speaker 2: definitely you can. You can remove all the risk, kind
[10:44] Speaker 2: of like a business decision. If you spend enough time
[10:47] Speaker 2: mitigating and understanding what you're doing and the landscape, you
[10:51] Speaker 2: can take a lot of risk out of it.
[10:52] Speaker 1: And when you're so let's go to that that that
[10:56] Speaker 1: particular instance when you did that, do you feel as
[11:00] Speaker 1: though that when you're in that sort of high vulnerability
[11:04] Speaker 1: situation that you meant better relationships with your colleagues than
[11:09] Speaker 1: you do when it's just when you're just hanging out
[11:11] Speaker 1: at the base and nothing's really happening. You go into
[11:14] Speaker 1: the gym every day, eating in the mess every day. Yeah,
[11:17] Speaker 1: then just maybe having a few planning conversations.
[11:19] Speaker 3: Yeah, you do.
[11:20] Speaker 2: But it's funny some of those moments later on, we
[11:25] Speaker 2: you know, some of them, you we wouldn't even want
[11:28] Speaker 2: to talk about it again.
[11:29] Speaker 3: Really it happen.
[11:30] Speaker 2: We might discuss it a bit, but oftentimes you didn't
[11:33] Speaker 2: want to go back there mentally because it was just
[11:35] Speaker 2: too too hard.
[11:36] Speaker 1: So like when you say, mentally is it is it?
[11:41] Speaker 1: I mean, I don't want to use the overuse PTSD thing,
[11:44] Speaker 1: but it does it cause some trauma, like bring back traumative.
[11:49] Speaker 3: It's a voidance.
[11:50] Speaker 2: It's like it's such a difficult thing that it's easy
[11:55] Speaker 2: to kind of not think about.
[11:56] Speaker 3: How the thing to go back and try and rationalize
[11:58] Speaker 3: it too much.
[12:00] Speaker 1: Yeah, do you get scared in those situations?
[12:03] Speaker 3: Scared?
[12:04] Speaker 2: I was definitely scared. I think when you're less experienced too,
[12:06] Speaker 2: and you're kind of new to it and you haven't
[12:10] Speaker 2: had that exposure. Maybe like a imagine someone got parachute
[12:15] Speaker 2: into a high grade rugby match and it was very
[12:18] Speaker 2: full of kind of like that you kind of not
[12:20] Speaker 2: quite ready for it. But as you see it more
[12:22] Speaker 2: and you're able to calm down and breathe and just
[12:25] Speaker 2: think a bit more logically, then it for me, it
[12:27] Speaker 2: got better over time.
[12:29] Speaker 1: What are the sort of i mean the hallmarks which
[12:31] Speaker 1: you would see with your team and also your colleagues.
[12:35] Speaker 1: What are the hallmarks of feared? Is it your heart
[12:37] Speaker 1: racing and you're breathing, because you've got to try and
[12:40] Speaker 1: not do those things because if you want to be
[12:41] Speaker 1: able to be accurate at what you're doing, they're the
[12:44] Speaker 1: things that make you inaccurate at what you're doing.
[12:46] Speaker 2: Even like even your heart rate. Once your heart rate
[12:48] Speaker 2: hits a certain point where your fine motor skills go.
[12:51] Speaker 2: So even just like reloading changing magazine, get your hand,
[12:57] Speaker 2: if you let your heart rate get too high, you
[13:00] Speaker 2: can't engage your frontal.
[13:02] Speaker 1: From the cordings to make decisions, to make good decisions.
[13:05] Speaker 2: So a lot of our training centers around just that exposure,
[13:09] Speaker 2: a lot of exposure and a lot of learning to
[13:13] Speaker 2: breathe and keep your composure. And they do that from
[13:16] Speaker 2: the very start in selection. They do little things to
[13:19] Speaker 2: like strip your naked you know, on day one, and
[13:22] Speaker 2: they put in dark rooms and turn the lights on.
[13:25] Speaker 2: There's thirty essay assauldiers in there questioning you or interroorgaate.
[13:29] Speaker 2: They do a lot of things that put that are
[13:31] Speaker 2: very uncomfortable. Watch how you react to them, and just
[13:34] Speaker 2: see if you can kind of regulate yourself. And I
[13:37] Speaker 2: think that's of all the skills I learned, that's probably
[13:39] Speaker 2: the one I've used most in life, is that that's
[13:43] Speaker 2: ability to kind of regulate Fear doesn't mean it's out there,
[13:46] Speaker 2: you just have a bit more control over it.
[13:49] Speaker 1: Would you say that you can actually train someone to
[13:54] Speaker 1: be able to manage the fear not overcome managers? I hear?
[13:57] Speaker 1: Or do you actually have to be in a theater
[13:59] Speaker 1: to you inst No, you can.
[14:01] Speaker 3: You can.
[14:02] Speaker 2: You can train people and expose people to fear incrementally
[14:06] Speaker 2: over time so that when they do go to combat,
[14:09] Speaker 2: it's not it's only a small step up, it's not
[14:11] Speaker 2: like a huge leap. And the way they do it
[14:13] Speaker 2: in the unit is everything we did. In some cases,
[14:16] Speaker 2: the training was harder than the combat because you'd be
[14:19] Speaker 2: trying to do all these drills in a live fire
[14:22] Speaker 2: ammunition you made a like actual bullets, real bullets in
[14:25] Speaker 2: all indoors, in the dark, sometimes shooting at targets, changing weapons,
[14:31] Speaker 2: try and trying to use your safety drills properly, all
[14:34] Speaker 2: with an instructor watching you, waiting to kick you know,
[14:37] Speaker 2: if you get it wrong, they'll kick you out of
[14:38] Speaker 2: the unit. So that that level of pressure, which is
[14:42] Speaker 2: they keep on you for weeks and weeks and weeks,
[14:45] Speaker 2: once that's lifted off and you're in combat, it's it's
[14:48] Speaker 2: almost a bit easier in some ways to deal with it.
[14:52] Speaker 2: So they're good at training, they're good at putting people
[14:54] Speaker 2: under pressure and conditioning you to high stress situations.
[14:58] Speaker 1: Could we just talk about the chain of command. Yeah,
[15:03] Speaker 1: let's put you in the infantry for a moment. Let's
[15:06] Speaker 1: see you in the front, right at the front of
[15:08] Speaker 1: all this. You're going in there to the cornfields, and
[15:10] Speaker 1: you've got to clear it. You're not in charge, you're
[15:15] Speaker 1: just not just but one of the what do you
[15:19] Speaker 1: call this bit of the infantry, what do you call them?
[15:20] Speaker 3: Grunts?
[15:21] Speaker 1: Grunts? That's what they call the grunts. Do kick grunt,
[15:24] Speaker 1: door kick edrok grunts. Okay, see one of the grunts.
[15:27] Speaker 1: You know, you're all got all your gear on and
[15:29] Speaker 1: being sorted. Then where does the person in charge stand,
[15:35] Speaker 1: Like how does that work? Is there someone back at
[15:37] Speaker 1: a base and they've got them on a radio, or
[15:39] Speaker 1: how does it all work?
[15:40] Speaker 2: The way Western militaries have and they've formed this way
[15:44] Speaker 2: over over centuries of fighting. They figured out that the
[15:49] Speaker 2: kind of best small team unit is about thirty that's
[15:52] Speaker 2: a platoon.
[15:53] Speaker 3: That's kind of a.
[15:54] Speaker 2: Natural sized unit where you know everyone and then it
[15:57] Speaker 2: comes is about one hundred and fifty people, which is
[15:59] Speaker 2: about the max level of social connections you can have
[16:01] Speaker 2: that kind of hold a lot of mean they're talk
[16:03] Speaker 2: about that in organizational science. But the smallest unit is
[16:10] Speaker 2: about six to nine, like infantry sections, like nine people
[16:13] Speaker 2: for example. I think it might have changed recently, but
[16:16] Speaker 2: it's a small group and a corporal is in charge
[16:18] Speaker 2: of that. So they move those troops around in groups
[16:21] Speaker 2: of three, like he'll tell people what to do, and
[16:24] Speaker 2: then over that there's a there's a platoon which is
[16:28] Speaker 2: say say that's thirty people, it's about three teams of
[16:31] Speaker 2: nine roughly, and there'll be a young platoon command of.
[16:34] Speaker 1: That, so it's twenty seven or run by corporal groups
[16:37] Speaker 1: of threes.
[16:38] Speaker 2: Right, a corporate charge of each group is so three
[16:40] Speaker 2: sections and a platoon, three platoons in a company. It's
[16:43] Speaker 2: just that fairly normal structure you see in most militaries,
[16:48] Speaker 2: and that over time they figured out that's roughly the
[16:50] Speaker 2: best for independent operations. So for platoon commander is killed,
[16:55] Speaker 2: that corporal can still lead his team and knows what
[16:58] Speaker 2: to do and and and the leaders have to be
[17:02] Speaker 2: front center with the with the troops. You have to
[17:05] Speaker 2: be sharing the risk. You have to be right there
[17:06] Speaker 2: with them.
[17:07] Speaker 1: So that's the corporal or the person who's.
[17:10] Speaker 2: Definitely the corporal, and the officers and the other there.
[17:13] Speaker 2: So the platoon commander in my case troop which is
[17:16] Speaker 2: the same size as a platoon. I was a true
[17:18] Speaker 2: commander in the ESAs, So I had a team of thirty,
[17:21] Speaker 2: which was four teams of six and a headquarters element.
[17:25] Speaker 2: So I was we would go on the ground, you'd
[17:28] Speaker 2: be there with the guys. You know, in some cases.
[17:30] Speaker 1: Would you be at the front leg or you're standing
[17:32] Speaker 1: back or on the side of me, Well.
[17:34] Speaker 2: No, you'd be there right with it, depending on your formation.
[17:37] Speaker 2: Like in one case, we were moving along a creek bed,
[17:41] Speaker 2: so we kind of had one team of six up
[17:43] Speaker 2: front there was my team. There were two others behind us.
[17:46] Speaker 2: We had one on a hill. And there's always this
[17:51] Speaker 2: talking done true, and like if you're at the officer,
[17:53] Speaker 2: you know, don't worry about being involved in the fighting.
[17:55] Speaker 2: You're going to make sure you're leading your team. Sometimes
[17:57] Speaker 2: you might have no choice. We got hit from a
[17:59] Speaker 2: flat and I was right next to on the side
[18:02] Speaker 2: on the side, and I was right next to soldiers
[18:04] Speaker 2: were shooting the so I had to shoot back straight away.
[18:06] Speaker 3: I wasn't trying to lead anything. I was trying to survive.
[18:09] Speaker 1: So if you were trying to survive, you were trying
[18:12] Speaker 1: to survive yourself.
[18:12] Speaker 2: Personally me just in the opening moments of combat. Yeah,
[18:17] Speaker 2: shooting back and trying to survive just so you can
[18:19] Speaker 2: you can bed down and start moving.
[18:21] Speaker 3: As a team.
[18:22] Speaker 2: So the leaders will be right there with the rest
[18:25] Speaker 2: of the troops, and and good leaders will try and
[18:28] Speaker 2: do that, They'll try and share the risk and be
[18:30] Speaker 2: there with them.
[18:30] Speaker 1: And how important is that then, from the point of
[18:32] Speaker 1: view of the people who you're leading, you know, your grunts,
[18:35] Speaker 1: I mean they how do they understand. Look, you're the
[18:41] Speaker 1: you're the either the corporal or the next rank up.
[18:44] Speaker 1: You know, you're you're leading the whole team. How do
[18:47] Speaker 1: how do you build interaction and how do they know
[18:50] Speaker 1: that you're the boss? And does it other occasions where
[18:53] Speaker 1: people don't listen to what you've got to say that fak,
[18:55] Speaker 1: that's wrong, Mark, we're going to do this? I mean,
[18:56] Speaker 1: is it into any conversation.
[18:58] Speaker 2: Yeah, there's there's like formal authority, So if you've got
[19:02] Speaker 2: a commission, they lawfully, you know, follow orders. People have
[19:05] Speaker 2: to follow your ruleers or they can be punished. But
[19:09] Speaker 2: really it's the informal respect and you know they appreciate
[19:14] Speaker 2: that your training, you've got their interests first and you're
[19:18] Speaker 2: not going to risk them unnecessarily. All those things build
[19:22] Speaker 2: a kind of reciprocal trust between the team leaders and
[19:25] Speaker 2: the people.
[19:26] Speaker 3: And their teams.
[19:27] Speaker 2: And generally it's a fairly meritorious system. So if you're
[19:33] Speaker 2: good at your job, you will become a team leader
[19:35] Speaker 2: or a platoon commander. You highly trained for it. So yeah,
[19:39] Speaker 2: there is that, There's there's formal authority, and there's that
[19:41] Speaker 2: informal respect. They have to build over time and they
[19:44] Speaker 2: have to feel like you've got their interests at.
[19:46] Speaker 3: Heart, and.
[19:48] Speaker 1: Where does the line get drawn between look you're a
[19:52] Speaker 1: I'm the platoon leader. You're a grunt. But you and
[19:55] Speaker 1: I mates off when we're at the camp, you know,
[19:58] Speaker 1: we hang out to drink a beauti a barbecue together,
[20:01] Speaker 1: train together, exercise together. How do you manage that process?
[20:05] Speaker 2: Like, it's hard because you are you do have to
[20:08] Speaker 2: have a good relationship with them, but ultimately you're also
[20:10] Speaker 2: in charge.
[20:10] Speaker 1: So do you try and keep yourself a little bit removed?
[20:13] Speaker 3: Well, yeah, like you don't.
[20:15] Speaker 2: You're not meant to be friends, but you're meant to
[20:17] Speaker 2: have a good mutual respect and kind of trust each
[20:19] Speaker 2: other and like each other. But it's important if you're
[20:23] Speaker 2: a team leader and officer, you do have to be
[20:25] Speaker 2: willing to you know, you have to tell people what
[20:27] Speaker 2: to do in some cases and lead them into a
[20:30] Speaker 2: situation that may get them hurt.
[20:33] Speaker 1: And so that's a tough one.
[20:34] Speaker 3: That one. It's a tough one.
[20:35] Speaker 2: It's a tough one to balance, pecially when you're young
[20:37] Speaker 2: and you want to be liked and you're not used
[20:38] Speaker 2: to conflict. And I've got better out as I've got
[20:42] Speaker 2: older and you're just a bit more you kind of
[20:44] Speaker 2: know what the what it's about.
[20:47] Speaker 3: But when you're young, it's a hard one to balance.
[20:49] Speaker 1: So if I now take you, say to ANAZAC day,
[20:51] Speaker 1: you know you're obviously out of the army and you're not.
[20:53] Speaker 1: You know, you've done you You've done your time there.
[21:00] Speaker 1: Would you say that you've got some really long lasting, enduring,
[21:04] Speaker 1: sort of deep seated friendships that you only celebrate on
[21:09] Speaker 1: an exact day or where you meet up or these
[21:11] Speaker 1: are the things you got out of being in the
[21:13] Speaker 1: army and being in the roles that you were in
[21:17] Speaker 1: in the theater of war, that these are enduring friendships
[21:20] Speaker 1: which you know, where you talk each week or each
[21:22] Speaker 1: every fortnight. And the blokes you can't play golf with.
[21:25] Speaker 3: Yeah, a lot.
[21:25] Speaker 2: The closetmates I've got are enduring friendships that will be
[21:29] Speaker 2: that way for good. And I was kind of a
[21:32] Speaker 2: broader friend networks that you've got that you kind of
[21:35] Speaker 2: maybe you have families and you drift apart a bit,
[21:37] Speaker 2: but that connection will always be there. And if I
[21:40] Speaker 2: had to be with them tomorrow would be you up
[21:42] Speaker 2: exactly where we left up from.
[21:44] Speaker 3: And you know they're good guys. They all callity guys.
[21:47] Speaker 1: Does the government actually encourage this sort of stuff? I mean,
[21:50] Speaker 1: I'm talking about the elected officials that the bureaucrats or
[21:55] Speaker 1: is this up to you guys to do it? I mean,
[21:56] Speaker 1: is there some formal process to us? Yeah, there's no
[21:59] Speaker 1: form process.
[22:00] Speaker 2: There's not a full process, but it's there was a
[22:04] Speaker 2: big discussion around this when we were coming out of
[22:07] Speaker 2: conflicts started in Vietnam, so they'd flying straight out back
[22:10] Speaker 2: to Australia and they hadn't the soldiers hadn't decompressed properly.
[22:13] Speaker 2: And it was happening to us too because we were
[22:15] Speaker 2: flying directly out of war zones back to Australia. In
[22:19] Speaker 2: one case, I was in literally in a gun bat
[22:21] Speaker 2: and then within I think it was twenty four or
[22:23] Speaker 2: forty hours, I was in Paris. You know, walking the street.
[22:26] Speaker 2: You're not fit to be doing that. You need to
[22:29] Speaker 2: kind of spend a bit of time detox so to speak, detoxing.
[22:32] Speaker 2: But in World War Two, everyone was sent home on
[22:35] Speaker 2: trip carriers, so ships that took you know, a couple
[22:38] Speaker 2: of months, a couple of weeks, a couple of months
[22:39] Speaker 2: to get home, and that's where they did a lot
[22:41] Speaker 2: of their processing of you know, whatever whatever they've been through.
[22:45] Speaker 1: So do you think these do you think were as
[22:47] Speaker 1: a nation handle this very well. And are there are
[22:51] Speaker 1: any other better proxies around the world that do a
[22:53] Speaker 1: better job at looking after their war veterans relative to
[22:59] Speaker 1: just coming out of the federal war back home? I mean,
[23:01] Speaker 1: is there a better model than what we do?
[23:03] Speaker 2: There is a better model, but the problem is the
[23:06] Speaker 2: country has to be right there on the front line.
[23:08] Speaker 2: So Israel is a good example. When their soldiers come home,
[23:13] Speaker 2: the conflict is so carries so much impact on Israel
[23:17] Speaker 2: itself that they're integrated quite easily back into their cultures.
[23:23] Speaker 2: The same happened with Indian tribes, so you know, all
[23:26] Speaker 2: the families reflected when they came back.
[23:29] Speaker 1: The American Indians, American Indians.
[23:31] Speaker 2: Their tribes as well. Sebastian the Younger writes about this.
[23:34] Speaker 2: He's kind of an anthropology guy, but he talks about
[23:39] Speaker 2: soldiers returning from conflict in societies where they are affected
[23:43] Speaker 2: by that conflict directly. It's a much easier transition than
[23:47] Speaker 2: if you're coming back to America or the Australia, where
[23:50] Speaker 2: we are removed from that conflict quite a bit.
[23:52] Speaker 1: Yeah, that's interesting, because that's an interesting point about See
[23:54] Speaker 1: let's pick Israel for example. I'm a eekally good pick
[23:57] Speaker 1: eleven on. I guess, but if I'm in Israel and
[24:01] Speaker 1: I've been getting bombed by whoever, just as a citizen,
[24:06] Speaker 1: and then you as one of my Israeli you know, patriots,
[24:12] Speaker 1: compatriots go to wherever it is you go to and
[24:15] Speaker 1: you come back to well, when you come back, I'd
[24:17] Speaker 1: appreciate you much more because you're actually out there fighting
[24:20] Speaker 1: for what I just endured. Whereas if I'm here in
[24:22] Speaker 1: Australia and you go to Afghanistan, I don't know what
[24:25] Speaker 1: that was going on in Afghanistan. I'm removed. It's probably
[24:27] Speaker 1: the same for America. So do you think that somehow
[24:33] Speaker 1: we all, I mean as days, sort of an attempt
[24:35] Speaker 1: to do it in some respects, But do you think
[24:36] Speaker 1: that we in this country should be much more mindful
[24:39] Speaker 1: of that type of stuff in relation to our vets?
[24:41] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[24:41] Speaker 2: I think if you're going to commit your men and
[24:44] Speaker 2: women into combat, it's got to be so well thought out,
[24:49] Speaker 2: and there's got to be a really clear end state
[24:52] Speaker 2: and a really clear path through it. And if there's not,
[24:56] Speaker 2: it's not enough of a need nationally, then you should
[24:59] Speaker 2: question whether you should be doing it at all.
[25:01] Speaker 1: Should be going at all because you know, because ultimately,
[25:05] Speaker 1: and this is a very interesting conversation in this regard
[25:07] Speaker 1: for me because I don't really thought about it late.
[25:08] Speaker 1: This mark appreciated Tom. Ultimately, if the government makes a
[25:13] Speaker 1: decision to send troops to wherever in support of our allies,
[25:18] Speaker 1: for example, for example Afghanistan or Iraq or right now Iran,
[25:25] Speaker 1: if we were doing that, which we're not, but then
[25:28] Speaker 1: it's one thing to there's a bit of a conflict
[25:31] Speaker 1: to be balanced. There's one thing to be supporting our
[25:32] Speaker 1: allies because it's not really a direct threat threat to us,
[25:37] Speaker 1: but the conflict or the balance has to be But
[25:39] Speaker 1: at the same time, we've got to support the people
[25:41] Speaker 1: who we bring back or who we send. We don't
[25:44] Speaker 1: want anyone to get killed or injured, but those who
[25:47] Speaker 1: come back, we have to make sure we've got a
[25:49] Speaker 1: system here that whereby they get looked after when they
[25:55] Speaker 1: come back. Now, whether it's a legislation or whether it's
[25:57] Speaker 1: some sort of formal process of making sure you enough
[26:01] Speaker 1: money and you looked after as a vet from a
[26:03] Speaker 1: medical point of view, and you've helped out in a
[26:06] Speaker 1: mental health sense. But I don't know how Australia at least,
[26:10] Speaker 1: is ever going to get to a point where we're
[26:13] Speaker 1: like Israel. Because we don't have conflict, we rarely get threatened.
[26:18] Speaker 3: And this is the hard thing.
[26:19] Speaker 2: It's like, do you involve yourself in expeditionary conflict or
[26:24] Speaker 2: do we just wait, you know, do we stay in
[26:27] Speaker 2: our own neighborhood. The question, the future question is Taiwan. Yeah,
[26:31] Speaker 2: it's like, would you be happy committing your kids to
[26:36] Speaker 2: try and liberate Taiwan?
[26:37] Speaker 3: To risk their life? Is it worth it?
[26:40] Speaker 2: And it's a question we got to ask now because
[26:42] Speaker 2: we might face that in the future. We might face
[26:45] Speaker 2: that in the really near future.
[26:46] Speaker 1: Even my grandson grandsons, I mean, that would be a
[26:50] Speaker 1: big question as a grandfather to me. But one thing
[26:53] Speaker 1: is for sure, Mark, is if they did go and
[26:56] Speaker 1: then they came back, I would have a great, much
[26:58] Speaker 1: greater deal of empathy towards them, because I would be
[27:02] Speaker 1: saying that was a conflict which actually to some extent
[27:05] Speaker 1: threatened us here in the Pacific.
[27:07] Speaker 3: It would dramatically I would think.
[27:09] Speaker 1: Differently about my grandsons and anyone else who went for
[27:12] Speaker 1: that matter. I'd have a different view on them, and
[27:15] Speaker 1: I'd have to be more because you know right now,
[27:16] Speaker 1: I look at, you know, the portfolios at a federal
[27:20] Speaker 1: and a state level, like Veteran affairs, Veteran affairs, I
[27:24] Speaker 1: think in the federal level it doesn't even sort of
[27:27] Speaker 1: make it into cabinet. In the state level it does,
[27:30] Speaker 1: but it's sort of a bit pathetically looked after, frankly,
[27:34] Speaker 1: like it's like, oh, well, they're not important enough.
[27:38] Speaker 3: Then.
[27:38] Speaker 2: I think America faced this afterward, will so that millions
[27:42] Speaker 2: and millions of people coming home out of uniform and
[27:45] Speaker 2: they're worried about a second depression, They're worried about huge
[27:48] Speaker 2: unemployment levels and not being able to integrate all these
[27:52] Speaker 2: in some cases pretty damaged people back into society. So
[27:55] Speaker 2: they introduced the GI Bill. The GI Bill the the
[28:01] Speaker 2: program that basically paid for education and housing for veterans
[28:05] Speaker 2: coming back from conflict. I think it was a GI Bill.
[28:09] Speaker 2: So they covered tuition boarding for people to be able
[28:12] Speaker 2: to come back.
[28:12] Speaker 1: From retrain them, to retrain them.
[28:15] Speaker 2: And over time there was this influx of veterans into
[28:20] Speaker 2: business that ended up being a really good thing for
[28:23] Speaker 2: a lot of companies. And you had all these top
[28:25] Speaker 2: veterans in the seventies and eighties leading companies like GM
[28:28] Speaker 2: and all these top veterans that were actually contributing a
[28:33] Speaker 2: lot to the economy. They figured out that to return
[28:35] Speaker 2: something like seventeen dollars to each dollar spend on that program.
[28:39] Speaker 3: It was huge. I don't know.
[28:41] Speaker 2: Why we don't copy that. And I faced the same issue.
[28:43] Speaker 2: Came back from Afghanistan, wanted to go starty in America
[28:48] Speaker 2: and I did that, but it was all in my
[28:49] Speaker 2: own expense. There was no program to pay for it.
[28:52] Speaker 2: I think you could get like three thousand dollars in
[28:55] Speaker 2: training when you left the end, pretty token.
[28:58] Speaker 1: Yeah, if I then flipped it over, like you know,
[29:04] Speaker 1: you look back at it, you think, well, was it
[29:06] Speaker 1: worth a risk for you?
[29:08] Speaker 3: Yeah?
[29:08] Speaker 1: Do you sort of think to yourself was it worth
[29:10] Speaker 1: a risk? And if so, what's your outcome?
[29:14] Speaker 2: What do you feel well after all that? All that,
[29:17] Speaker 2: and this goes to my point about how we commit
[29:19] Speaker 2: people to conflict after all that hard work and deployment,
[29:23] Speaker 2: and every year the general is going, this is the
[29:26] Speaker 2: critical year after however long it was.
[29:31] Speaker 3: Twenty years.
[29:31] Speaker 2: I think it was the Taliban swept back into power
[29:35] Speaker 2: and we replaced the Taliman with the Taliban. But now
[29:39] Speaker 2: I'm more heavily armed because they had all the American equipment.
[29:42] Speaker 1: Because the left it behind.
[29:43] Speaker 3: That is an out and out loss.
[29:45] Speaker 2: We totally lost that conflict as allies, and I'm just
[29:49] Speaker 2: shocked that no one everyone just kind of put it
[29:53] Speaker 2: aside and moved on. I'm like, this is actually really important.
[29:55] Speaker 2: We need to understand why we lost it, how got
[29:59] Speaker 2: involved in as a country, and how we make sure
[30:01] Speaker 2: it doesn't happen again. That's because you're crazy. I can't
[30:05] Speaker 2: believe it.
[30:05] Speaker 1: It is crazy because.
[30:07] Speaker 2: Forty one young guys killed like it's and billions at
[30:11] Speaker 2: all spent for nothing.
[30:12] Speaker 3: It was total waste.
[30:13] Speaker 1: And equally, you could be thinking, you just said, well
[30:14] Speaker 1: I could at anyone's stage, I could have got shot
[30:16] Speaker 1: a bullet or millimeters or of them. Yeah, and you know,
[30:20] Speaker 1: in your mind you might not be sitting here just
[30:23] Speaker 1: by virtue of a little bit of bad luck.
[30:25] Speaker 3: Yeah today.
[30:27] Speaker 2: And this the problem is that I think people feel
[30:30] Speaker 2: like they can't have this discussion because people did die,
[30:32] Speaker 2: and they don't want families to feel like they died
[30:34] Speaker 2: for nothing.
[30:34] Speaker 3: They actually didn't.
[30:35] Speaker 2: They they were filing to defend their mates and look
[30:37] Speaker 2: after their mates, and that's that's as worthy as a guess,
[30:41] Speaker 2: but the actual the policy or the decision to go
[30:45] Speaker 2: wasn't a successful project.
[30:47] Speaker 1: Now that happens way beyond you does Can we just
[30:51] Speaker 1: talk about they're from home? Because I have no idea
[30:53] Speaker 1: how that all it gets worked out. Is it a
[30:56] Speaker 1: matter of you know, the President of the United States
[31:00] Speaker 1: or the Prime Minister of the UK saying to the
[31:03] Speaker 1: Prime Minister of Australia at the time, whoever it might be,
[31:07] Speaker 1: there's some we need help. There's a phone call, and
[31:10] Speaker 1: then that Prime ministerne goes to talk to the Minister
[31:12] Speaker 1: for Defense, and he also even goes to talk to
[31:14] Speaker 1: the generals and they all say to make the decision,
[31:17] Speaker 1: who do they go back down to the squad leaders
[31:20] Speaker 1: or Blatan leaders.
[31:22] Speaker 2: No, it's like, okay, we need to contribute to this
[31:26] Speaker 2: American conflict. You know, this is part of our lives structure,
[31:29] Speaker 2: which I think is fine. And the original reason they went,
[31:31] Speaker 2: which is September eleven happened al Qaeda, who were a
[31:36] Speaker 2: really apocalyptic group of people, bad, bad people. They were
[31:40] Speaker 2: in Afghanistan. Let's go and get them. And I think
[31:43] Speaker 2: that's one hundred percent of legitimate I could get behind that.
[31:46] Speaker 2: I think most people would get behind that. The problem
[31:51] Speaker 2: was that once that decision was made and we committed
[31:54] Speaker 2: to that conflict, we didn't have a very strong metric
[31:59] Speaker 2: that said this is what a successful mission will look like.
[32:03] Speaker 2: It's they kind of shifted the goal post constantly, and
[32:07] Speaker 2: if you don't have that really clear sense of what
[32:10] Speaker 2: you're trying to accomplish, you would just drift permanently. And
[32:13] Speaker 2: that's what happened. We drifted into combat with the Taliban,
[32:16] Speaker 2: which were a different organization altogether.
[32:18] Speaker 3: They didn't even like Al Kaida that much.
[32:20] Speaker 2: They looked down on they didn't like how Kaida. They
[32:24] Speaker 2: just knew they had money and they were hosting them
[32:26] Speaker 2: in the country. So shifting the conflict of the Taliban
[32:29] Speaker 2: was a big mistake because they're more of a nationalist
[32:31] Speaker 2: force than anything else.
[32:33] Speaker 1: And does an say that platoon leader at your level,
[32:39] Speaker 1: do you get that communicated to you. Do you get
[32:45] Speaker 1: the decisions communicated to you and the reasons for the
[32:48] Speaker 1: decision communicated to you? Or you just take the orders?
[32:51] Speaker 2: Not really, it's more deployment orders. It's more than mechanics
[32:54] Speaker 2: of what we're doing and how we're going to do it.
[32:57] Speaker 2: But because I was a history of underground and study politics.
[33:00] Speaker 2: I was always interested in that what was happening at
[33:02] Speaker 2: the political level, because it does you can predict what's
[33:05] Speaker 2: going to happen at our level based on the decisions
[33:07] Speaker 2: they're making out there.
[33:09] Speaker 3: And over time.
[33:11] Speaker 2: I remember there's one book I read in two thousand
[33:14] Speaker 2: and it was like two thousand and nine that came
[33:16] Speaker 2: straight off the press. It was written by a journalist
[33:18] Speaker 2: that had broken the Watergate scandal years ago and had
[33:23] Speaker 2: great access. He writes a book every couple of years
[33:25] Speaker 2: on every administration, had great access to the president and
[33:28] Speaker 2: all his advisors. And in this book, it's clear that
[33:32] Speaker 2: the political will for fighting Afghanistan was evaporating, and this
[33:35] Speaker 2: is when they're planning the surge. So I was President
[33:38] Speaker 2: Obama as a fairly new president, with his generals, and
[33:42] Speaker 2: they were fighting for how they were going to extend
[33:44] Speaker 2: this surge in Afghanistan. They kind of gotten Iraq largely
[33:48] Speaker 2: under control, and now they were turning their attention to Afghanistan.
[33:51] Speaker 2: And when I was reading, I was like, if even
[33:54] Speaker 2: half of this is true, there's no political will left
[33:57] Speaker 2: in the US to continue this war. And that was
[34:01] Speaker 2: two thousand and nine, so I was like, we kind
[34:03] Speaker 2: of need to start winding this up, but we didn't.
[34:06] Speaker 2: We stay there for until twenty fourteen.
[34:08] Speaker 1: I think, do you ever get a little bit dismayed
[34:11] Speaker 1: between the breakdown of you know, the political reasons versus
[34:16] Speaker 1: the I'm going to say, I'm here to fight for
[34:18] Speaker 1: my nation or get the bad guys. I mean, do
[34:23] Speaker 1: you ever think yourself because like a good example is
[34:25] Speaker 1: of Afghanistan, because I went off forever, like you thought, well,
[34:30] Speaker 1: originally I get it, but now it's the Taliban are
[34:34] Speaker 1: sort of rising up, and you look at the Taliban
[34:36] Speaker 1: now they're in control of the joint and everything's been
[34:38] Speaker 1: left behind, including some people who probably got executed. You
[34:42] Speaker 1: think to yourself, I just played in some politics, and
[34:45] Speaker 1: you know, my original concept of going there getting rid
[34:48] Speaker 1: of Arcada because they're actually really bad guys doing bad
[34:51] Speaker 1: stuff has been just evaporated because of the politics.
[34:55] Speaker 2: Pretty much not even the politics, just I get think neglect.
[35:00] Speaker 2: It became a kind of the conflict became a business
[35:03] Speaker 2: as usual thing. We just kept deploying. I think this
[35:08] Speaker 2: is this then becomes the fold of the military, so
[35:10] Speaker 2: all the top level of the military that's meant to
[35:13] Speaker 2: kind of see where this is headed and be able
[35:17] Speaker 2: to predict the outcomes of this conflict. They should have
[35:20] Speaker 2: been ringing the alarm bells very.
[35:21] Speaker 1: Early and it has that work. I mean, I mean
[35:24] Speaker 1: the heads of the military. Are they people who have
[35:27] Speaker 1: been to the places you've been to or are they
[35:30] Speaker 1: people go through doune True, they sort of just stay
[35:33] Speaker 1: in executive roles.
[35:34] Speaker 3: It was kind of a mix.
[35:36] Speaker 2: Like in the early days, the generals were kind of
[35:41] Speaker 2: they were less experienced, but they're still they They almost
[35:44] Speaker 2: don't need the combat experience. They can kind of see
[35:46] Speaker 2: what's unfolding in the country. As the war went on,
[35:49] Speaker 2: there were more kind of offices coming through that were
[35:52] Speaker 2: experienced in the conflict. But I just think the advice
[35:56] Speaker 2: it's very hard to challenge these things in the military
[35:58] Speaker 2: wants that train's moving because people have been killed and
[36:01] Speaker 2: you've you've been so committed to this conflict for so long.
[36:04] Speaker 2: Like I think there's sun costs fallacy. Yeah, yeah, we've
[36:07] Speaker 2: thrown so much of this. We can't We've got.
[36:09] Speaker 1: To keep going.
[36:10] Speaker 3: We keep going.
[36:11] Speaker 1: There's not an investment. It is a sunk costs and
[36:13] Speaker 1: you should not be looking to get your sun costs back.
[36:16] Speaker 3: And there's no sun costs like lives.
[36:18] Speaker 1: Yeah, yeah, you can't get them back really probably. It
[36:21] Speaker 1: seems to me you find is your bloke stand next year,
[36:24] Speaker 1: the Bloken, your O platoon, the bloken you are always is. Yeah,
[36:27] Speaker 1: you're not fighting for Australia.
[36:28] Speaker 2: There's no like, there's no consideration of soft kind of
[36:35] Speaker 2: concepts of king and country or patriots is like, there
[36:39] Speaker 2: are all those things are present, but the real, the
[36:41] Speaker 2: grounded thing you're fighting for is your made.
[36:43] Speaker 1: For bloke next year. Yeah, and the blokes who you
[36:46] Speaker 1: know you're in the camp with, And.
[36:49] Speaker 2: The only thing that matters is that what's in a
[36:51] Speaker 2: two or three hundred square meter radius around you, That's
[36:54] Speaker 2: that's it.
[36:54] Speaker 1: And do you actually hate the enemy or do you
[36:58] Speaker 1: ever look at anything? Fuck? I mean, he's just like me.
[37:01] Speaker 2: I actually had a fair bit of respect for him,
[37:03] Speaker 2: because I've seen that we were in one battle that
[37:06] Speaker 2: one I was telling about in the corn field, and
[37:07] Speaker 2: I watched the gun camera footage from the apaches that
[37:11] Speaker 2: were over the top of us, and these characters were
[37:13] Speaker 2: coming out of their bunkers and they did not care
[37:15] Speaker 2: about our capabilities. They come out their bunkers and shoe
[37:18] Speaker 2: these attack helicopters like they were.
[37:22] Speaker 3: Like they were nothing.
[37:23] Speaker 2: So I actually ended up having a lot of respect
[37:26] Speaker 2: for him as fighters a lot. They're actually pretty brave
[37:29] Speaker 2: or crazy, bit of both, definitely, but you can't respect
[37:33] Speaker 2: them too much because it's like it's like being boxed.
[37:36] Speaker 2: You can't respect someone. You've got to try and beat them.
[37:38] Speaker 2: You got to try and defer them. So you do
[37:40] Speaker 2: have to have that aggressive psychology where you don't care
[37:44] Speaker 2: what they are. You've got a view as a person
[37:47] Speaker 2: to be beaten. And I think there were times though
[37:51] Speaker 2: when there was definitely hatred and it was after for
[37:54] Speaker 2: me seeing mates harmed, especially guys, you know, I was like,
[37:59] Speaker 2: that's it.
[38:00] Speaker 3: We've got to go and get them.
[38:01] Speaker 1: And you get that sort of I mean, I know
[38:03] Speaker 1: what I'd be like. But if it was mates that
[38:06] Speaker 1: I'd be thinking, I'm going to score up this person
[38:08] Speaker 1: like or this mob who just is something bad here
[38:11] Speaker 1: to my mate? You know, they blow them up or
[38:13] Speaker 1: what of the case, I'd find that pretty hard to control. Yeah,
[38:17] Speaker 1: how do you were talking about controlling fear? That's one thing,
[38:20] Speaker 1: but how do you control let's call it revenge or
[38:24] Speaker 1: hatred driven sort of square up Aussie style, I think,
[38:31] Speaker 1: which is sort of we like that in this gind.
[38:33] Speaker 1: That's a thing. Revenge, Yeah, it does me true. I
[38:37] Speaker 1: think I had as just the other stupid thing the
[38:40] Speaker 1: other day and I thought, what the fuck's wrong with you? Marklake.
[38:44] Speaker 1: I was in my car, some dude nearly hit me
[38:46] Speaker 1: with his motorbike, and it's like, what's wrong with But like,
[38:49] Speaker 1: revenge is a thing, isn't it.
[38:50] Speaker 3: It is the thing, yeah, and it's.
[38:52] Speaker 1: Very primitive but it works.
[38:54] Speaker 2: Yeah, and it's I mean, it's obviously there for a reason.
[38:56] Speaker 2: But I remember, because all this all conflict, it brings
[39:01] Speaker 2: out the worst. It brings out the worst qualities matched
[39:05] Speaker 2: with your best qualities. Like I remember we hit it
[39:08] Speaker 2: at this for a guy was killed. We end up
[39:10] Speaker 2: going a job and hit a roadside bomb and three
[39:13] Speaker 2: guys were wounded in this blast, and good guys. I
[39:16] Speaker 2: trained with the guys. I knew we had to send
[39:18] Speaker 2: them back home. And I remember sitting on the hill
[39:22] Speaker 2: and I was watching the valley below and all my
[39:26] Speaker 2: all my thoughts around planning tactics, like all that stuff
[39:31] Speaker 2: that I've learned. I was thinking about how I was
[39:32] Speaker 2: going to use it to go and get everyone that
[39:34] Speaker 2: was down there that had been so all these thoughts
[39:37] Speaker 2: that I couldn't control, and I wanted to get my
[39:39] Speaker 2: whole team and really commit, really commit ourselves to kind
[39:46] Speaker 2: of battle. You've got to kind of control it a
[39:50] Speaker 2: little bit because that's where you can make you can
[39:52] Speaker 2: make a bad situation a lot worse.
[39:54] Speaker 1: So it wasn't about the morality. If it was more
[39:56] Speaker 1: the probably it's called business judgment. If I'm going to
[40:00] Speaker 1: go have a successful outcome, I can't go in with that
[40:03] Speaker 1: frame of mind. I've got to I've actually got a
[40:06] Speaker 1: planet properly, and go and do it properly. Whereas what
[40:10] Speaker 1: your instincts are is to just you go mental.
[40:14] Speaker 2: We need to go get yeah, and that's it's hard
[40:16] Speaker 2: to control when there's other people saying think. You know,
[40:18] Speaker 2: everyone's thinking the same thing as well. But I think
[40:23] Speaker 2: in a lot of cases we're good at just saying
[40:25] Speaker 2: let's just take a minute and we'll do this properly.
[40:28] Speaker 2: We'll think of another approach and yeah.
[40:30] Speaker 1: How much do you rely on your colleagues to say, okay, Mark,
[40:36] Speaker 1: You know they might be looking at you, could see
[40:37] Speaker 1: your seething and you want to do the square up.
[40:40] Speaker 1: Do your colleagues sort of you know, some of the
[40:42] Speaker 1: guys below you as as the leader, maybe a corporal
[40:45] Speaker 1: or one of the grunts. You know, they say, hey,
[40:47] Speaker 1: we're mates, let's just calm down a little bit and
[40:50] Speaker 1: just think this through.
[40:51] Speaker 2: The best the best pairing you'll have is is every
[40:55] Speaker 2: officer or team they will have their number two. So
[40:57] Speaker 2: in my case it would be a troop sergeant or something.
[41:00] Speaker 2: They're older, hand, more experienced, the older level head. Yeah
[41:03] Speaker 2: generally yep, either be a sergeant or something. And they
[41:07] Speaker 2: are always great at understood, like just being the kind
[41:12] Speaker 2: of responsible head. The good ones good are being responsible
[41:15] Speaker 2: and even killed and understanding what a good approach looks like.
[41:19] Speaker 2: And they're good advisors like that. The best troops atts
[41:23] Speaker 2: I had were like that. They were able to take
[41:25] Speaker 2: a bad situation and kind of think of a way
[41:27] Speaker 2: out or a way to be smart about it.
[41:30] Speaker 1: So that sort of brings me along to you know,
[41:33] Speaker 1: as I said a Zac Day, it's the time we
[41:35] Speaker 1: all think about stuff. I mean, there's a lot going
[41:37] Speaker 1: on at the moment, as you know, you know there's
[41:39] Speaker 1: a war going on. Well I don't know if there's
[41:41] Speaker 1: actually a war going on and run at the moment,
[41:43] Speaker 1: but like there's a ceasefire, and there's all the drama
[41:45] Speaker 1: in Israel, and he's Lebanon's going on and off. But
[41:48] Speaker 1: there's also Anzac Dayan Ben Robert Smith. This week, you know,
[41:54] Speaker 1: he's just been released on bail. He'll have his opportunity
[41:58] Speaker 1: to have you say, and do you do you and
[42:04] Speaker 1: your colleagues or can you give us some insight as
[42:06] Speaker 1: to how you feel about maybe Look, if he's guilty,
[42:10] Speaker 1: he's guilty. He's got to go through the process. But
[42:13] Speaker 1: the way that they have gone about putting this trial
[42:17] Speaker 1: together and also pulling this one person apart, like piece
[42:22] Speaker 1: by piece, it's been like a death by a thousand cuts.
[42:25] Speaker 1: Do you do you as a war vette and someone
[42:29] Speaker 1: who's actually experienced the levels that he's probably experienced, what
[42:35] Speaker 1: do you feel about that? Do you feel a bit
[42:37] Speaker 1: not disgruntled? Maybe unhappy or it's something unfair about it?
[42:43] Speaker 2: It's an unusual one. And it's good that we talked
[42:46] Speaker 2: about everything we just did because the I think people
[42:51] Speaker 2: see this case, as you know, closely tied to our
[42:55] Speaker 2: national identity. That's kind of the ANZACs and he's representative
[42:58] Speaker 2: to An Zackson. This is what people kind of see
[43:02] Speaker 2: and they feel like it's a it's a slide on everyone.
[43:06] Speaker 2: I think it's one of the few cases, probably one
[43:10] Speaker 2: of the only cases I've seen where I don't know
[43:12] Speaker 2: if it's in and I believe in the law, but
[43:14] Speaker 2: I don't know if it's in the national interest to
[43:17] Speaker 2: prosecute a case this way. I don't think accountability has
[43:23] Speaker 2: been evenly distributed.
[43:25] Speaker 3: I think it's.
[43:27] Speaker 2: They've focused, they've lost sight of why we kind of
[43:32] Speaker 2: uphold the law in this case. And it's hard because, yes,
[43:35] Speaker 2: if there are breaches of rules of engagement, they have
[43:38] Speaker 2: to be investigated and punished. It's important that soldiers observant.
[43:42] Speaker 2: It's what makes us a professional army. But it doesn't
[43:48] Speaker 2: mean that it's not hard to watch in a lot
[43:50] Speaker 2: of ways too.
[43:52] Speaker 1: Do you feel as though there's a because for me
[43:55] Speaker 1: arresting someone in the way he was arrested, it looks
[43:59] Speaker 1: like a publicity stunt for me. I mean, because I've
[44:01] Speaker 1: been around long enough to see, you know, work in
[44:06] Speaker 1: these environments for long enough now to see that that's
[44:09] Speaker 1: about getting brownie points for the arresting agency. You know,
[44:13] Speaker 1: you don't put I don't see why we I feel
[44:16] Speaker 1: as tho it's unfair as a citizen. I feel as
[44:18] Speaker 1: though it's unfair to put someone on a show like
[44:20] Speaker 1: that trials or trial. Do the trial and you know,
[44:23] Speaker 1: if he's guilty's guilty, but the process of pulling him
[44:28] Speaker 1: apart and let the media play in that game. What
[44:31] Speaker 1: do you think about that?
[44:32] Speaker 2: I just think it was a play on optics that
[44:35] Speaker 2: all of a sudden, you're off to a bad start.
[44:37] Speaker 2: It already feels like maybe it's not it's not a
[44:41] Speaker 2: fair process straight away, and you want someone if someone
[44:45] Speaker 2: has been accused of something like this, you do want
[44:47] Speaker 2: it to be fair. You want to be as fair
[44:48] Speaker 2: as possible. And if it does, I think they're going
[44:54] Speaker 2: to try and get a stay. This is just my
[44:56] Speaker 2: view just from reading the open source stuff. But they'll
[44:59] Speaker 2: try make sure it doesn't go to trial at all
[45:01] Speaker 2: because of the amount of publicity that's around. We're talking
[45:04] Speaker 2: about it now, like the amount of publicity has been
[45:05] Speaker 2: around it. Is it going to be possible to get
[45:07] Speaker 2: a jury that's not completely biased about it?
[45:10] Speaker 1: And do you think it's possible for a civilian jury
[45:13] Speaker 1: to make a decision about intent and or probably more importantly,
[45:20] Speaker 1: someone's ability not to make a proper decision, you know,
[45:26] Speaker 1: because I'll give another example. If I'm drunk and I'm
[45:29] Speaker 1: driving my car and I hear someone and I kill
[45:31] Speaker 1: that person, then I'm guilty manslaughter. But maybe because I
[45:36] Speaker 1: was drunk, I might get a reduced I might be
[45:39] Speaker 1: able to say I had diminished responsibility because I didn't
[45:42] Speaker 1: have the proper capacity to at the profile of cortex,
[45:45] Speaker 1: which is what you're talking about before. You know, that's impaired,
[45:50] Speaker 1: and I don't right decisions. I should not have got
[45:52] Speaker 1: in the car, But the fact I was drunk is
[45:55] Speaker 1: the reason I got in the car, because I couldn't
[45:56] Speaker 1: make the right decision. And it's not about my response
[46:00] Speaker 1: because I'm drunk, it's about getting in the current in
[46:02] Speaker 1: the first place. Therefore, I probably got a defense of
[46:05] Speaker 1: diminished responsibility one, and I would probably get off. If
[46:10] Speaker 1: you're a soldier, whether a corporal or a platoon leader,
[46:15] Speaker 1: it doesn't matter. And I'm in the theater of war.
[46:20] Speaker 1: You mentioned fear and all the other stuff, revenge, anger
[46:24] Speaker 1: my colleagues has got his legs by you know, they're
[46:26] Speaker 1: becoming at me, left, right, center. I'm sure that the
[46:29] Speaker 1: other parts of the brain, like the middle and all
[46:30] Speaker 1: those sort of emotional parts of the brain take over
[46:32] Speaker 1: the prefrontal cortex, and you're probably not making as good
[46:35] Speaker 1: a decision there as you would ordinarily do, because they're
[46:39] Speaker 1: going to have to prove the intended to do this thing.
[46:42] Speaker 1: He had to have he has to have the intent
[46:45] Speaker 1: of murder, of committing his crime. Do you think, I mean,
[46:50] Speaker 1: you've been there. I mean, do you think that there's
[46:54] Speaker 1: not a very fine line, and maybe not even a
[46:56] Speaker 1: rational one between making the right decision and the right
[47:00] Speaker 1: decision based on the how you might be emotionally affected?
[47:04] Speaker 3: Yeah. I think most.
[47:06] Speaker 2: Soldiers like the laws and the rules around conflict are
[47:11] Speaker 2: pretty common sense. They're like, you know, the civilians in
[47:16] Speaker 2: a building, you're not, that's targ of the building. It's
[47:18] Speaker 2: literally as simple as that, use only the force that's
[47:22] Speaker 2: necessary to achieve your aim. If someone's wounded, now you're
[47:26] Speaker 2: and they're surrendered to your obligation to.
[47:28] Speaker 3: Look after them.
[47:29] Speaker 2: So everyone knows that when you're a soldier. I think
[47:33] Speaker 2: that repeated deployments could affect that. I think mental state
[47:37] Speaker 2: could affect that. I think the circumstances immediately before an
[47:41] Speaker 2: alleged war crime could affect that. For example, well, this
[47:46] Speaker 2: goes back to what we're just talking about with kind
[47:49] Speaker 2: of your state of mind. I know that one of
[47:52] Speaker 2: the allegations happened around what they call the Blue and
[47:55] Speaker 2: Green shooting, where Afghan National Army soldiers three Australian soldiers
[48:01] Speaker 2: in a patrol base. They flew in and then they
[48:04] Speaker 2: chased the perpetrator and this is where allegedly some of
[48:06] Speaker 2: these crimes have happened. So and just an insight into
[48:14] Speaker 2: some of the psychology here. A lot of the guys
[48:16] Speaker 2: that I served with that were in the essays, we
[48:18] Speaker 2: viewed the infantry units as kind of almost like a
[48:21] Speaker 2: sibling relationship. That's where we all came from. We all
[48:25] Speaker 2: came from these infantry units, and we kind of viewed
[48:27] Speaker 2: them as our younger brothers in a lot of ways.
[48:29] Speaker 2: They're young. Through in these patrol bases. Often our guys
[48:32] Speaker 2: would try and help them, They bring him food. They gone,
[48:35] Speaker 2: you know, come and go, right, who do we need
[48:37] Speaker 2: to hit around here? And they'd gone round up targets.
[48:39] Speaker 2: And I think when these shootings happened and our guys
[48:42] Speaker 2: flew out and they saw what had been done to
[48:45] Speaker 2: our soldiers inside a base, you know, I wouldn't be
[48:48] Speaker 2: surprised if the guys lost their mind a bit.
[48:50] Speaker 1: I probably would have, but that because that seems to
[48:52] Speaker 1: me to be a massive Like if someone comes to
[48:55] Speaker 1: my house and kill somebody in my house, my home,
[49:00] Speaker 1: be a friend or family, the amount of anger that
[49:05] Speaker 1: would be inside of me, the fact that someone actually
[49:07] Speaker 1: came into my home and did that, and like, be
[49:09] Speaker 1: the same if I'm in the army and I'm at
[49:11] Speaker 1: a base and this guy who everyone thought was okay
[49:16] Speaker 1: was just setting it up the whole time. That is
[49:20] Speaker 1: like ultimate treachery and by the way, cowardly too, because
[49:24] Speaker 1: it's like everybody is not expecting it, so it was
[49:27] Speaker 1: like a king hit from behind, but a murderous one.
[49:31] Speaker 1: But that could and everyone's different. Every person who sees
[49:35] Speaker 1: that is different, but everyone everyone would react differently. But
[49:39] Speaker 1: if you have the power to sort of it's call
[49:41] Speaker 1: it square off, you might sort of, you might have.
[49:46] Speaker 1: You might lose your mind a bit, you might.
[49:49] Speaker 2: That's and again I don't want to. I don't know
[49:52] Speaker 2: the specifics around this exactly, and you don't want to. No, No,
[49:56] Speaker 2: it's a case, but it's easy to see how that
[49:58] Speaker 2: could eventually. And again it's yeah, what happens these on
[50:04] Speaker 2: over that particular blaw and green shooting is look pretty treacherous.
[50:11] Speaker 2: Then again, we have aircraft, we have all these other
[50:14] Speaker 2: unfair advents. We do the same thing back. It's just
[50:17] Speaker 2: we try and make it unfair in any way you can.
[50:19] Speaker 2: And that's I'm not Condonia, but you can see how
[50:23] Speaker 2: they were to adopt these tactics to try and punish us.
[50:26] Speaker 1: And therefore someone might say, and an individual might say, well,
[50:30] Speaker 1: fuck that, that's unfair. I'm going to be unfair exactly.
[50:32] Speaker 1: I mean, like, I mean, I can sort of imagine it,
[50:36] Speaker 1: and that's not good decision making. I get it. But
[50:39] Speaker 1: that's not what you do in civilian life, because there's
[50:43] Speaker 1: probably no excuse in civilian life. But if you're in
[50:46] Speaker 1: the theater of war where you're seeing this ship all
[50:48] Speaker 1: the time, it's sort of diminished responsibility. And it sort
[50:52] Speaker 1: of takes me to that point I was making earlier.
[50:54] Speaker 1: It would be very hard. If you're sitting in the
[50:57] Speaker 1: jury and there's another eleven people in the jury, your
[51:01] Speaker 1: thought process would be totally different to the other eleven
[51:03] Speaker 1: people because they've never experienced this and you just told
[51:06] Speaker 1: me something. Then that I had no sense of but
[51:09] Speaker 1: I just now get a sense of it. I'm not
[51:10] Speaker 1: saying you're condoning it. You're not saying you're condoning it.
[51:13] Speaker 1: But at the same time, you're sort of sort of saying, well,
[51:15] Speaker 1: I can sort of imagined how someone's mind might be
[51:19] Speaker 1: going a ry. I know the rules of you know,
[51:22] Speaker 1: the rules of engagement. You can bring yourself back to
[51:25] Speaker 1: that position. You have a good sergeant who can talk
[51:28] Speaker 1: to you about this sort of stuff. A corporal has
[51:30] Speaker 1: who around him.
[51:31] Speaker 2: He'll have his you know, he'll have his platoon sergeant
[51:35] Speaker 2: that's kind of near him, and his second in command
[51:37] Speaker 2: as well.
[51:38] Speaker 1: So, but that's coming from the ties.
[51:41] Speaker 3: Yeah, that's different. It is a bit different.
[51:43] Speaker 1: Yeah, it's not your buddy, it's not your sergeant in
[51:46] Speaker 1: your case.
[51:47] Speaker 3: Yeah, not necessarily.
[51:48] Speaker 1: So you talk to people in your community. What's the
[51:52] Speaker 1: general vibe about this whole Bent Robert Smith stuff, And.
[51:56] Speaker 2: It's it's pretty divided. And this is just from the guys.
[52:03] Speaker 3: I know.
[52:03] Speaker 2: There are all ends of the spectrum. I guess there
[52:07] Speaker 2: are something I could know this was. There are some
[52:13] Speaker 2: that aren't that are a foreign against That's the easiest
[52:17] Speaker 2: way I can say it. I sit somewhere around the
[52:21] Speaker 2: whole like it's got to be investigated and investigated fairly.
[52:25] Speaker 2: I'm annoyed that there's not accountability around this conflict being
[52:30] Speaker 2: distributed more broadly. Why are we just focusing on this
[52:33] Speaker 2: one thing, on this one person, on this one person,
[52:38] Speaker 2: And I know they've got there is obviously others being investigated,
[52:42] Speaker 2: but there's a much there's a much broader there's a
[52:47] Speaker 2: much broader responsibility around this whole conflict that's been.
[52:50] Speaker 1: How do you mean, like above him, above him?
[52:52] Speaker 2: Like how do we stay on that job for so
[52:55] Speaker 2: long when it clearly was not going to work?
[52:57] Speaker 1: So I don't understand that. Can you explain it a
[52:59] Speaker 1: bit more? On that job?
[53:00] Speaker 2: So, if you're deploying repeatedly to a war zone and
[53:04] Speaker 2: your stated objectives are we're going to secure this province,
[53:07] Speaker 2: We're going to make sure there's free elections, we're going
[53:10] Speaker 2: to have a functioning national army and police force, none
[53:16] Speaker 2: of that was really viable. And I think everyone could
[53:18] Speaker 2: see that, and I could see because I was deploying
[53:20] Speaker 2: a year after year and it was just getting worse.
[53:23] Speaker 2: So I don't know how the it wasn't stated to
[53:26] Speaker 2: the policy makers from the top of the military going look,
[53:29] Speaker 2: this is a bad idea. It's not going to end. Well,
[53:32] Speaker 2: we're not going to succeed in our objectives and need to.
[53:35] Speaker 3: Wind it down.
[53:36] Speaker 1: So it's sort of like systemic systemic and what ends
[53:40] Speaker 1: up having me have some systemic something drops between the
[53:43] Speaker 1: cracks and it's happened at it at the perhaps at
[53:47] Speaker 1: his level, and probably another place.
[53:49] Speaker 2: Yeah, well that's kind of the knock on of all
[53:51] Speaker 2: these things happening that put And I'm not diminishing people respond,
[53:55] Speaker 2: you know, no one makes you commit any crimes, but
[53:59] Speaker 2: there are conditions that can and climates that can create
[54:03] Speaker 2: the condition.
[54:03] Speaker 1: The environment was more conducive to this happening than not happening. Yeah,
[54:09] Speaker 1: but is that a government? I mean, is that like
[54:11] Speaker 1: the generalis I mean, whose responsibility is it to stand
[54:14] Speaker 1: back and look at this sort of stuff and go, wait, Manue,
[54:16] Speaker 1: we better just put a check on this stuff.
[54:18] Speaker 2: One of the things that I've talked about publicly was
[54:20] Speaker 2: the overuse of a small group of soldiers to do
[54:26] Speaker 2: extremely rough missions, which are kill capture missions. For nearly
[54:30] Speaker 2: a decade and some of the guys on you had
[54:33] Speaker 2: double digit deployments to Afghanistan, So what sort of and
[54:37] Speaker 2: I had I had mental health trouble after one deployment,
[54:41] Speaker 2: and I'm not you know, I'm not a snowflake. So
[54:43] Speaker 2: you can only imagine after repeated deployments what that might
[54:47] Speaker 2: do to your kind of your sense of what's normal.
[54:50] Speaker 1: Do you think did he ever reported in deployments? Ben
[54:52] Speaker 1: rom Smith?
[54:53] Speaker 3: Yeah, all the guys did.
[54:55] Speaker 1: Yeah. And do you think that, I mean, I really
[54:58] Speaker 1: appreciate your can, but do you think that in a
[55:05] Speaker 1: neurological sense? I guess, And it's a bad word for use,
[55:08] Speaker 1: but I'll use it for the moment. If people tend
[55:11] Speaker 1: to think that you're a great corporal and really good
[55:14] Speaker 1: on the ground and a little bit too heroic even
[55:17] Speaker 1: you know, we did get a metal medals for bravery
[55:20] Speaker 1: numerous ones and the ultimate one that you start to
[55:24] Speaker 1: believe maybe that's who I am and that's what I
[55:27] Speaker 1: do and I've got to go out and do my job.
[55:30] Speaker 3: Yeah, I think there was.
[55:32] Speaker 1: The reward process is well balanced.
[55:34] Speaker 2: You've hit the nail and they skewed the incentive structure
[55:39] Speaker 2: for the military. It's like we were rewarded this individual
[55:44] Speaker 2: for a combat action. That's kind of that's what we
[55:46] Speaker 2: hold up is closing.
[55:48] Speaker 3: With the enemy killium.
[55:49] Speaker 2: And I think that that incentive structure and even the officers,
[55:55] Speaker 2: you know, if you deployed, you get these awards. The
[55:58] Speaker 2: whole incentive structure revolved around and keeping that conflict going
[56:03] Speaker 2: because we knew it was the only one we're going
[56:04] Speaker 2: to get for a generation, and it was our chance
[56:06] Speaker 2: to kind of find ourselves in our career. I just
[56:11] Speaker 2: think the incentives to continue that conflict were too strong.
[56:16] Speaker 1: Wow.
[56:17] Speaker 2: Yeah, and also for targeted killing was too strong.
[56:22] Speaker 1: As somebody who's been in the military and been deployed
[56:25] Speaker 1: to various conflict zones, what do you think all this does.
[56:31] Speaker 1: It's divided the nation, to be honest with you, But
[56:33] Speaker 1: what do you think it does for young people who
[56:35] Speaker 1: might be considering or who were considering now longer will
[56:39] Speaker 1: consider joining the military. And how important is it for
[56:41] Speaker 1: us to somehow rescue that position and get young men
[56:45] Speaker 1: and women prepared to join the military. Do you think
[56:47] Speaker 1: it's affected us?
[56:49] Speaker 2: I think it'll like perversely, I think it'll make it
[56:52] Speaker 2: probably less likely next time because the officers it will
[56:55] Speaker 2: stay and will probably remember all this and be a
[56:57] Speaker 2: bit more diligent about it and it might improve it
[57:01] Speaker 2: for the next generation. A good example is Colin Powell,
[57:05] Speaker 2: who served in Vietnam and watched that just become a
[57:08] Speaker 2: runaway war. When it was his chance and the Golf
[57:12] Speaker 2: War one came, he basically all the policy making was
[57:15] Speaker 2: around defeating the mistakes.
[57:18] Speaker 3: They made in Vietnam.
[57:19] Speaker 2: So if we're going to do this, it's going to
[57:21] Speaker 2: be overwhelming use of force, not like introductory trickle force.
[57:28] Speaker 2: So overwhelming use of force, really clear objectives, very clear
[57:31] Speaker 2: exit strategy. And that's why the first Persian Golfer was
[57:36] Speaker 2: so successful as a conflict. They knew exactly what they
[57:39] Speaker 2: were trying to do. They used overwhelming force, they avoided
[57:42] Speaker 2: all the mistakes of Vietnam, and that's why it was
[57:44] Speaker 2: a short conflict that was successful. Well that's interesting, Yeah,
[57:49] Speaker 2: they learned the hard way in Vietnam. That whole generation
[57:52] Speaker 2: made sure it never happened again, and we've kind of
[57:54] Speaker 2: that generation has passed now.
[57:56] Speaker 1: I was in US recently and I was over there
[58:00] Speaker 1: in February and late February, and I was at the
[58:03] Speaker 1: airport and I heard them calling vets up first to
[58:10] Speaker 1: get on the plane, and I asked, I asked one
[58:16] Speaker 1: of the vets. I said, oh, that's pretty unusual. That's cool,
[58:19] Speaker 1: and he said, he said some places where he said,
[58:21] Speaker 1: where I live, he said, we get coffee for free,
[58:25] Speaker 1: like you got to cafe it like you're a VET,
[58:28] Speaker 1: a card or they know you're a VET. They sort
[58:30] Speaker 1: of people the system sort of respects you and honors you,
[58:37] Speaker 1: honors you. I mean, we do it on ansa day,
[58:39] Speaker 1: but we don't do anything. I wonder what that is.
[58:43] Speaker 1: I meant why Americans are more like that.
[58:45] Speaker 2: I think it's because their country was formed, that they
[58:50] Speaker 2: had seize their freedom and independence, and they had wars
[58:53] Speaker 2: and wars, and they've lost so many people in wars,
[58:56] Speaker 2: so it has it is more ingrained in their culture.
[58:59] Speaker 2: I think it's not a bad thing. It's not as
[59:01] Speaker 2: ingrained here. But yeah, I remember obviously being in the
[59:06] Speaker 2: US and I'd have the Navy Army Games and they'd
[59:09] Speaker 2: call out to the veterans of different generations. They'd get
[59:12] Speaker 2: yone a stand up from Afghanistan and Korea, and by
[59:16] Speaker 2: the end they'd say World War two and they'd be
[59:18] Speaker 2: like five people standing up and the whole stadium and
[59:20] Speaker 2: go nuts clapping, And so they definitely love their veterans.
[59:25] Speaker 1: Well, they will say thank you for your service. Yeah,
[59:28] Speaker 1: they were interviewed.
[59:29] Speaker 2: I think yeah, I don't think Ossie's would, you know,
[59:31] Speaker 2: I don't think veterans want that, but you do want
[59:34] Speaker 2: people to understand a bit more about it.
[59:35] Speaker 1: But maybe veterans don't want it, but maybe the viewing
[59:38] Speaker 1: audience wants it. Maybe the viewing audience wants me to
[59:41] Speaker 1: say Mark, thank you for your service, because they would
[59:44] Speaker 1: never get an opportunity to thank you for service other
[59:46] Speaker 1: than maybe turning up the door service on ANZAC Day.
[59:49] Speaker 1: And maybe this puts a lot more emphasis on Anzac
[59:52] Speaker 1: Day for me. Anyway, it makes it a lot more
[59:55] Speaker 1: me a lot more aware of perhaps what I should
[59:57] Speaker 1: be doing out of a good Aussie spirit as opposed to,
[1:00:03] Speaker 1: you know, being judgmental. And what will happen in the
[1:00:08] Speaker 1: Ben Rob Smith case. Will that's in the court system
[1:00:11] Speaker 1: now and they'll make the decision and hopefully it's made
[1:00:14] Speaker 1: in a proper sense probably way, But if I just
[1:00:17] Speaker 1: take him away from the process at the moment, just look,
[1:00:20] Speaker 1: generally speaking, all the Mark Wales's of you know, of
[1:00:24] Speaker 1: our country, and all the people that you know who
[1:00:27] Speaker 1: you know just went did their job without any sort
[1:00:30] Speaker 1: of blemishes. Maybe it will make us think more about
[1:00:35] Speaker 1: Anzac Day as opposed to just going to the foot
[1:00:37] Speaker 1: in watching the last post and you know, having a
[1:00:39] Speaker 1: good day watching the roosters beats and George or whatever
[1:00:42] Speaker 1: the case may be. Hopefully and make it something more,
[1:00:46] Speaker 1: make it more meaningful, because that's I think, and I've
[1:00:48] Speaker 1: got a feeling we are starting to think that way,
[1:00:51] Speaker 1: and an opportunity to talk like to people like you,
[1:00:54] Speaker 1: like it's it's a big deal, Like it's a big
[1:00:57] Speaker 1: deal for me, but it's a big it's actually a
[1:00:59] Speaker 1: big deal for me to be able talk to you
[1:01:00] Speaker 1: this week because you've shed a lot of light on
[1:01:04] Speaker 1: what I should be thinking about Anzac Day. It's about
[1:01:08] Speaker 1: friendship made ship. It's about guys who do the look
[1:01:12] Speaker 1: after each other. Yeah, and it's sort of like for me,
[1:01:15] Speaker 1: it's very Australian.
[1:01:16] Speaker 2: And overwhelmingly, there was so much good work done and
[1:01:21] Speaker 2: it's being overshadowed only in the short term, but there
[1:01:24] Speaker 2: was so much good work done and so much frankly,
[1:01:28] Speaker 2: there was a lot of heroism that I personally witnessed.
[1:01:31] Speaker 2: I saw guys that were not even trained in sas
[1:01:34] Speaker 2: drills that would have deployed with this in a team
[1:01:36] Speaker 2: that were fighting well above what they were trained. There
[1:01:39] Speaker 2: was a lot of really good actions and heroism that
[1:01:42] Speaker 2: you won't hear about necessarily because they weren't given a
[1:01:45] Speaker 2: VC or whatever. But overwhelmingly there's a lot of things
[1:01:49] Speaker 2: to be proud of and this is only a.
[1:01:51] Speaker 1: Does that make you proud to be an Australian?
[1:01:53] Speaker 2: Oh yeah, I think it's the best example of And
[1:01:57] Speaker 2: Australians are revered as soldiers because we are rever and
[1:02:00] Speaker 2: we do fight hard well.
[1:02:02] Speaker 1: Because I heard somewhere that austraining sas in particularly the
[1:02:06] Speaker 1: commando part of the unit are those who get in
[1:02:10] Speaker 1: behind the lines, will go in first, have quite a big,
[1:02:13] Speaker 1: big reputation. Yeah, globally we got you punch above your weight.
[1:02:19] Speaker 2: Yeah, and we do some pretty unsexy work that no
[1:02:22] Speaker 2: one else is really equipped to do because of the
[1:02:24] Speaker 2: experience in the Jungles in World War Two and Vietnam,
[1:02:29] Speaker 2: our ability to kind of be reconnaissance soldiers, collect information
[1:02:33] Speaker 2: all that no one else can do that as well
[1:02:35] Speaker 2: as us. And it's a very tough job and it's
[1:02:38] Speaker 2: really valuable to do on a battlefield. It's not as
[1:02:40] Speaker 2: sexy as flying on helicopters and blowing doors in, but
[1:02:43] Speaker 2: it is, it's crucial work and we do that. Australians
[1:02:46] Speaker 2: do that better than anyone.
[1:02:47] Speaker 1: That is the essays that's what they do.
[1:02:49] Speaker 2: Says especially. And they do it not just in you know,
[1:02:54] Speaker 2: uniform they do it in all all methods of intelligence collection.
[1:02:58] Speaker 3: They're good at.
[1:02:59] Speaker 1: It, like undercover, the type stuff.
[1:03:00] Speaker 3: All the whole thing.
[1:03:01] Speaker 1: Yeah, well, I mean I'm glad to see Australia has
[1:03:05] Speaker 1: that reputation. I mean I've heard that, I've read that
[1:03:07] Speaker 1: or I've seen that somewhere that they have that reputation.
[1:03:10] Speaker 1: So there's a lot to be proud of for us
[1:03:12] Speaker 1: on ANZACT Day and beyond NXACT Day. And we shouldn't
[1:03:16] Speaker 1: be sort of shirking with any shame.
[1:03:23] Speaker 3: No.
[1:03:23] Speaker 1: I mean a lot of people think, oh, it's what
[1:03:25] Speaker 1: war was terrible. I get it, I get it, but
[1:03:27] Speaker 1: sometimes you've got no choice.
[1:03:29] Speaker 2: I think most people are sympathetic in this, Like I
[1:03:32] Speaker 2: was shocked at how many people are just like, we
[1:03:35] Speaker 2: don't actually care what you guys have done. We support you,
[1:03:37] Speaker 2: and you know a lot of people have decided what
[1:03:41] Speaker 2: side of this there I have.
[1:03:43] Speaker 1: I'm one of them.
[1:03:44] Speaker 2: Australis Yeah, and it's you can't you can't take that
[1:03:48] Speaker 2: away from people. They're going to choose what they want.
[1:03:51] Speaker 2: I think it's not a bad thing necessarily at all.
[1:03:53] Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm one of them. Well I will say Mark,
[1:03:56] Speaker 1: thank you for your service to this country. Appreciate it.
[1:03:58] Speaker 1: And by the way, probably equally important, thanks for speaking
[1:04:02] Speaker 1: up about this stuff and being one of them. I mean,
[1:04:04] Speaker 1: it's a tough thing to have to go and talk
[1:04:05] Speaker 1: about this sort of stuff, and it's tough to be
[1:04:07] Speaker 1: able to, I don't know, revisit things that you probably
[1:04:11] Speaker 1: don't feel like revisiting. You prefer to just keep locked
[1:04:14] Speaker 1: up somewhere as part of.
[1:04:15] Speaker 2: Sometimes, but there's important context I think people just don't have.
[1:04:19] Speaker 2: And a lot of guys, like I was saying this
[1:04:21] Speaker 2: last time we spoke, a lot of guys won't don't
[1:04:23] Speaker 2: want to speak up publicly necessarily.
[1:04:27] Speaker 3: But it is it's a tough topic because.
[1:04:29] Speaker 2: It is there's a lot of guys I know that
[1:04:31] Speaker 2: have been affected by it in really bad ways. I've
[1:04:33] Speaker 2: got a lot of mates who have been affected by
[1:04:36] Speaker 2: this who are not going to watch this as well.
[1:04:38] Speaker 2: There's so it's a tricky one. To talk about, but
[1:04:42] Speaker 2: I think it's important. I think people need to know
[1:04:44] Speaker 2: about it.
[1:04:44] Speaker 1: I say thank you, do say think you do all
[1:04:46] Speaker 1: Australian war vetsa all heroes as far as I'm concerned
[1:04:50] Speaker 1: and appreciate what you do for us.
[1:04:51] Speaker 3: Thank you, Thanks for having me

Shows are listed from Apple Podcasts' charts and directory, and Podcast Index where it is used. Every show and episode belongs to its publisher and plays from the publisher's own feed; this site hosts none of them.