Carlo Novak - Army veteran

A Mount Isa childhood

Born and bred at Mount Isa in Queensland. I'm a proud Mt. Isa boy, yeah, and yes, born in Mount Isa Base Hospital. Mum and Dad, Mum is Filipina, who came over in the mid to late 70s. Dad was already in Australia from the 60s, starting his life and he's German. He was German naturalization and, yeah, 82 model. 

Anyway, went to all the public schooling systems available there. So started in St. Kierans, but that didn't work out. I remember mum telling me, yeah, because they didn't like that they were bringing the cane in, they had the cane for you and, anyway, went to then Sunset Primary. That was an amazing schooling experience, where I, actually, even that milestone in my life, one of my teachers from that school is still part of our life still today. 

So, that's the good community vibe that we have in Mount Isa, and then went to Kalkadoon State High School. So that was predominantly a public school, lots of funding for the indigenous population, because we had a high population of indigenous and still do in Mount Isa, it's one of the epicentres, you can say and through my high schooling, that has already come into effect of seeing guys that were older than me that had joined the military and come back and that was what I was looking at, it's like, "Wow, that's a real man. They've served their country." because, yeah, people in Mount Isa, yeah, shout out to the Isa women and men there, we're all very proud of that town, the community that there is there and so there were a lot of guys I looked up to. 

And I loved playing Army Man, that was one of my favourite things as a kid. I have fond memories of my brother and I playing Army Man, and he ended up becoming a serviceman himself, in his own right, and very well accomplished serviceman in his own right. Dad bought us from Toyworld, the whole set of toy guns and everything and so we'd be running around and then he got from the disposal, the military disposal store that was in town, all the second-hand Vietnam uniforms and so we'd be wearing those green camouflage uniforms. 

They were massive on us and we'd just fold them up on the sleeves and pants and run around like Rambo around the house and in through the bush and everything. Yeah, because we had the bush just backing up, you know, down our street … Oh, my father was an avid pig hunter as well. So yeah, that was where we play Army Man doing that as well running around the bush with Dad chasing after pigs.

Swimming career and the decision to join the army

I was an avid swimmer, and did that all through my schooling years, and got a fair few accolades, getting ranked nationally in Australia for my respective strokes. I was a butterfly and breaststroker, but I couldn't break through because I can look back in hindsight and go, I was definitely part of the golden era of swimming. We had Geoff Huegill and Kieran Perkins. 

Even one of the blokes that I am have the privilege of working alongside in the business that I own now, Studio Pilates, the founder and creator of that, Jade Winter, he was part of the ‘96 Atlanta Olympic swim team for Australia but, yeah, I just could not break through in my, in that division of breaststroke and butterfly and so, because of being half Filipino, I tried my hand at trying for the 2000 Olympics and maybe represent the Philippines swim team. My dad was like, "You're defecting", anyway, but that didn't work out. I got sick, just prior to the trials and so all my time blew out. 

Still medalled at the qualification but it wasn't good enough to make the actual Philippine team but that was where I'd already had the thought of, whatever point I'd get to where my swimming career was going to come to an end, I was going to go to the military, because I wasn't interested in, wasn't an academic, school was a social outlet and that's where then my dad, when I didn't place, you know, in the team said, "What are you going to do now?" And I said, "I think I'm going to follow through with my secondary." 

And Dad was a big advocate for that when I talked about that aspiration, but I was, I had the normal doubts like any man would if I was going to actually make the cut, you know. I didn't, I had all these things that I created in my head of what it took to become a soldier but I'm so thankful I followed through with that because, yeah, told Mum and Dad once I made the phone call and then got the correspondence back that it was all underway for the testing and then got to the final thing of making it in and infantry was what I was looking at, and that's what I got. 

And, yeah, Dad was so proud. Mum was pretty devastated. She was, I didn't realize until that moment, where I'd said, like, "I'm heading off to basic training" that then she broke down crying and, yeah, because she was always supportive, but then that really showed to the forefront that she had some concerns in the background that she hadn't voiced. Yes.

Training at Kapooka

I did basic training at Kapooka and then, yeah, everything that my, because my Dad said just before I got on the bus to depart Mount Isa as well, he just said, "Hey, they're going to weed out the boys from the men. You might cop a bit of floggings here and there and that's just part of it." He goes, "They won't wreck you till you're damaged" and, anyway, it was completely off the mark, you know, it was just the norm, they were yelling at you, beasting you, what I found they called it. 

I got in trouble, on the radar on the first night, the first, anyway it was the first few nights into basic training, and they were running up and down the hallway. beasting people, yelling in their face and people started crying and then when we, anyway, I couldn't help it anymore, I burst out laughing because one of the guys that was crying, he just sounded humorous and then they were like, "What do you think, something's funny?" And I was like, "No." 

And I really snapped into attention then because I couldn't hold the laugh back and then later on that evening, one of the boys are like, "What were you laughing at?" I said, "Man, my Mum yells louder than this." So, anyway, I was well and truly, I was a duck in water, really, with my military career, you know, we were brought up in a really safe, but structured home, good discipline, you know, work hard, and you'll reap the benefits. 

That was a big one. And my dad saying, "Work is work. Schnapps are schnapps", you know, "If you're playing, you're having a good time. If you're working, that's it, you're on the job." We were brought up in a good faith filled house with my Mum and so we had that direction, you know, and grounding in our faith and trust in God. So, I brought that into the military as well. I'd go to, I liked that, you know, during basic training, we'd go to church services and everything on a Sunday. So again, it was like, "Oh, this is business as usual except I get to run around in the bush and shoot weapons systems." It was great. So yeah, it was literally an answer to prayers.

Joining 5/7 Battalion

After I did my infantry training in Singleton, got posted to 5th/7th Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment and that actually ended up being my home for my whole career. So, yeah, that was, again, looking in hindsight, that was against the norm. Normally, you do a rotation of postings, you know, cycled two to three years and then get somewhere else but during my basic training, months into that, is when they wheeled the TV out into the common area and got us all out of bed with all the alarms going off and then we started watching it. 

I thought at first they were putting a movie on, but no, they, "That's it", they said. "The twin towers have been hit" and they went, "Prepare yourselves" and the commanders for our platoon or whatever it was at the time, looked specifically at all the infantry soldiers in the room as well and said, "You guys are going to be going to war." And they were on the money, yeah, just took a couple of years, but, yeah, we got over … 

We had got to put in our nominations of what units we wanted to go to and I had it set in my mind, I wanted to go to 3RAR, become a paratrooper. jump out of planes, that'd be awesome and then when I didn't get that, because they needed a resup of men in 5/7 because they'd done their cycle of Timor, and then they had a big attrition rate post deployment. 

That's when the majority of our platoon got sent to 5/7 and, yeah, we all then questioned it and then each one of us, we all got pulled in as a group, "So you don't want to go there. We're emphasizing the you guys go there." And then as soon as we got to the battalion, all of us boys that got posted there, also, they'd already gotten the word that we were going there begrudgingly, so it wasn't the best radar to be on initially with the CO but, again, I dusted that off to go, "Well, I'll show in action that I'm a good hand here."

Deployment to East Timor

Our unit had already done several cycles of deployments to Timor and so you had a lot of confidence in your section commanders, especially, and platoon sergeants. That top cover, they'd already done the tour. So, it was business as usual to them. They were like, "Let's get amongst it again", and then sharing us the stories that, the lessons learned from their tours. 

Already somewhere on the way out and, but, yeah, they were like, "Well, this is what to expect." So, we had realistic expectations. We had great experience already in the unit as a result and it was up to us to get to the standard required to be deployable. So, yeah, that was great. Got to deploy with Delta Company and, yeah, it was just an amazing tour. 

Great way for me, again, looking at how my tour was spread out, as an introduction into warfare, into combat, into overseas deployments, because they were running training, they were using it as a training ground as well. So they'd run anyone that was up for promotion, they'd run sub one and sub two for corporal, because I was so fresh in my career, yeah, I was just making, you know, working hard in whatever role they put me in and predominantly they'd put me as forward scout in the section and that was where I had a real strength, I had a good keen eye in the bush, and in general in training, and I really thrived in that area and that's what earmarked me for my career after that, to get earmarked for a look in for reconnaissance course and then a snipering course, begrudgingly had to do the signals course and that was actually, was a tough course, I found that really difficult but, again, it was a necessity. N

o comms, no bombs and so, yeah, it was a great tool but then we also had then an incident where we got to ease in and then understand what it was like to have a real threat because what started as like, going on to on missions and blue hat patrols, we call it, working under the UN, yeah, hearts and minds. 

We got to do a few green hat, then it stepped into full green hat because there was that incident with the Indonesian Special Forces, the Kopassus team, they jumped the border, they were an assassination team looking to assassinate Xanana Gusmao who was up and coming through politics at the time and, yeah, so then we ended up going through the jungle of Timor until we found these guys, and yeah, it was successful because that team was caught in the end it was the reconnaissance group from Papua New Guinea. 

No, no, the Fijians, sorry, the Fijians that caught them, yeah, but anyway, after that tour I got, my hat, my name was thrown in the ring and then I went down the path of reconnaissance and then went down the path of snipers. And then that's where Iraq started becoming a realization and John Howard made the call and then our Battalion was deemed ready and ready to go and so we deployed on that tour.

Supporting the East Timorese people

I can relate it to my upbringing, because we went to the Philippines regularly, you know, Mum and Dad wanted us to have that connection with family abroad and so I'd seen what it's like, you know, haves and have nots. Our family comes from a good background financially, local family that's actually wealthy and stable and they'd support the surrounding areas around there in the Philippines and Timor was very similar, faith filled country, people, you know, looking to God for their guidance, going to church every week. 

Very gentle people and kind, yeah, and that's why it solidified our presence there in my mind of why, the why, why we were there, you know, supporting these people, they were so grateful, just their level of gratitude for our presence and, yeah, I loved doing those blue hat patrols as well, you know, it was great, loved going in, meeting the locals and it was instilled in us, being protectors. So, again, it was fulfilling a big need of mine to be useful to the community and helping things that are bigger than me.

Learning local customs and traditions

Again, like, the section commander, as he got to know me on that tour more and more, we would make it a point, like, you know, he really liked that we, I'd say, "Oh, can we go to the church service?" He'd say, "Yeah." If we hadn't, we would work within our rotation and patrolling and everything, we'd hit the church services up, yeah, it was really lovely. It was all part of integrating and we were well prepared to, I really liked, we all got exposed to learning basic Tetum.

That was something I loved, that we'd  learn about the customs and traditions because we were guests in that country and that was always instilled in us during training, that you're not going in there as tyrants or anything, you're there to support them, help them to stand on their feet and learn about their customs and traditions to be respectful, you know, from down to people that have got barely any food to eat, yet they'd get you in their home, sit you down and then share the meals that you're basically eating through half of their food, but it would be very rude if you knocked it back, but you always make sure that you leave a bit of food on the plate, so then that they know you're done. That's part of the customs, otherwise, because they're so, just generous, if you finish your plate, they'll load you with more, so again, felt very well prepared on that tour to deal with those customs and conditions appropriately.

A second tour to East Timor

They were modernized a bit more, again, our freedom of movement, we weren't having to be, you know, as we refer to it, our heads on a swivel, so to speak, you know, you'd be very alert and on the ball with things but it was very akin to like a policing role … So, we'd use the APC. and so, because of that capability, we were assigned as the QRF, the Quick Reaction Force and, yeah, that was a, it was a great tour to then see from that perspective how things had changed dramatically. 

As I said, patrolling, making sure that, because they had a curfew in place at the time, so we were enforcing that and, yeah, liaising with the other sections because I was a section commander on that tour, to then make sure that we weren't doubling up, but yeah, covering different routes to patrol, just keeping the peace, because there was a few parties that had risen up that were trying to stand up against the local police and local army, as well. So that was where we were combating that.

On high alert and a visit from Peter Cosgrove

We hadn't been any firefights or anything but you live in a high alert situation for a prolonged period of time because, yeah, looking for these guys, that's where, head on a swivel, you know, you're in the jungle and we even would do joint patrols through that 30 day period it took, we ended up, we got the honour of longest patrol outside the wire unresupplied since Vietnam, so that's in the history books. 

Through that time that we were looking for this team and they were triangulating their movements through intelligence coming from the local population and we'd even do the collaborative joint patrols through each of the companies and we'd rotate and, you know, when you'd be on point, you'd be the very head man, like, I'd be the forward scout of the entire battalion just to really saturate the area with troops, men. The jungle was so thick, sometimes you could only see a metre in front of you. 

So you're always stepping cautiously and precariously and I remember, actually, there was at one point they gave the field signal to go to ground and wait and so it was a good opportunity for me to then scout, scope, and try and scan through the jungle a little deeper and then, you know, so I didn't question it, I was just following command and keeping to my front watching the 12 o'clock and then that's when the section commander then kneeled and he said, "Hey, Cosgrove is coming up." So, he'd been on the tour and he was coming in and he said, "Yeah, man, how's it going?" 

And I was like, "Yeah, yeah. All good. It's all clear for him to come. There's nothing going on here." And so, then they sent Cosgrove up and then he come up and he said, "How are you feeling young fella?" and I was like, "Yeah, good. Good, sir." And he goes, "You feel good with the ROEs?" I said, "Yes sir." And he goes, yeah, "Don't muck around in the slightest, two in the chest, one of the head." I said, "Yes, sir." 

Because that's what you're trained to do, you know, if you're engaging or you you get engaged and then they start and he goes, "Good on your lad" and then gave me a tap on the shoulder and then started pulling rearward and then the RSMA, at the time, he didn't have a secure cups canteen, and that fell and hit some, and I even think back, "How were there rocks there?" because it was a very dense vegetation but yeah, it hit, must have hit the only rock in the jungle because that sung out like, brang, man, you heard that for days. Cosgrove made it very known he wasn't happy with that.

Debrief

So, we got just before leaving the tour, you had a psych in a room and, yeah, as I said, we had some old hands in the section in our leadership and they said, like, "If any of you guys have anything to cry about or anything" you know, "pull your socks up, maybe you should have a think about if you're the right person here." He goes, "I'll be timing yous." And so, you'd go in there, but the sheet was, it was literally like yes and no questions. 

They didn't probe you to open it up. They were obviously working on a timeframe as well. So, you'd be in and out within less than a few minutes. So, it was individual but not group? Individual, not group, yeah, but they didn't delve into the psychological side of things. I started getting exposed to that though, as my tours went on. So, you could see the army was trying to grow, especially understanding combat stresses on a soldier.

Lessons from Vietnam

Everything that we learned from, in terms of the Australian Army, that we learned from Vietnam days, made us heavily equipped, readily equipped for our tours in Timor and then, and especially like all the techniques, training procedures had all been filtered through from SASR and commandos that were established, really solidified their reputation during the Vietnam era. 

So that was what was standard training for any reconnaissance patrolman, and anyone that was working in the forward scout position. So how you'd work in fan methods scanning, it was an exhausting job. I'd have the best sleeps, you know, when we'd be back in safe harbour because yeah, you're working hard. It's a lot to take in, your your eyes are constantly registering foreground, middle ground, background, and when you said, like 400 yards at most, that's what you'd be covering a day, you know, cutting through the thick canopy with your machete and then, yeah, and I got to build on that more in recon, learning even more how to hone your skills of every step counts, you're doing heel toe action manoeuvres, and you really learn about why things are seen. 

So, everything's broken pneumonics. So, they talk about five S's and a mole, the shape, surface, spacing, silhouette, and shadow, and then movement. So those are the things of why things are seen and so you'd always be then honing your skills in each one of those topics, how to move slowly, but then even if someone is right in front of you, you're trying to move to a point where your movement might be captured and then you'll see them first and then  lower yes profile, set yourself up in a shooting position.

Returning home with a heightened sense of alertness

You'd come back from tours and, again, here in this high alert state and everything, the way a person's mannerisms are, where their hands are, how they're moving, anything that would draw your eye. It's hard to really switch off that high alert state, that's where I think a lot, including myself, can struggle when you're transitioning out as well, out of the military but, again, I've learned as time has marched on, like, how to use that as a positive and that's why even now, owning a Pilates studio where, and we're a clinically based service, so you're there to keep everyone moving in a Pilates studio and you have to have the eye for movements that are incorrect in order to adjust that person so they're targeting the right muscle groups to prevent risk of injuring themselves and yeah, so that's why I'm pretty quick on the ball in the studio and I have to attribute that to all the training that I did.

Iraq

We were based in Nasiriyah, we were the first Australian contingency to go down in the southern area of Iraq and, yeah, that's where I can talk in hindsight now, the Australian public weren't most onside for the presence of Australian troops in the Iraq War at time, you know, there was a lot of loss of life in the coalition forces and especially in southern Iraq, it was a very destabilized area and I was blessed to be able to rise through my career in a condensed period of time, so I was able to then get into reconnaissance after the training. 

I didn't pass my initial training with snipers. They always say too, though, there's a high, I know that now, statistically, that's usually the case and, but then because of how I performed and how I was performing in the role of reconnaissance patrolman, I got pulled over to snipers to do on job training. So that was a real blessing too, I got to work in both roles but John Howard, before we deployed, had said, because of the political landscape at the time, he didn't want it to look like we were going across as an aggressive force. 

So, yeah, he said, we weren't to tell media or anything that we were in those roles we were, we were sigs that's what our role was and when they changed our callsign as well, to then appropriately match what we were going over as, and I got to work in both roles over there and, yeah, it was busy, very busy. Again, there was a lot of expectations and the Minister for Defence at the time, gave one of the best speeches I've heard of my career, it was a very motivating speech, but he did say, he said, "Prepare yourselves and look around the room, because the way that this war is turning, and how destabilized that area that you're going into, be prepared that when you come back, some of your mates might not be sitting next to you." 

And that was what we needed as well, you know, thankfully he was off the money, so we came back with a full roster, and a few boys got injured on taskings and just, you know, accidents and everything that happens but we were very proud that we came back with a full roster of soldiers but now we can see where the mental health side of things, we lost a lot of guys from that tour as a result of the mental health and suicide. That's what motivates me doing these sort of things to be honest, I can normalize talking, it's okay to talk about things in the right context and it's part of healing.

Desert heat and sandstorms

That was another level of heat to experience that because again, I'd grown up in the tropics, like in central Queensland, so in the desert, experiencing the fluctuation in weather there and the same with being in the tropics in the Philippines and then Timor, but this was another level, like yeah. I had to actually, so working in reconnaissance and snipering, everything is done mostly covert, so you'd be doing a lot of operations by night. So, that's why the boys, that'd be like, "Oh, that's where we got the name." 

It was actually stemming from Vietnam, by the way, but Club Recon, because everyone would always see us boys like lounging out getting sun hitting the gym but that was what we were doing because we would sleep in the day, prepare for missions by night, because they had minimal or limited night vision capability, the enemy did, and so we would take advantage of that but, yeah, we were working a lot. 

They actually then even did the numbers by the end of the tour and we did nearly triple, that's not trying to flex it, these are just facts, we did triple the amount of patrols that any of the boys did but the appearance would always be, like as if, "These fellas are just getting sun tans and having a feed." But the heat, yeah, I felt sorry for boys because we did a few daytime patrols just normal, you know, being visible and, man, your head would feel like it was cooking in your helmet. It was that hot, blistering hot. 

Even when we did the movement to travel with all the APCs and the ASLAVs to head to the camp, I think that was called route Tampa, it was classed as one of the most dangerous tracks. So, it was already given in the mission briefing that you will get hit up and just, it's really a matter of time during that transport, so we'll make it fast, efficient and then everything that could have gone wrong went wrong in that in that move. One of the ASLAVs, the wheels, rear wheels locked up, could not move anymore in the axle and they just ended up having to skull drag it. 

They ended up hooking it real efficient, we went out and did our, what's called 5 and 25, checking for any IEDs. We didn't have anyone scanning for us either. Unfortunately, at that stage, the engineers weren't getting involved, you know, at that point, that was such early days where we learnt that was going to be an amazing asset to then bring along bu,t yeah, you'd be stepping precariously going, "Oh, you don't know." 

That was known for IEDs along that route and let alone then Taliban, Al Qaeda, trying to hit you up as well, trying to disrupt your movements and they just ended up going, "Let's just skull drag it." So, they drove with this thing, locked up rear axle, and then the explosion of the tires when they went because it was so, so blistering hot. 

Yes, I'll never forget that, how loud that was, but then there was a bit of an act of God, we had one of the biggest sandstorms that then swept across, that became minimal visibility, again, another experience of like one metre, two metre ahead of you visibility at max, which covered our move, they just had to follow the road. So, it was easy, so didn't get hit up on this, which was again, you know, supposed to be an imminent hit up and then that's it, then the grind started because they just wanted to make our presence known there and within three months, we maintain, we got a foothold of that that whole southern area, push the Al Qaeda out through aggressive patrolling and then, yeah, it seemed to be, the work pack tempo eased back a bit, but it was still high tempo.

Brunei

Working alongside the Brunei commandos, that was awesome, they were just such chill dudes and we'd already gotten exposed. Everyone has, every infantry soldier does their training in jungle warfare in Tully. Geez, that place. I tell you what, that breaks hearts and souls that way but, again, it refines you as a soldier, but then working in hard terrain but it was awesome learning from them and even refining your craft in how to set up traps and everything, that was really cool, really enjoyed that and having a feed, yeah, we'd catch a monkey and cook that up. 

Oh, you ate monkeys? Yeah, whatever you can catch. Caught some fish by using some of the, we blew some fish up, throwing some detonator caps into the water and then letting the fish come up and, yeah, so having nice fresh fish, that was nice but, yeah, then we got some time to go and experience Brunei and cruising around. It's a dry country but where there's a will there's a way. We found the only bar, you know, the secret bar on the border, where they were able to get around the laws and you could get amongst it, yeah.

Afghanistan

I'd look at things and go, "Far out. This is like a scene from Star Wars", you know, just talking to the people how you can tell centuries of traditions and things going through, where they'd normalized things that we would class in the western world as absolutely barbaric. It was always like, "What are we doing?" And then, all of a sudden, you're doing it, you know. So, that really emphasized like the military saying of, "Hurry up, wait." 

I've got no doubt, surely someone's said that during some of these interviews, because that was classic military, like, "Hurry up, hurry up." Now, wait around for ages. But we were the first contingency into southern Afghanistan, as well, yeah, so that was early days of the Taliban trying to disrupt the camp and the setups and we'd be getting rocketed flat out. That would be really frustrating, you know, so you're, they were achieving what they were setting out to do, which was disrupting us, trying to cause that, you know, getting you even further on a knife's edge. 

You're running on minimal to no sleep as well, in between patrols and, yeah, you didn't have any overhead. They didn't have any, what they had, after the fact, which is called veldt laagers, they were provided as accommodation, bomb protective accommodation. So, working alongside the engineers who were a very direct link with those, you know, they'd go out, those guys saved so many lives with how they'd sweep for the IEDs, they picked up so many during our patrols, but we would work alongside them, became a classic infantry soldier, jack of all trades, master of none. 

So, we'd be building our own accommodation out of plywood and that's what we'd be sleeping in and then to make them fancy, you'd get some of the carpet from the locals and then you lay that down just for a bit of insulation and stuff but, yeah, you'd get rocketed in the camp. These were just set and forget. So, they'd fly in, and it was always a distinct noise, you'd hear the rockets. 

There'd be a volley and the Dutch had set up a radar system, advanced radar system all around the camp that would pick up point of origin. So then, the noise would be the rockets coming into the camp and exploding then you'd hear the Panzer howitzer, which was directly hooked up to the radar system and that would make a [noise] and then it would send off a volley, doof, doof, doof, firing off. 

So, it would destroy wherever those rounds came from and then the siren would simultaneously go. So, it was like the old [noise] air raid siren and so then we'd get all our kit on, "Oh, at least one of them hasn't landed on our hut." And then we'd run into our bomb protection, which was a shipping container. So, it'd be like, "Now we go from one little tinderbox into a sardine tin" and then, yeah, each section commander would go, "Rightio" to us and then they'd run around checking names and numbers for a full roster. And then, yeah, back to bed again.

Establishing a foothold

We were establishing the foothold in the south there, so the camp itself in TK hadn't even been properly established. They had people, mainly the Dutch, and Brits were taking up perimeter security on the outer perimeter, that was still filling up Hescos, that's why I'm talking, it was so early days there and so we would do patrols, basically. 

We started by making a presence known and then eventually we go into the township of TK and then started going out further until we were starting to go to the edges of Baluchi Pass, which is where a lot of the Taliban were harbouring themselves, and it was a two way street, they were probing us flat out, and we were probing into them, and we were just flat out pushing into areas where they would be anywhere we'd get comms saying that they'd be, you know, moving, that's where we'd had to make a presence again, fan out from there, mainly trying to focus though on hearts and minds, yeah, supporting the engineers, and then we'd set up the outer and inner perimeter and then the heads of engineers would come in, meet with the heads of that village, see what they needed, and then start from there, and then set up a plan to then build either schools, water supply or anything, yeah, whatever they needed.

The Dutch

Cruisey guys and men and women, but just professional soldiers … They were already there, they were already there, established, in Uruzgan and enjoyed collaboration and that's where we were able to get what they were using as accommodation, those veldt laagers but, yeah, we, you know, we'd all just hang out whenever we could at the camp between patrols and get to know them. 

That's why  I've got a real close affinity, I actually got to catch up with a lot of Dutch servicemen and women at the Warrior Games in 2019. I competed for Australia in the Warrior Games and that was awesome, like, just to chat, old stories, and I didn't know any of them, like we hadn't served there but because we'd broken bread in the same countries, like, yeah, it was good to catch up and have that brotherhood, sisterhood.

The infantry credo

You are trained to meet the head enemy head on, that's what you're trying to do, seek out and close with the enemy, that's the first line in the infantry credo. If you're not, you can get the label so quickly, which I could see the positive and the negative too, what it was trying to do, it was trying to train a soldier to then be, you know, operate under stress, under heavy duress, and then bring calm to chaos and then go into auto mode with how you operate your weapon system, how you manoeuvre with your team, but, yeah, no one wanted, there was no way, no one wanted to get a moniker of malingerer, a linger, or, you know, someone that was combat ineffective. And it worked, that's why we came back from these tours with full rosters. 

The level of, I can say now, looking back, that the level of professionalism of soldiers that I got the privilege of working alongside, man, that's why we're brother's today,  had each other's back and showed through those situations that we were involved in, in action, it wasn't just pub talk anymore, we had each other's back, we would die for one another if needed but, yeah, that's why, again, why I reflect back to going, I like slogans like, "It ain't weak to speak." I want to put, I want to be one of those modern day veterans to put a positive, that you got to talk this stuff out otherwise that can turn into a pretty demonic thing in your mind if you're not talking in the right context, in a healthy way, yeah, and it's not weakness at all, you know, your brain can only handle so much trauma.

Decision to leave the army

My old man was always about instilling us boys, you know, to have a clear plan, think about what you want to achieve, you know, and I'd set in my military career to have a lifelong career. That was it, my plan was to climb the ranks, even go over to SASR, you know, not diminishing that but I was always motivated, if I put my mind to something, that's it, I would get it. 

But I got to the point where I'd even throwing my hat in the ring to do my selection course by the time I'd finished my third tour in Afghan, which was Afghanistan, and then that's when they dangled the carrot for the Timor trip and then I took that, because I was like, "Yeah, that's great. Take a brand new section overseas", you know, to somewhere, and I'd love to see. I used to look at them and I'd say, "I get paid to go on a holiday working and serving my country for the greater good of another country helping those that are struggling to help themselves." 

That was the, but by the end, during that tour is where the injuries, physically, that already sustained through training, and even through tours, were starting to come back, come on me in not a positive way. I would be struggling to run because my ankle was pretty cooked my knees were cooked, I'd had my  shoulder reconstructed already. 

I now know I'd broken my neck at some point and my  lower back but, yeah, anyway, I had to really sit down and I had to sit with it and go, in prayer and go, "What am I sticking around for?" because then the next phase was to send me to School of Infantry and that's where they even said, like, yeah, "We'll accept your special forces application but you'll have to process it whilst in the School of Infantry" and I had a partner at that time and I got to a point I was 26, going on 27, I was already classed as an old dog in the battalion. It was crazy, looking back now to go, a 26-year-old man, they called me Papa Noffs because I had a real caring nature, firm but fair, sometimes a little bit too firm. 

Again, I'd had those experiences already where I wanted to train fellas up to a standard where they would, I would put enough tools in them that they could go under anyone else's command especially under mine and come home and, but it got to the point where I'm like, "I don't think there's anything else left for me to achieve, except for throwing my hat in the ring for special forces." 

So that's where I made the decision to pursue a career in the civilian world, I wanted to see what it was like to live in Australia as a 20 something year old, before those passed by and also, not roll the dice anymore. I knew that we could trust in the training, but you can only throw yourself out in the front so many times before that will catch up with you, I think, as well. So, all those variables involved is where then I made the decision, I left threw my hat in the ring and I ended up, fast forward, I became a paramedic in Darwin in the Northern Territory and then did that job for seven years and that was a good job working alongside likeminded people as well but, again, that also brought a lot of stresses.

Becoming a paramedic

During my training in reconnaissance, again, we had to spread ourselves across multiple different qualifications to then get that final qualification as a reconnaissance patrolman. One of them was advanced combat first aid, and I loved it, and even when you do the monikers of, at the end, once you've finished with the casualty, you know, you've packaged them up ready for airlift, whatever it may be in that situation, in a role-playing scenario on the course, then you'd say, "Document evac" or "Doc and evac" and when I'd say, "Doc and evac" they go, "What does that, Dr. Novak?" because I was, I actually had a natural knack for doing precision with my hands and everything in cannulation and so I got that as another sub sort of nickname, of Dr. Novak and, yeah, that was part of the assessment going, "What do I love? What do I want to do? Where I can still be giving back into community, but in my own backyard?" and that was the motivation to go into paramedics. And how long did you do the paramedics for? I did that for seven years in total. The same period of time. Very, very similar, all in Darwin. I did the rural placements as well, did a little bit of time, just, Nhulunbuy. It was beautiful fishing out there and everything too, and just beautiful community. Did a couple of just very quick stints in Tennant Creek, in Katherine, yeah, but predominantly I was based in in Darwin, and Palmerston, those were the two main stations. We had several stations across town, and then one station out at Palmerston at the time. I, again, I was very motivated and I ended up by my fifth year, I ended up even taking over from, I ended up becoming one of the managers on road, so a station officer where you'd manage all of the crews, and you'd be a single response, paramedic yourself and I wasn't qualified as an intensive care paramedic, but we answered directly to the area manager and the medical director. So, if there was a scene that we attended, and we felt comfortable within to work, even outside of our scope, we could get authority from the doc to give that, so you can do intubation and more advanced skills. So that was really great because they struggled a bit to get funding for some of the courses up there too, because that's privately run, government funded, privately run under St. John Ambulance, which had positives and negatives to that as well but, yeah, that's where I really got to cut my teeth and, yeah, show I had those leadership qualities, got to build that even further from my military career into the paramedic world but, yeah, I ended up gaining the moniker of shit magnet during my, luck of the draw like anything, but yeah, I'd have, when I was doing my paramedic traineeship, at the time, working full time on road and studying full time, you'd rock onto shift, because they would rotate you a bit and then you'd have some of the mentor paramedics going, "Oh, I thought was gonna have a quiet shift." and then sure enough, you'd get some of the most hectic cases, within the first year alone, I attended that many resuscitations, which was crazy. But again, I didn't have the right resources around and the workplace also wasn't the most conducive to promoting mental health awareness. So that was a motivator for me to get into a position where I could then maybe be a part of the winds of change. So, you know, you're like, activating peer support after a traumatic case, not just going, "Oh, that's part of the job. Move on to the next thing." Be like, "Man, this is just setting us up for failure, compartmentalizing", but I was always about helping others. Everything. It had to hit, it hit a wall for me fall, everything started falling apart psychologically for then me to go, "Wow, I've been trying to help others. Not helping myself here."

Rehabilitation and reappraisal

I like to always keep my eyes forward on wherever things are going, you know, you can't drive a car and then look in the rearview mirror thinking, you're not going to have something bad happened, right, but I like to look back in the rearview mirror and then see and learn from those experiences, after action review is something you learned in the military but, yeah, when things started crashing in on itself through a few different incidences that occurred, there was no way I could keep it at bay anymore mentally and physically. 

So, the physical injuries were starting to present only in my early 30s. So, when I was stopped in my tracks, that's when I had to look back and go, "How did I get to this place.?" And so, I was already doing rehab at the time, physical rehab, but thankfully I had a good occupational therapist that noticed the psychological side of things and then, when she started scratching the surface, that's when everything just started pouring out and that started my mental health journey more to the forefront, because the ambulance service was all about, especially like, their hearts were right, they wanted to, like, you'd have mentors that were from a bit of a bygone era now, at that time, and there would be a bit of advice, saying, like, "Be careful what you say, if you access the mental health services, because they're contracted to then give the info back and you might get a black mark against your name, that you're not suitable for the role", you know, and so you'd take that advice. 

So, I'd use these psychological things but I'd try and go about it in a sneaky way to try and get some tools to implement so I could keep my head above water and then some, yeah, but, and so it was looking back retrospectively through that, but I'd lost my faith, bit by bit, and dropped those habits, I wasn't going to church anymore. I wasn't praying, it all started as a small thing that incrementally built to big. 

So, then I was walking off on my own path, carrying everything on my own shoulders but that's something where I'm thankful it all came full circle. I guess I got given a gift of seeing what life is like when you don't have faith, when you don't have God in your life versus what it's like now and so Pilates came into play through the rehab. I was getting marginal improvement through working with an exercise phys and a physiotherapist, I had a really high level sports doctor that was, again, so thankful that I had all this support from DVA to access these amazing services, but I was getting marginal sort of improvement and, again, I  think my life has shown, I'm a very motivated man, if you give me something, I'll work hard to get there and then each one of them independent of one another was like, "Man, have you done Pilates?" And I was like, "I've heard this three times, let's get this underway." 

So, it got approved by DVA, or the rehab coordinators at the time, undertook Pilates and, man, talk about being humbled, because I'd always prided myself on my physical prowess. Bench press, it's out of my brain but the reality, you go in, max bench 180 kilo. Deadlift, 300 kilos. Man, you do Pilates, not working those muscle groups, like those large, little disco muscles anymore, you're working all the stabilizing. So, bit by bit, I've been able to get to a point now where I don't need, you know, it's not even, I can laugh to ever think I had a thought, "Well, if this keeps going, I'll just normalize a walking stick." 

Thank God I through went with Pilates doing the right movement, just being patient with my journey of rehab to then get to a point now I own a Pilates studio and now I get to give back to the community what I received. Bit by bit we've been growing, 20 months of operation and it's flying because I've gotten more team members in that have the same heart for people, love Pilates, they know what, they've got their own testimony of what it's done for them and now they can share that love as well.

The importance of commemoration

Honouring those that went before us, you know, the Gallipoli veterans, World War One, World War Two, Vietnam, every conflict, you know, this is where we've got to be so proud of our country for the things that we've come through as such a baby nation as well, comparative to the rest of the world. I got family background on German and Filapino, there's hundreds and hundreds, 1000s of years old even, and for us to be such a country in our infancy and, yeah, so it's good to then come together. 

The point for me is like celebrating the gifts that we have in the freedoms and liberties that we have, which have been afforded by people making sacrifices. And now I've lived it myself, like, I understand when you first signed up, you know, I remember it was actually the moment where they shake your hand, you've signed the certificate, and you get the photo and then they say, "Thank you. Thank you for your service. Thank you for your sacrifice." 

I didn't look at it as a sacrifice at the time, I was like, "Man, I'm living a young man's dream right now." It's after the fact that you go, "Wow." Now, I got to a point where I'd struggle to lift my little girl because of my shoulders and my neck and everything was so cooked, you know, but now I can see the blessings that I have received. One of our brothers that went down in that chopper crash in 2010 in Afghanistan, you know, like he was 28 years old at the time, he never had a family. 

He had a ute in the car, leaves behind a family that's pretty devastated from that loss and do amazing things to support the veteran community but, yeah, that's where, now I've got a family, I'm married, got a business all these experiences that Scotty didn't get, and so that's to me, when I go to Anzac Day, Remembrance Day, any of these events, celebrate the gifts that we've got, the family that you've been given, and not forget those ones that made those sacrifices and didn't come home.