We'd like to acknowledge that traditional custodians of the land on which this podcast was produced the Gadigel people of the orination. We pay our respects to Elder's past and present. This episode contains discussion of suicide. If this raises any issues for you, support is available through the links and phone numbers in the show notes.
It's April two thousand and nine and we're in southern Afghanistan. Twenty eight year old Damien Tomlinson is here with the Australian Defense Force.
He's here.
He's made it, just four.
Years after ticking off his goal becoming a commando. This elite group is tasked with the most physically demanding, mentally challenging and dangerous roles in the armed forces. He's working a night patrol when his unit drive over a Taliban ied The bomb explodes, leaving Damien fighting for his life. He loses both of his legs and doctors say it's a miracle he wasn't killed. I'm Ad Middleton and this is head Game today, Damian Tomlinson with his extraordinary story
of reclaiming his life on his own terms. Damian Tomlinson, it's an absolute pleasure to have you on my podcast head Game. It's an honor to speak with one of my own former Australian Defense Force two commando an elite soldier tours of Afghanistan right up my street. I know that we're going to get on like a house on fire.
Talk to me about your childhood and your upbringing. Were there any military roots for you to be pushed down when you were young or did you just decide right, I'm going to join the military at a young age and you just cracked on or was there an influence in your life?
Where did that all start?
Well? So I grew up a an hour and a half Sydney, a place in the central Coast called terrible for those that are in Australia, those that aren't lovely place to visit, not to stuff out. And I don't know, I didn't feel like there was a lot of opportunity. I didn't feel to inspire. But also sort of I like got confused a little bit between my passion and my hobby. You know, sport was a hobby as opposed to being like a passion or something that I should
find to really work towards and in strive at. And I just had the moment I think where I'd gone through,
made a couple of bad decisions. You know, I had a good group of friends, I had really support a group of people around me, but I sort of just made choices that I think, you know, you get, you know, you kind of want to go against the grain a little when you're young, kind of like I'm going to do my own thing, and then realize that the further on you get, you know, you make the people around you that have got you know, sixty plus years experience a right and that's.
That rebellious side that we all have until it's not down. Yeah, it's got to get now to you somehow.
And the really good influence in my life's always been my dad.
You know, He's always been great for me. But here are growing up, but we're very different people. You know, we got totally different skill sets. Like the things that I go really well out at school and saw as really easy things to do, you know, I saw him as simple. He then saw like they were to him, they were the bits that took a lot of effort. So he'd gone through getting his masters in applied science, and to me, I was making physics feel easy. So it was that that sort of thing, but then not
putting the effort. I just didn't apply myself to anything, which I mean now I look back at kind of it frustrates me because that's the only like sort of what if, Like it was in me that I wanted.
Something that was bigger, you know, like I thought I could.
I don't know, I always thought, like I've I you can call the delusion to grandeur, but it doesn't matter what room I walk into a way as shoom I can.
Belong there, you know what I mean.
And let's face it, a majority of the rooms that you walk into, as long as you look like you should be there and have an attitude like you should be there, no one's going to ask you a way.
There, so it could meet in effect, right, Yeah, it's just.
Like just just walk into it with a quiet confidence that if the guy asks you a question about why you're there, he's going to get escorted out. And I'd always I always got to add that, but it was it was more and more it was getting reinforced that it was totally unjustified, you know, like I just hadn't proven it. I hadn't proven I didn't have the runs on the board, and I remember going to him after like him a few of his prophecies about me being a laborer and doing whatever coming true.
I remember going and speaking to.
Him about it and tell me your story about wanting to be an architect and that he didn't have the right mass scores and you know you master's degree and applied science.
There's mass involved, you know what I mean.
So and then he sort of finished it by going and see, no one can tell you what you want to do. I was like, okay, so what what should I do? Just absolute crickets. There was nothing in the room. You know, we had just at this moment of like looking at each other. You know, when you've known something all along, you just haven't wanted to face it. I think that was the moment where I decided, right now is my time to to really like to face this one, you know, to make some form of difference.
And step up or to step forward, Yeah.
To give to you to really do it.
I don't know. I like, I look at who I was before this next moment, and you know, it was really easy to it was. It was easy for me to go, oh, that's just not for me, you know, you know, it's just not my thing. Well, I'll find something else, like all just a quita's mentality. And I remember when I went into the computer, I was too ashamed of use dad, so I used mums in the
study and went in and sat down at it. And there's this really cool picture of my granddad eighty three rats that are Brooks thing with his rack of metals. It's a little grin on his face. And I just looked at it and I was so proud, And then in the next second I was just super ashamed, you know, like I had done nothing that was even remotely close to being worthy. You know those people who they go who would you speak to if you had the chance that was two thousand and one had happened.
This is in two.
Thousand and three, I think late two thousand and three, And I thought, like, if I had the chance to talk to him, what am I going to talk about? You know, like, what am I gonna? I can't really impress him with scoring at first grade hundred. I mean, like that's not it really doesn't make it, you know, it's not the type of I don't know.
I just felt like, sosh.
You feel feel a bit worthless?
Yeah, well, I think so like, and I think it was sort of like as well, you know, I'd like to believe I'm pretty overwhelmingly positive person, you know, like I tend to believe the positive thing regardless of how
bad the circumstances in front of me is. And there was more and more evidence that it was mounting that I was really wrong, you know, like that I was, yeah, that I was the person who And this is the funny thing, like it took what happened later for me to understand that all of that was happening inside my head.
None of it reflected reality, you know, like I don't know what someone's.
Opinion of me is and I don't care, and I shouldn't have then, you know, like I was premeditating what strangers I was working for thought or something of the sort. When it was, you know, all of it was just happening internally. So I looked at the looked at the computer. There was a Special Forces direct recruiting scheme and at
that thing, I literally remember looking at the screen. Four guys they're on rotation wonder Afghanistan, I find out later, just walking away from the screen, like just picture of their backs, and I was like that's it. That will prove everyone who's said the thing like this. Not everyone can do that. But I'm going to keep going until it's done.
See that's what I love about you, Damen, is that you looked at that and you didn't choose just an option. You chose the hardest option, the most elite option, and you just decided to jump in the deep end. How did you get on? Did you did you struggle? Were you treading water? Or did you thrive in that environment?
I quite liked it, Like, I mean, part of it was me. You know, you're kind of like, you know, it's going to be hard, like it belt everyone. If anyone ever says, oh, special Forces, the selection didn't belt me, you're like, cool, I've never done it.
It's it's just one of those things.
But I think just like accepting the fact that it's going to be really difficult and it's going to stretch, Like I enjoyed the fact that every single thing that I did was something that you can be proud of, you know, like I wasn't and if you didn't, like it's one of those no lose situations because if you're not perfect that at the first time, it's harder than anything else you've ever done in your life.
You don't have to be perfect that at first go. It's the effort of trying to like maintain, like build and maintain those standards the entire way through your career, which makes the difference, you know, when you start seeing those small bits of progress. And I just learned it was just this like positive reinforcing style thing. And I mean, you know, it's it's obviously it's passable. It's doable, you know, and.
They're looking for for attributes, which I think Team Sport sets you up for, you know. I mean part of it is like just for me, there was no way that I was ever no matter.
How much it hurt. That's what a special force to soldier has to go through. To me, that was it.
That's like it's turning up every day committing every day I sacrifice. People don't realize the sacrifice. And when I say sacrifice, I mean personal sacrifice.
Yeah, And I mean the reality of that, the realities that you faced during it. Like it's I remember I was pretty like lucky when I did it. The only person who you know, I was looking out for this stage was me, So like I can't I still blows my mind now because I've got a family now and I love them more than anything. But I didn't have at that stage. I didn't have a girlfriend, I didn't
have kids. There was just me in this battle of going okay, cool, I've got it, like I got to turn up here, and like some of the things are such like gifts to the way that you handle adversity because you've got no choice at the time. It's a controlled environment, right, so you know you're not to like die. If you do, you're pretty unlucky. But I remember like doing things like on our hands. Of course we did it and it was freezing cold. We've done this mud
run at five in the morning. Everyone had steam off them, like mud and steam. It was down in Melbourne, which is like Australia cold. It's not UK cold, but it's you know, so sort of cold. We're getting closest to the zeros and the water just oh god. I remember the dad has jumping the water. Straight after it, we get out and they go all right, go draw yourself off. You know, you've got an unachievable time to get back in that room ready to.
Start your lessons.
So everyone's like, ah, you know, you're run it, you're doing all your different stuff and you're standing out there and you're ready to go in and they.
Said, why are you guys dry? Get in the water.
And you're like, all right, bag there's and then back out of the water, straight into the license trying to like write what you yeah, just everything wet, going oh my god, like why trying.
To retain the information that you've you thought it and out in it.
Like you don't get those sort of chances to stretch yourself in many places, you.
Know what I mean, normal walks of life.
There's no way in a million years you get pushed outside of your comfort zone like that not a chance. And how did you feel when you passed selection? What was your moment like when you got when you passed your selection process?
It was this was like probably the most relief I've felt in ages.
Now you're sitting in this.
Room and you know, part of building tension is, you know, sensory deprivation, you know what I mean. So it's just sitting in silence while something you feel like it should be happening. You learn that should is a word that you can leave.
Out of your vocabulary. It's pointless.
But I remember sitting in there and they're counting names off and there's good operators standing up, walking out of the room, and then you're sort of looking back at who's left, going ah, he fell asleep doing this. I made a mistake on that this guy did this. That guy was awesome, but could complain a bit like you know, you had all these little bits that you sort of looking at it, and you didn't you genuinely didn't know.
I remember Hans Fleer, he's a legend of the Australian Special Forces, was doing his reading is what we've done, and this is the you know, as we know the Special Force selection course and blah blah blah, and this is that went through it and then go and it's my pleasure to say that the attributes that I've just listed all of your men possess. Congratulations blah blah blah.
And I remember like, ah.
It's it's indescribable, I think, because and that's at that mean that moment, it wasn't about everyone else. It was just like to me, it was me getting across the line for me a bit, if that makes sense. And I started to realize like, okay, so you've now proven yourself because you start to this task, you stayed with it, and now you know you've come out the other end. And I remember ringing, Mum, she was just over the moon. You know, both the folks were. They thought it was great.
Like every time that's me, you could see that was so proud and it meant something. And the more the further I went through my career, you learn just wearing the flag is such an honor, you know. Like then like everyone's just walking the same direction, you know, for the same goal. And for you to achieve that goal, everyone around you has to be good. Does that saying you know your can or doesn't burn brighter if you burn the blow the one next to you out. The
military's job is to light up a room. So if you're the type of character that blows a candle out, you're not wanted, you know what I mean, Like pack your bags and go home. So and like I remember like having my expectations changed, I think because you don't know what to expect. You know, you've got guys all shape sizes, building, we got guys with degrees, and you
know you've got guys who were tradesmen. You've guys who've just chosen that path, you know, and then you've got guys like me who sort of thought it was their last chance, which now I look back, it's wild because I was like twenty four.
It is insane right now You've got that pros and that mindset, and but ultimately, is that mindset that pushed you into something as extreme and as elite as the Commandos?
Right?
Yeah?
Well I think it, and it almost it had to be, I think, you know, I just don't think it would have been fulfilling if it wasn't, you know what I mean? Like, it's you get that I've noticed this, and would you would have noticed this? With as your career progressed as well, you meet a lot of people that have achieved enormous amounts, are wildly successful, amazing what they do, and they're all really cool.
You know what I mean, Like none of them.
You just like, how is this guy doing everything so amazingly effortlessly? And the only thing I can put it down to is because they found something that is their passion that they've got nothing to prove.
Yeah, that's right.
They have scored the runs. They don't have to worry about it.
And I don't know what it's like for the Aussie Defense Force, but where I stepped up from the Marines into a special Forces role, it's like, wow, the responsibility you're taking on different roles and you know, more responsible roles and roles that are just like giving you to go right, We don't want to know what goes on, just go get the job done.
You just do it.
Have to be able to do it unsupervised, and you don't need orders to do it like you kind of expected to know what to do with it or to work it out, you know what I mean, And to do it in a way where it's you could have the highest ranking official in the military watching you the whole time, you.
Know what I mean. That's the level of trust.
And I found that like really empowering when we're going through the cycles.
But also it lifts your game, you know what I mean. You hang out with people who have similar interests and who are all striving to be better, your game just lifts, you know what I mean, Your attitude changes. It's something that you know it's and that's one of the things that that world sort of does. But when I first got there was just too I was I'm still young. You know, I still had plenty of.
Young naive keen. You know, yeah, you.
Think you think it's the toughest guy. You know, you're in a thing that's going to ask a lot of you when it comes to combat. So I've got to be ready to We've all got to be ready type thing. And you're like, it's not that, It's like EQ is
the new tough. You've now got to know how to control your emotions and use them effectively in each environment, which I think is that alpha plus mindset is like, you know, you've got to be willing to go there, but you've also got to have the intelligence to know when you have to go there, because like most people that you can see that will go there, there's like one time in a thousand that you might need to.
And also I think what's super powerful about you know, emotional intelligence is when positive people around you take charge of your emotions, you know, to push you through that door to get you, you know, the other side of where you need to be. But also being emotionally intelligent enough to realize when someone else is struggling emotionally and you come along and you you you help them, you know, Harness that emotion to achieve whatever's in front of you. God,
that's when trust. That's when a bond takes place. That's when, I truly believe when emotional intelligence is fused, that's when you start you can really trust that person. Well, I've let that person or that person's taking control of my emotions. There's that bond, there's that trust bang is sealed.
Yeah, yeah, they're in there.
And I mean, like I think a big hurdle for me when it came to that was it's almost like as a person, I'd changed before I was going in, and I'd accepted that change.
I was now going to be Damian the soldier, you know.
And then and that guy had to be tough, you know, he had to have all these different attribu We had to do all the things that made that which just you know, it's you're just kind of wearing a mask the whole time.
And I think it was a defense mechanism, isn't it?
Yeah?
Essentially? And I was I mean, the fans is probably.
Putting on your body armor, You're putting on your mask.
You yeah, ready to go.
But like I learned when we were we were on my first apply, second deployment. We've done a little to Fiji, but I was on my deployment to each team or and I just kind of got tired of the tough thing, you know. When we It's ease team was gorgeous. It's in Indonesian Island, just north of Australia, coral refall around it. We were doing a pretty pedestrian like peacekeeping, tight style job, so we're just working out a lot. It was near a beach, and I kind of I slipped back into
just being the surfer from the Central Coast. Like that's I stopped talking in a military way. I started just unless I needed to. You know, you obviously got to know when to need it to. And I found then like people gravitated to the freedom of that, and I found it got the best out of me because I was just being me.
It's refreshing late.
Yeah, well, like that's the thing. You don't have to add anything, you don't have to change anything. If somebody doesn't like European, that's cool. If you don't like someone else's that's cool as well.
So you've got all your life in order, everything's going to plan.
You're you're happy.
Yeah, you found your belonging, and then you deployed to Afghanistan and in April of two thousand and nine, boom bam. Your whole world is literally flipped upside down along with yourself. Can you take us back to that ied strike and what you can remember from that blast?
I can. I can remember as much as you can and nothing. Well, yeah, really you're on it.
Like I've read, I've read the reports of the days before. We were in a like an nine hour firefight the day of.
I can't remember any of it.
I can't.
Yeah, I've got I've got little bits.
Of parts that like, I can remember different contacts that we had and a couple of different spots, like you know, overwatched positions and some small conversations, but not not the group orders. Like I remember an orders group that we had getting shot up that I thought was the day of, but it was nearly a week earlier.
So yeah, But well, essentially, what's the first memory that you that you have as in Germany, I was you've been, You've been the incident that happened, You're on a patrol, bang, you get blown up, and the next memory after that is you're in Germany. Yeah, hospital in Germany and like the for a bit of content. So I got hit at about ten o'clock ten thirty. My vehicle jump did like a ninety degree turn. Guy next to me blew his ear drum out. Kidd in the back was knocked out as well.
Woke up. They came.
My right leg was gone. Left was broken, like really badly. It's the coolest X ray and I can't find it now. I don't know where it's gone, but it's it looks bad.
My right elbow was hanging out somewhere around here.
The bones were broken, the hand was busted, this arm, that thumb like my nose was shattered, cut a little bit of cosmetic damage.
Where were you when when the straps happened?
So I was driving, Yes, I was driving.
So you were in the driver so you you you got the full front of it.
Yeah, so it went off on the front right wheel. And I mean that's something that took me like a while to actually ask. You know what I mean, just because you do what you can to minimize risk, you know you're fighting, you find the wall. That's the best thing you can do is make sure that you know you're doing as much as you can to minimize the risk of something like that happening.
So we were driving in.
Each other's wheel tracks, no light, everyone on, everyone wearing night vision, Like obviously you can hear the cars, but if you're on the side of a mountain, it's hard to still hard to shoot at we're traveling in a period of darkness as well. So yeah, I was looking through and I had to say, like, eventually to one of the guys who the guy was next to me, who with this is wild. We grew up three suburbs away from each other. He's a year younger than me, and we'd never met, and we now are both out
of the army. We live two suburbs away from each other, and every now and then we had beers. But yeah, he's I remember saying to him and just going, look, all right, I need you, need you to tell me the truth about this.
Did I fall asleep like we've been up the day we ten days earlier.
Beating your self up automatically, You're beating yourself up, like how did I do? You're not fucking a sleep mate, You're fucking driving vehicle. You're probably like on a hyper alert, which I know that you do. And I don't get food fatigue. You're you're you're there right, You're present, especially through the green light, you know, through the way that you fell asleep.
Bro, you're on.
So that was that was what I was thinking. I was like, how And that's also like if if that was the case. All I was thinking was, that's the biggest that fuck I could have cost someone Like I'm cool with me, Like, I'm one hundred percent cool with me getting hit, But if that was to cost one of the other guys, and it had fallen, and he just goes, no, we just were driving in the tracks, but where we were and then there was little like sort of like little boulders and we were kind of
getting bottlenecked through. So and you kind of because you can only you can see the tracks and go as close as possible to it. And he just goes, well, because we were like fifth or sixth car in the convoy moving up, there'd been ATV's go up and one of the boys was like he was literally kneeling down looking back at it. After it's tough to say into the boss, I think we should sweep this hill before we go up, And the boss apparently said, look, mate,
what's your fascination with sweeping hills. But this is also like I don't remember being in the middle of like the first massive contact.
That we had.
We're behind an embankment and he was holding his rifle in the middle of the rifle, just casually ambling over to our car, like literally as if he was about to give us a sandwich. All right, boys, So you know he's a Welsh bloke, really cool guy, and he's oh, you know, there's some blah blah blah blah blah, then just wanders on back like as if he was out in the park, And I thought, this guy's all right, So that's how cool you have to be when you're in like a high level of combat.
All right, sweet, we've got the bar. But yeah, so the poor thing.
I feel worse for that guy because it was his first appointment doing that role and he didn't know whether he should push back. And at that stage, in our units involved in Afghanistan, the offshore of command would say we need troops here here, here on a mat and then go reec on a sniper group. Yeah, form a path, whereas then it went, we need this objective. You know, we've got these two buildings, how can we get there safely? So it sort of flipped after mine. But yeah, so
I was I was pretty messed up. But I remember asking, like you ask everyone, and I left.
I left time. This is the weirdest thing. And I mean one of the yeah, one of the boys is passed.
He he committed suicide years later, and he was sort of on the way to that, but he was one of the ones that I went on. I said, look, I I just I wanted to talk to you about it, but I didn't want you to have to go back there, you know, like and like I was on the around for fifty six minutes. Boil accounts he woke up the next day just blood all over his cams. You know, he couldn't even take his cams off because he just he tapped me on the shoulder.
They had to because both arms were broken so badly.
They wouldn't let me on the helo without arms folded across my chest. And his name's Aian Turner, and Turns just goes all right, it's like you got an elbow hanging out, and he's like, apparently I didn't take that as well as some of the other stuff. But you know, he kind of tapped me and just said goodbye because he thought it was too far gone.
There's enough fluid had gone through me.
Like it was sort of just he was emotionally processing the fact that, you know, I wasn't gonna make it. And I remember talking to him about it, and I had to ask this because he's just one of those guys who would just tell you straight out.
So I was like, all right, turns, So did I cry like a bitch? But what was it?
Because you never know, you never know what anyone's going to be like in a situation until we're in it. And I'm like, brod, did I? And he's like, nah, man, you actually like took it pretty well, Like I mean really,
like was I conscious? And then once it had opened, it turned out that we were waiting for it was eight years at that stage to talk to each other about something, you know, and both of us wanted to talk to the other person about it, but we're thinking that we were protecting that person from having.
To live it.
And did that help you through your recovery talking to these people? Did that come later on down the line?
I mean, to be honest, I think that guilt was probably the most important part of my recovery, they.
Did guilt was the most important.
I would I would I mean, looking back, I would say so that and just the mindset of I'm making progress if it hurts, you know what I mean, like it's And then you've got doctors who are just used to dealing with punters who go in with a saw.
Knee or whatever.
And then I'm like, I don't really care what what you guys have got to do.
I'm going to be doing this.
You're either going to be someone who's on the journey with me to do this, or I'm going to find someone who is you know what i mean.
Like and that.
So I never really looked at a lot of the because to me, I was still me, you know. But I definitely knew that everyone on that night saw something they were never going to unsee. And apparently the time where every now and then because they had moved to white light to save me, you know, they've done everything they could turn the caves and stuff like that, but the village because you can hear what they're saying on
their icon radios. There was a huge, huge conference, like there was way more of them than we originally thought. But we're basically saying, let's light them up, so everyone's posturing and getting ready. If one shot got fired, the US chopper wouldn't have got me out and I'd be dead. Well at the minute of the troops in contact would have happened.
That rings through. I'm a flag on my parents' mantle piece.
And what did you manage to keep?
Then?
What did you lose? And what did you manage to keep? Because I was looking pretty grim at one moment that you're going to lose your arms.
Yeah, So when my parents found out, the word was he's really low single digit percentage chance of living and if he does, it's going to be a triple ampeteue like.
And at that stage I was in.
At Camp Bastion, which is the UK base, with the trauma team, under a space blanket and if I couldn't hold my body heat, I was I was gone. So that was that was when they found out. And I mean, it's so disjointed when you get back, but to me, I woke up and I was still mate.
You seem to have tackled it with a super positive mindset. Do you think if you hadn't, do you think there's any gray areas herel do you think you go to, you stoop to the lowest of the lows where you don't want to be here anymore? And did that mindset ever take charge?
I got to dark places through it.
Yeah, I definitely did, but not in the initial phases for me were like, I remember having this comment with my dad because he's always said, you've never used your brain. It's just disappointing. He walked in with his great, big grin on his face. I'm like smiling at him, were having a laugh, like in a hospital, and he goes, well, you got to use your.
Brain now, don't you.
Good old dad, you got me TV.
I'm gonna now, and then you know he's sort of mapping out her up. We've got to change, we've got to do different things. But to me, the most important thing was there's a group of guys who have gone through something that I can't imagine seeing, let alone it being something you care about, and they have somehow kept me alive.
So the mess that I could see, I saw was.
The result of people's effort on the ground, you know, which I still see it as that.
It's what it is.
So I've got to try and do something that then has them know how good of a job they've done. So to me, I then had a finite online of when they were flying home and I had to be up walking standing in a pair of jeans so you couldn't see prosthetic legs, and it didn't matter what it took. And then like there were bits where like it it hurts a lot.
That was your goal, that was your next objective, that was your next mission, which again we talk about purposes, like and you've done everything that you can to make sure that you've done that.
Yeah, And I mean I was like, by all accounts, I was probably one of the worst patients in the history of North Shore Private Hospital because I was just done compromising with it. You know, if I didn't think and right or wrong, didn't think that someone was aligned with my goals, I would like remove them from the process or ignore their advice. You know, I just go all right, I've been through enough to know where I'm
going with this, Like I know my limits. You don't like there's a picture of me like five weeks after on a prosthetic that you're not really supposed to wait bear through. But I was like, I'm going down the hall on this because we've got so I'm on one of those walking is pushing it along with the thing like and there's just concerned face.
Tracking his prosthetic leg along.
Yeah.
Well and I'm just like, okay, cool, well, this is what we've got to do this. I'm still played it at the time like there's a lot of stuff going wrong with it. But i was like, I'm not going to heal laying down and they're like you just you just you got to rest, you gotta rest. And I'm like everyone tells me to rest, like go home, you rest, Like, get it up. I've got stuff to do.
Talk about using rehab and you know, reshaping your life and coming out the other side with a positive mindset that you have.
You went, I'm looking at my notes in front of me.
You got a golfing career and a snowboarding career. Where the hell did that come from? Where the hell did you just think yourself right? Because you're actually extremely good with both, aren't you. It says here that you are deferred multi emputy golfer, thirdinked, multi ampity golfer in the world. Just to walk again and live your life and try and be normal wasn't enough for you. You then had
to go on and do these amazing things. And we can talk about the Evictors Games, but just that rehab, really you use that to your advantage.
I mean I had that's the thing.
I had the tools, you know what I mean, Like that's one thing that special Forces does. It just prepares you for stuff like that, you know what I mean, Like hard then just becomes part of the process.
Then people are going on and it was a consistent thing.
But guys from our unit that got the medical staff after a few years got used to the fact that would heal quickly. You know, they'd be doing things at crazy paces and I mean, I just need something to keep me going.
Actor as well, Actor, you've got your how do you get into a tour of this and then become again the best at what you do with no legs.
I left the Army.
I had done a a winter sports camp and snowboarding was the closest thing I could get to surfing. I went too hard on my second tour to Utah. I was riding with Team Utah's Adaptive snowboarding team, and I compression fraction.
Of my back my OL two, which I mean now.
It fractioned something on everything, so kind of completed a picture. Then I came back and I you know, I was doing well the motivational speaking. I feel that like it's my responsibility, after being through something that's that complex, to share what it looks like from the inside of the bottle, you know what I mean.
Everyone can read the.
Outside, so it's my job to tell them what's on the inside. And I find that inner vulnerability is a really important part of that, you know, people seeing the true you, which is when I really feel like the last bits of armor came off. You know, I can't control what's you know, of all things that come into fashion, skinny jeans, when you're wearing prosthetics that are tiny, you
know what I mean. Like then you start going, well, I can't care about what people think now, you know, it's now well, just I've got to do things for the right reason. And at the end, when I was young, I probably would have wanted to be an actor, you know, I loved I love performing, except it was never something
that you know, my dad was bigger than numbers. And you know in the US, people who are who are on SAG, there's how many of them there's three percent of them that are making enough money to provide an income, and then the top hundred thousand, you know what I mean.
Like it's wild.
But yeah, when I was but I went to an acting school just going I just want to do it because no one thinks I can. And I'm all right, I'm going to give you the secret to it. With any of these things, no one expects a disabled guy. So it was just funny. It's ironic that I've said I don't care what anyone thinks, and now now I've started that with what people think. No one expects it disable guy to do it anyway. So you do it, you win, you don't do it, you haven't disappointed any one.
Like I played golf now with guys who like I hit the ball a long way. I've just always had the talent to hit a big ball, and now it's just controlling that. That's been the fun. Build a set a prosthetics around it. But like, so I play other guys who are big hitters. If we both get one and I turned to you and we're kind of nodding, and we know it's on.
This guy.
This guy's got two options, right, one, I drove him, and you got out driven by a double amputee. The other option is.
You out drove a handicap guy.
Yeah, you know what I mean, like you want to lose loose.
Yeah, you're just always fighting a lose loose, so it is. And then the hatsort, the hat sort of thing was like this a similar sort of thing.
I mean, I learned that, you know, I wasn't as good an actor as I thought I would have been growing up. It's been two years at school and then one of my teachers was auditioning for it, and then I just gone on the set and I don't know if you might have come across John Ales. He Yeah, he's one of our one of our ex sas plugs who works in that sort of industry, and so he was the weapons tech we turn up for a week.
I've got Vince Vaughn, Sam Worthington. I'm literally thinking I've died and just gone to this Hollywood and then you know, like Spider Man standing over there, who you can't say Spider Man you're in but.
Yeah, and then I know the weapons tech.
Hey, John, here you going man, like you know, and then all of a sudden I felt comfortable in that world and yeah, it's a it's a cool story to be a part of.
So you know what your story is written in your book, and you know if people want to continue with knowing the full story and your your amazing mindset. Because we are running out of time here, unfortunately. But you wrote an autobiography which I would hugely recommend to everyone because I could speak to you for hours, mate, and we still wouldn't have enough time. It's called Without Warning? When did you write that? And what can we expect?
In the book run.
In twenty twelve, and it focuses primarily like on the how I got to the space that I was in, and then I wanted to take everyone again. I saw it as my responsibility. I wanted everyone who's reading the book to understand the spaces. So there's some language in it that is quite colorful. There are some opinions that I don't think I would agree with, Like if I was to rewrite the story now, it would be a completely different looking book.
But just unapologetically take someone into the.
Spot, because you know, I don't if I'm reading a book about someone who's been through something that's difficult, you know, I don't want to know what the colorful roses look like or something of that sort, you know what I mean, Like, I want to know the bits that you can't see, you know, So I really tried to sort of communicate that when I when I was writing it. So there's there's bits of it that I just think, Oh my god, it you Why pick it up?
That's what I say to everyone. Pick it up. Damon.
It's been an absolute pleasure, mate. Talking with you, Like I said, I could chat with you for hours is such an honor and I love It's refreshing for me to speak with one of my own as well, and to have you on here.
Mate, it's been a pleasure.
Thank you, Damon. I appreciate it.
Bud, thanks so much for joining me on Headgame. If you enjoyed this episode, make sure you're subscribed so you don't miss any of our incredible stories, and leave me a review wherever you're listening.
I'm Aunt Middleton. Catch you again next time.