Appoche production. Welcome to Secrets of the Underworld. I am Neil the muscle comments and in.
This episode I speak with Claudette Douglas about the dark side of the Defense Force.
I couldn't tell the difference between the north and the south on the compass. Yeah, you went in with the target coming back. They're full of blood, like they're huge, being listed on the back of their heels and then that whole layer comes off. My pack never weighed twenty kilos. You'd find a brick in it. And I always taught how to kill a person with one year and look at me. Okay to the squash Bug.
Thank you for coming on. It's going to be a very exciting episode.
I reckon because you intrigued me when I spoke to you up in the Gold Coast. So before we get into all the nitty gritty, okay, tell me about yourself growing up, family, school, and then why you wanted to join the army.
I think I had rocks in my head. So I grew up in a little country town called Koba, rural New South Wales. No it's not Hobart, it's Cobae, all right. Do you know where Dubbo is okay. Yeah, three hours west of Dubbo, in the middle of b F nowhere. Literally there's nothing. We've got stop lights and give way signs. There's no roundabout. Trucks down. Q sbe humps and slow
the trucks down. I grew up out there, that's I was born Dubbo and yeah, I was raised in Coba, went to the primary school, went to the high school, did almost schooling out there. My whole family is still out there, except for my one of my sisters, middle one, she lives in She escaped and of all things, joined the Defense Force. Married with someone from the Defense Force, so she lives in Tindle in the territory at the Air Force bace.
Did your family have anything to do it, like with the army? Is that why you wanted to Yeah?
I was a cadet, a school cadet and an Army cadet for several years, and mum and dad ran the cadet unit.
Ah, that's why.
Yeah, say the puzzles all coming lass. Okay, So yeah, I think I was about fourteen fifteen, and yeah, I decided to to join the Army cadet unit. So life was great out there. I'll go at home now and it's nothing. It's nothing like it was when I grew up. So I met my husband out there, my current husband. So this is number two. He's a keeper. This one.
I like this one.
I'm a mum of two kids. Eldest is twenty five with my little grandson and another one on the way. Find out today where there's one or two hoping there's only one bacon?
Well what what?
What?
What is it with the that's like, what what did you have to do for the cadets?
Is it just? See back then the cadets, it was fun. There was a lot of fun. You got to ride in the back of the unimogus, the army trucks. You got to play around in the tanks, you got to go bush, you got to play with the weapons, abs, sail all but paintball, all that sort of stuff. So it was a lot of fun. And is a lead up to go up to this it is it teaches you how to do everything you do. Navigation, you know, survival in the bush, all that sort of stuff. And
growing up out on the farm. I used to go out to my grandparents farm as a kid every chance I got, and it's something I locked in planning to dirt, getting dirty. But yeah, for that, it just it intrigued me, I suppose, and all I wanted to do was join the army. Wow, yeah, I don't know. Looking back now, I think I rocks in my head.
But so when was it that? When was it that you actually joined?
And you know because with the cadets, So tell me, because I I don't know much about the army.
Cadets is a lead up to go to the it is.
Cadets is a lead up to go into any form of defense force. It gives you the basic skills to go in. So when it comes down to doing navigation, using radios, surviving in the bush, all that sort of stuff, even right down to being able to strip an assembol a weapon. It teaches you absolutely everything. And the Cadet unit's still running at home. Mum and Dad are still running it. They've been running it for thirty years. So
it's something that helps kids in a way. A lot of kids struggle, it does, and there's been a lot of kids that have joined that have been To be honest, it's been rotten. The lassoles, you know, the way they treat their parents, to treat the community, treat themselves and it's a way of getting back on the straight and arrow. And Mum and Dad have done a wonderful job in doing that over the years, and so many kids that
work it. It's even when I was in Yeah, they've gone on to join the defense force, whether it be Navy, Air Force.
Yeah.
Yeah.
So what age group do you have to be to join the army? Is it?
So you've got to be twelve twelve?
Well, cadets or cadets.
Is twelve you go up right up until you finish school and then army you have to be sixteen nine months. It's like getting your license really, So there's a lot of kids that will literally get their license and join the Defense Force all on the same day.
So are you assessed that the cadets to see if you can go into the army? Is that how?
No? No, No, there's no cycle evaluation or anything that all comes when you join the Defense Force. So I mean a cycle evaluation. When you get to the Defense Force, they try and play with your mind. It is. It's really trying to psych you out adjoining in a way, because I'll ask you so many ways. If you were standing on the edge of the question they gave me. If you're standing on the edge of a cliff, even
one jump, well everyone's going to want to jump. They want to see if they can fly like but nobody wants to hit the bottom and not recover from it. But it's yeah, it's the question that they ask, and they ask it in so many different ways.
But do they say that to see if you're suicider?
Yea it is. It's just see if you're straight in the head. And in this day and age, I don't know how anyone passes. Wow, I really don't. Where I work now, I see so many kids coming into my store and I look at them and go dead. Said, if you are my last line of defense against anything coming into this country, I need to re enlist because this straight out of kindergarten.
So you think it's a lot easier now to get into the army than.
It's got to be. There's so many kids that are coming in and they look at you and they go yes, ma'am, no, ma'am, and oh my god, you you still don't They need to go home. And then you get others that come through and you can tell that they're born to do it. That's what they're born to do.
We've got your your when you were ready to go on the army after cadets and what what what you have to do and go through to get in there to be picked?
Oh okay, So I think mine's a little different to a lot of others. I was. I was so special. No, see, I actually went in with a target on my back. Well, because I was a cadet that you went in with knowing that you had any background knowledge on the defense force, and you sort of had that upper hand against those going in green that couldn't tell the difference between the north and the south on a compass. Yeah, you went in with a target on your back. You were graded
so much harder. They basically rowed you to try and make you fail. And because Dad was a commanding officer of the cadet unit at home, and my commanding officer of my unit, best mates and I got well, it got me. It was easier to get in in a way because I didn't have to go to Kopuoka. I didn't have to go to Puckepania, so I didn't have to do all of those extra boot camps and all that sort of stuff. I literally did a two week boot camp at Ingleburn at Bartia Barracks. It's not it's
not there anymore. It's been bulldoze because of the asbestos.
That's where you have to do it all. So how was it? How was that? So? What's the training for? What's the two week training?
It's intense. I think there was probably about eight females that went through at the time. I think three made it through. There was only two in my unit and one she quit not long after.
Wow.
Oh, you'd be walking around and you'd have blisters literally the size of an avocado seat on your heels, both heels, but you still had to keep going.
Well, I know, sound like a stupid question, but why do they make you do that? Is it? Is it?
I get when you go overseas and you get you have to go places you're going to fucking be walking around?
What is it?
It's just your endurance. It's to see whether you've got what it takes.
To push through, to see if you're going to be a failure, see if you've got a.
Ticker or not. Basically, look, there'd be some that they get through and they get through easy. And look, I suppose the cadets taught me the simple little things don't work a power of football socks because of the fabric they're made out of, the friction makes your feet get hot and it causes blood blisters. Now, these blisters these people were getting, they're not just your standard. You know, it's hot, I've got a blister. They were full of blood.
Like there were huge, big blisters on the back of their heels. And then that whole layer comes off. They're strapped up, their foot strapped. It wasn't it wasn't easy.
Got the males, How are they like with you?
Yeah? That was hard. They didn't like women.
So what what what you were talking to?
What we're talking ninety three?
So, yeah, we are talking way back.
When it was it was it was a man's army women that it was just almost not not a thing for women to be in the army was almost ran upon. We were there to be a cook, a nurse, anything but be part of an infantry unit, which is what my unit was.
So back then it it would have been kind of a new thing for women to come in.
To be in the army.
Absolutely, and we were looked at as a protected species. You can't do that because she's a female. She can't go there because she's female. So in a way, I was lucky when I went away. I had a couple of fellows from home, one still with us, the other one not now. He actually that as tall as you. He helped me a lot. He was like a big brother. They helped me be able to do things that I probably shouldn't have been allowed to do. As long as I've got my paperwork done. At six o'clock in the morning,
the truck would pull up to the front door. All my gear would be on the back and they right, let's go, we'll go under the range. But that was then frowned upon too. It was like I was given a free pass because I knew people there, and my co sort of gave me a free pass, which then put a target on my back. Just ride a little bit harder, make a break.
Were you welcomed by the mails at back then?
Not really. No woman was, and that's why a lot of the women actually they didn't even finish two weeks. Two weeks of training, and it was intense training. It's like you're six weeks at Capuk or Pucketpanil all jammed into one. But yeah, it was it was hard, definitely hard.
Who was the most of the abuses? Was it that the guys who were training with you or was it the actual people who were training you?
A bit of both. It was a mixture. It was a mixture of both. And look, as you can tell, I'm not exactly what you call a tall person. So I was always put right at the front, so I had to set the pace. We do a fifteen clicker, so fifteen k Marge. It was full pack you had, So you had your twenty kilos on your back. You had your which was fully loaded, your water bottles, it was loaded like it was ready to go to combat
with the weight. And look if your pack if you put everything in there, because I was only so little. Look my pack never weighed twenty kilos. You'd find a brick in there. They had to make it twenty kilos that you carried. They would weigh it and they put it on the scales and made sure it was twenty kilos before you went and ditch fifteen k's. And then you've got your hot uniform. That uniform didn't breathe back then.
It's not like it is now. Your boots and your weapon, and it's not the light little styers that they carry now, which weigh nothing. Your shoes weigh more than what they do. Sometimes it was the old seven point six TOSLR. It was the old long rifle that you see on you know that we were soldiers' movies. Yeah, that's what we used to have. So having to strip and assemble one of them and carried it everywhere you went, it was hard. It was heavy, and only being a little pocket rocket,
it certainly didn't flof easy. And they weren't allowed to carry it for you.
No.
I got there at one stage, doing fifteen k's. A couple of boys to come on, I'll take your weapon, and I said, I had to fall back. When you've got blokes like your your height six foot plus and they've got a stride, I've got to take three to four steps to catch up to them, to keep their pace for fifteen k's. I fell back and I ended up almost middle towards the end of the pack. And yeah, some of them just said, look, let me take you take your weapon, let me take you backpack, just so
you can catch up, get your breath. And then that was frowned upon, and then they're getting screamed up because they're not meant to. And then I'm getting screamed at because I'm not meant to hand my gear right, I'm meant to take it. Well, when you're out in the field and you're going to wall, you can't go on
hand and you're packing your weapon to somebody else. But it was look, take the screaming at for doing that, or be screamed up by the entire battalion because I'm taking one step and they're having to shorten theirs by a quarter literally just to be able to do I had a couple I had a couple of nights there where I almost almost quit. I rang mom and dad and said, I can't. I just can't do this. And I remember Dad saying, and my dad, let's just say this.
My dad is not the softest, hardest person in the world. He's yeah, he's a hard, hard shell. Grandkids has made him a little volet crumble. But he said, mate, you got to stick it out.
You know.
It was hard because I never had to to ask my dad for things, and it was hard to ask my dad for stuff like that. And I tried to talk to my CEO and he said, you need to talk daddy. Said, I can't step in here. He said, I'm going to tell you need to stay, and I rang Mum and she said, I can't tell you what to do. Only you can do this. She said, but you need to look back on it and say, did I give it everything I had? She said, as a woman, you need to prove that you can be there. She said,
it was hard enough getting you in. I mean I had to still pass all the tests and all the side tests to see I couldn't pass that for me. But he was the one that gave me the two week intense camp as opposed to go on to Puckponylan and that.
You didn't test anybody to talk to in case they thought.
You were there was the two fellows that from Coba that I used to travel down with, but talking to them, they were telling me the same thing, and I think I just wanted somebody to say, no, it's okay for you to quit. That's what I think I was hoping for looking back now, And it wasn't until you asked me to do this that I actually stopped and thought about it through the night and just maybe I should
have just quit back then. Maybe that's what me having those breakdowns was for for someone to validate the fact that I should have just pulled the pin and said no more. But I didn't, and and I listened to my mom and said, yeah, I've I've got to do this as a female. It was hard enough as it was, and from a little country town back then, for me to go in that was a huge thing. And I didn't realize that that that was all going to fall back on mom and dad, and they still live in
the town. They've been there their whole life, and I didn't want that to go back. And oh, she felt she couldn't make it, she couldn't cut it. I mean, I'd had that through school, right through school. I was so little. I was the only one with my weird name, and I couldn't I couldn't bloody fart in town without somebody thinking that I've done something else. So, you know, it was hard growing up in the town with the only name and being so well known, and I just thought, well,
I've got to stick it out. So I did. I don't know how I did.
What a level of what level of abuse did you see in that while you were there? Did you see anyund a blind guy.
Or you no look physic abuse, no mental abuse. Yeah, they look when you've got somebody standing literally two foot in front of you and their spit is hitting you in the face. What you see on the movies, a lot of that is so exaggerated, and when they're standing there screaming. That doesn't happen on a regular basis, but you do get the odd one or two, and they do it during your boot camp, and that's purely to
see if you've got what it takes. If you're going to turn around, you're going to smelt somebody and saying, you know he's an upper cut because you've just screamed in my face. You had no right to. But I think growing up with a dad like I had made me very resilient to that. I had a pretty hard shell when it comes to that sort of stuff. And yeah, it was.
All separated in different like sleeping sleeping.
Yeah, there's no fratnization none whatsoever. To the point where back then, if I had to go, you know, you get have a spider crawling up your face, and I couldn't go over and just whack it off. Being a male against a female, I'd have to say to them, I'm about to touch you and then brush whatever it was away or do whatever. You can't just go up.
That's that's how bad the fraternization rules were. You couldn't even yeah, to sit, even to sit across the table like I owing for you now that there, unless there was other people in the room that wasn't left. It's fraatenization. To them, it's fratnization. That's yeah, you look at it and laugh now.
But so you could never be alone with a male or female because I think it was going on, it'd have to be someone else in that absolutely.
Yeah, there was no male female one on one, and which was hard because I had two people there, one that were pretty much grown up with another one that I'd known for several years, and you know, we just travel to camp on the bus, travel home from camp.
That were the ones that packed my bag after my eighteenth, put everything on the bus, cleared out my whole rack and everything to make sure there was nothing left behind, went and picked me up from behind a barbecue, dusted me off, threw me onto a bus and said we're going home after my eighteenth. And that was at the base.
So how many how many females? You know, here's the thing when you get into the army. How many females do you think mentally or physically get abused by a male in the army.
If it's the same now as what it was back.
Then, Yeah, oh is that a big issue.
I don't know so much now because they've been out for twenty five years. But look, it was back then, and it.
Was it pushed all the time, and the males would win always, it would always just be the time was.
Look, there was a couple of women that warrant offices, a couple of officers, and even they treated the women like shit. It was like, I'm bigger than you, I've got more rank than you. So yeah, you just did what you did and toddled on.
Like where do we have seen the movies where you know that where they pulled rank on a on a certain person to get what they want. Otherwise you're not getting in. Was any of that?
Look that didn't happen to me. I'm not saying it didn't happen, but I was. I was lucky that didn't happen to me. I had well know in saying that I had the rank pulled to get me in.
So but I'm saying is that there was no sexual abuse in there to pull rank.
No, not that I'm aware of whether it happened or not. I don't know. There's a high possibility, you know, whether it was like it is in the corporate world, or was in the corporate world to sleep you out at the top? Did I did I see it? No? Did it happen? Probably, Oh, there's there's a very high possibility that that was happening. But I wasn't if that happened. I wasn't privy to any of that sort of stuff. And like I said, see I had that target on me.
Everything around me was that was. It was very sketchy. Everyone was sort of on eggshells. You don't do anything in front of it because she knows the coo, you know, so probably probably. I still remember the day that I had to go up and only because they'd stuffed up some paperwork and I didn't I always knew. I didn't know who to go to, what to do. And am I saluting this one and my salute and that one I started to salute and think, oh shit, I'm not
supposed to salute you. You don't have rank, so you know, and then it got to the point they taught used a tree too. If you had to. If you're constantly what they call throwing a boxer having to salute, you'd sort of stop and to his shoelaces. Now, back then you had to have you had shoelaces, and the courting
your pants. It wasn't like it is now stitulastic. You had to tie it, so you deliberately tied a little loose, so what would always come undone, So you had no tom stop look down, You bend down and by the time you got up the officers walk past. You don't have to salute. You keep going. So you learned the drinks in the trade. You'd ended up with you right,
arm'd be like you're drinking arm. It was so much bigger than left because it was constantly going up and down on your left fond would go, you know, depending on what you were carrying. But I had to go up into the office and the only person I could see was my SOO. I didn't know anybody else. I didn't trust anybody else at that stage, and I was a rookie and that was my safe sign. Yeah, So I went up and I spoke to him and then come out and the looks. I God was just like, okay,
what's happened? And all it was was because they'd stuffed up my paperwork to go home, and I was stuck at Ingleburn and it was Anzac day and I was meant to be at home to do the Anzac march at home, and it would have been my first one in uniform, like not a cadet uniform, an army uniform. And they then sent me over to the QWI, which I knew really really well, and he hooked me up.
He was another one I used to look after the cadets, so the unit I joined to put it on in perspective, the first nineteenth was the unit that looked after the Cobarkedet unit. So that's why I got to go to that unit. Yeah, they they were good. The qu was good. He looked after me. He got me kitted out and
I had all my uniform and everything done. He polished, helped me get a pair of boots, which was hard, like they were like rockenhall shitited fine, well, I'm a three triple A so I've got the tiniest little foot. They had to order specifically to get my boots in.
So he found a tiny little pair for me and we got them all cleaned up and everything, because I was meant to do Anzac Day in Sydney and I was going to do the march and yeah, last minute changed and they fixed my paperwork miraculously and I got to go home. But he was the only one that could fix it, the CEO, that was the only person.
So you've done your two weeks of training and now you've been accepted.
How that feel a relief? It was a relief and it was right at Christmas time too, So look, the bank balance was nice and healthy. I could do that. It was good because I got to go home and and be proud of the fact that I've made it now everything everything was done. I pulled off something I didn't think I could. And that was past that two week boot camp. And I thought Cadets was hard, especially with my dad as an officer and my one one CEO being the CEO of the cadet unit as well.
They rode me hard knowing that I'd enlisted, and it made it even harder than because I had to pass everything. There was no failure allowed. But it meant that I got to come back to that cadet unit and help out as a reservist. I've got to come back, and so when the kids went to Singleton, that's where they all went for the army camp. Yeah, I got to go back and I got to help.
So what was your role in the army.
I was a clerk. I was an infantry clerk admin. So it sort of worked in my favor. The boys made sure that I got to go to the range and if they were abseiling, I got to absalex. They were going out in the Union Mogus and we're going up and down hills and whatever. I got to go as long as I had my paperwork done. But they knew that they had to make sure I had everything to get that paperwork done because if I didn't fill like the forms properly, they didn't get closed, fed, transported.
It was a shit show. So they looked after me. I looked after them. So that day came, I've got my yellow envelope? Was that the yellow envelope? The yellow envelopes?
Lopes, what's the yellow envelope?
Look the brown envelope? Thick one would have been nice. No, this one was thick full of paperwork. I got the orders to go to Timor. And that was back in ninety nine and looking back now, I'm grave floating go. It was ugly, But isn't.
That what you you've done all this training for?
It was? It was, you know, I had to ab sail and what they call an angel drop. Now I will I'll ab sail off any cliff you saw at me. I'll absail off ail off the harbor bridge. But you made me climb up there without a rope attached to me, and not a hope in hazeses that happen. And I'm frozen. So they said we're going to jump off this and we're gonna go face first, and angel drops face first.
So where you see people absel and they go down with their back towards the sky, No, no, no, this is you literally walk down face first, your back is against the wall and you're looking at the ground coming.
Up against face first. What's the reason for that?
There's sometimes you've got no choice but to go face first. You've got to be able to see where you're going. If you go down backwards, you can't see what's behind you. You've got to be able to have that view of what's coming up. So I had to do the Angel drop, and I can tell you now. I stood at the top of that thing, Neil, and I shit myself, I can't do this. I did. I stood at the top and I tease rolling down my face and why I
can't do this? And the officer standing down the bottom, he looked up at me and when there's no such words can't. And all I could see was my father saying there's no such words can't. So I did it. They're all but pushing me over the edge. I can't stand up here and say I can't do this anymore. I've got to do it. And yeah, I had a couple of false starts, walked to the back.
Are you for the heads?
Oh?
Petrified to heights?
Yeah?
You stee me up in why.
Would you Joini if you hoes planes?
And not everybody jumps up, but it's like somebody that's got closs for faby because it's in a sauna. Wow, I'm shit scared of heights. She put me up in an apartment and I've done it. I've gone to Queensland on holidays and my husband, he'll tell you, I'll stand on the balcony and be like yep, fucking see. That's good.
But did you do all this in boot camp? Like all this kind of training.
We did have sailing, but it wasn't It wasn't the same, Like we.
Didn't get to do the angel headfast head.
First, and that's what it was. It wasn't gone down backwards, you go down backwards. That didn't phaze me. It was the fact that I had to go down. And then I think the hardest part was when I got halfway, I had to tie myself off, So I had to secure all myself on that rope. Now there is somebody standing down the bottom as a bully, so I was safe. Where I trusted him or not, I didn't know. But I had to tie myself off, put my arms out wide, and just hang there like an angel, just hovering in
mid air. I'm like, if this rope fails, that's all I could see was the ground just coming up and hit me in the face. And then they all but do that to you. They drop you down, so you untie yourself and then you've got it basically free fall, and then the blade pulls at the rope at the bottom and stops you.
So he stopped me.
Two foot above the ground him. All the trust is in him. And I didn't know this bloke from bar bloody soap. This was an instructor I'd never met in my life.
So what's this forts that set just to get you again, to see if you're going through it?
Wow, it's the fear factor to see if you've got it, to see if you can do what it takes, to see if you can actually jump off a cliff and save somebody. I passed it.
Even though you were chating yourself at the top day. They still crushed you for that.
And now you put me on a rope and tell me to go and angel dropm and I'd love to Yep, I'll fight off and go on home. We go through Sandy Hollo to get home out to Koba, and I'll look up at all the cliffs around Sandy Hollow and I think how awesome would have been to just jump off those tabs of those every time we'll go through.
So why was it that you didn't go? Then? What was the excuse?
Ah, it wasn't an excuse. Well it was an excuse, but I was pregnant with my first What a time to get pregnant. Blood test results came back at the same time that I got my orders. Yeah, so you is that a regret? Look, I think the regret that I didn't get to do a tour. And now, especially for Anzac Day. When you go on to Anzac Day and you say that you were reservist and they say where did you serve?
Well, you didn't get that change.
I didn't get that chance. That's that after all the training I did. Yeah, I think I do get judged, but I think anyone that doesn't quite get that far.
And then it is that the first thing people say to you, where'd you serve? And if you go, they don't want to talk to you.
Now, when did you serve? Where did you serve?
Well?
I served my country. I may not have been full time. I did a lot of extra hours that I probably shouldn't have, but I still put my signature on a piece of paper to hand my life to this country regardless. So I mean, I did all my training to get there and never got the chance.
But what about after you had the pregnancy, didn't go back or you just didn't get your life just changed and that was it.
I looked at it as I couldn't if I'd have gone over there and it was teamill and I look back now and go, thank god I didn't go. But I couldn't have orphaned a child.
No one's walk after it.
Well, yeah, i'd had mum and dad there, but that was that was my child. And if I'd have gone over and something had happened, no, I couldn't do it.
So what you're saying is that.
Having the child changed the way you viewed about the army, and it did.
It did.
Your fun finished? Thing? Is?
I think in a way, I think my fun had almost come to an end. Anyway, I had a wire officer and he was honest. He was an asshole. It was a right pig, and he hated women in the army to the point where he he walked in. I was at the Dubbo Army Base and I was stand there for the weekend camp and he walked in one day. And whether it's in a mood or not, I really don't give a ship. He had no right to come up and go, you know what, women shouldn't be in
the force. You've got no right being here. And I just looked at him and I'm like, well, I've got just as much right as you do. Sir, and he looked at me and went, nah, you're the one that's going to get us all killed. Oh shes and look, knowing now what it all meant, Yeah, I can understand why he said it. Did he have the right to say it back then? Hell no, No, I hadn't even
I hadn't even hit mid twenties. And this I've got this warrant officers standing there telling me that I had no right being in the defense force because I was female?
Was that the only one time?
Oh no, I'd had a couple, I'd had a couple of little altercations along the way with him, and it was because of my CEO. You didn't do Kapoka, you didn't do Puka Pony. You've got no right being here. You did a two week boot camp. What right do you have over us. We've done our servants, we've done our time. And I was like, well, I may not have done sick to eight weeks of it, but in that two weeks I hardly slept. I lost I think I went in a size twelve, I come out a size six.
State.
I lost so much weight it cooked me, it did, say, cooked me. Yeah, how long were you in four seven years.
Any regrets besides you know, like you know you didn't go over to the said, but like, is any of the regrets that.
You have punching that warrant oppos Oh? No, not look yes and no. I wish I'd have been able to stay longer, to see more, to do more, to get above a private to actually get some sort of rank would have been great.
But you did want to go back, even after your pregnancy. Is there any time that you thought, you know what, maybe I should give it another game?
Oh? Look, I thought about it, but where I lived made it really hard to So I was three hours one way from the closest army base. So to get there and do the Tuesday nights every Tuesday night, three hours there, you do three hours training, three hours home and then get up and go to work the next day. It just it wasn't feasible. And the roads between Cobra
and Dubbo are so treacherous at night. The wildlife that you encounter, it's not just the kangaroos, between the goats, the emails, the pigs, you're like, you name it, something run out And it's not just that you've got the trucks and those that you know that do all the weird shit on the road that you don't want to see and you don't want to be part of It's It was hard. So no, Look, if I'd have gone back, if I'd have gone back in, I wouldn't have the
life I have now. I wouldn't have the amazing opportunities that I've got coming up that I have with my husband and my second little one wouldn't be here. I wouldn't have Hannah. But I think has happened on a firm believer that things happened for a reason.
Have you ever gone through any violence or any domestic balance herself?
Yeah, yep, while I was serving.
Yeah, was that because you were in the army? Look, I think a lot of it was. Was he seven or not seven? Nothing to do with the army?
No, absolutely nothing.
It was just a kind of a control thing.
I said. I think it was just the jealousy and because when I went away, well you thinking back then, it was it was a man's army and I was female. So he put two and two together around wondering is it was he put two and two together and got twenty two. He was an idiot to the point I wish I'd never met it. I really wish I'd never.
Met How did you cope with that? And how with not knowing what was going to happen?
I just, I literally, I just I think I just buried my head and seen and I didn't want to know about it.
He just how long are you going?
For years?
Years?
Yes, I was like, batter what syndrome? One day to stop it won't it won't happen again.
And he always came to you and said sorry, yeh yeah, yeah, yeah.
So that what what you hear and what you see in the movies are you know, it's exactly the way it happens.
Sometimes you think that if you do cry out for help, that they're not going to be No.
One's going to believe you.
What was the worst thing?
The last the last thing, when you pin me up against the wall with knife against to my throat. I'm grateful for my neighbor. The neighbors stepped in. Without stepping in. She sheared door sling, and she obviously heard enough of them because what she told the police was she'd had enough and she was scared for my safety. She knew mom and dad, and that's that's the thing. I was so scared to say to him because I didn't want to ruin a reputation of mum and dad that was
so high respected in town. And she said it sounded like gunshot, and knowing that he had access to firearms. We mates, we used to go to pick chasing of a nighttime and things like that. She called the police and I was dragged outside and into the car by him.
I didn't know what was going to happen next. I was just I think I was just numb, completely numb, to the point where I just I don't even there's bits I still can't remember, and I think my mom has just shut them out deliberately, and I don't want to think about it. I've got the most amazing, supportive husband and family now I'm so grateful for and I couldn't I couldn't ask for a better person to spend
my life with now. But to turn around and look at out the car window and see a pistol standing there with an officer behind it, I didn't know whether to be scared or relieved. It was relief because he was arrested, and that was it. That was it. I don't know how I built courage I built courage to to kick him out, all his stuff. It was outside gone, made of mine now. And I said before he's not with us anymore. He stayed. He stayed with me. He stayed,
God loving me. He sat on the lounge. I didn't sleep at all that night. I tossed and turned just shit, scared that he was going to come back. But he stayed and sat on that lounge two nights, didn't leave the house to just stayed there to make sure I was going to be okay. No on, Yeah, he was out, but what was going to come next, I didn't know. And from what I know now, he's not even in the country, which is for me. Last time that was Yeah, that was the last time, thank god.
And just was still value in the army. Yeah you think.
That I have the I learned. I learned combat while I was there, so I literally know. And I was told when I joined. The first thing I was told was you need to understand if you get into a fight, you'll be charged by the defense force, but you can be charged by the police force as well, like it's a defense and a small charge. And I was taught how to kill a person with one hit and look at me, Okay, this question bug, But yeah, I was, And I think I was always just too afraid of that.
I think I was more afraid of getting locked up there. There'd be days where everything was rosy, like months, and then all of a sudden, something can happened.
You ever go to like the base or wherever you wear, would it be bruises on your own?
He knew, he knew how to not bruce. I think Mum and Dad knew.
They didn't they want to get involved, or they just.
It was a family didn't want to get involved with, Okay, but I think they knew. I think a lot of the town knew because once he was gone and I'd moved on and everything, that was like why. I even asked myself, now, why what the hell was I thinking? What the hell's gone through my head?
Stuck in that bubble.
But to go to go to work in the middle of summer with a turtle neck shut on, it's enough to sort of rise a few red flags. But it's yeah, it's not common knowledge too.
That's why I've had a lot of females on my show and with domestic violence, and they say the same things what you say one they think it's going to stop.
It doesn't.
It doesn't too.
It's it's like you're scared to reach out because people who reach out to might not believe you, or that they just think it's all fucking ship, you know what I mean. It's just like you're trying to get attention.
I think I don't think people want to get involved to. Yeah, you don't want to get involved in somebody else's personal life. That's that's their deal. You know, what happens behind closed doors is the same with you, Like what was beyond closed doors and not in my business. You know, that's your life, not mine. So but yeah, I've well and truly moved on. Yeah, as I say, what doesn't kill you makes you're stronger.
Right correct, very correct, very correct. But I don't think you'd be involved in army or anything like that now that that's it. That's just a it's for me.
Look, i still have the utmost respect to the Defense Force, and I've got a lot of mates that went to team or one in particularly is actually from home. It missed a lot of them up so bad. There was ship that they shouldn't have done and shouldn't have seen. And I'm really grateful I didn't go now because I didn't have to have that memory. But look, I have that utmost respect. I go to Inzac Day every year.
I'm what I do now. I'm actually still in a way involved with the Defense Force without being part of the Defense Force. So that knowledge that I've had helps me where I currently work. So I manage a sports supplement store. How its Singleton, and because we've got the Army base there, the boys get off the bus on a Thursday night, you can guarantee four o'clock. You watch the coaches come through and you say to count the heads and go, yep, that's a loaded bus, shit wearing
for a long night. And that generally means I'm standing there and I get yes, ma'am, Amen, hello, amen. It's like the first time they did it. Oh my dude, I'm not that old. But even my staff now he calls me me and I'm like, yeah, it's a side of respect. Anyone in the Defense Force has to call you mem and so it's just the way it is.
But what was describe you one word.
Resilient, determined. I'm now one of those people. You you asked me to do something, you tell me I can't do it. It's probably the worst thing you could do, because I'm going to find a way. It's just it's just me. That's the way I've been raised to have that thick skin, you know. And look, I could say, look, I had a horrible childhood, but I didn't. I'm lucky I have. My parents are still together, which is almost unheard of this day and age. I was lucky I
grew up in the bush. It sort of made me a little more grounded in a way I supposed to being brought up in the city. Resilient and determined thing. I appreciate it, things having