Before we kick off with today's episode, I'd like to give a massive shout out to our new sponsor of the podcast, Peek Productions. A quick one for the tradies, builders, real estate and any service-based business they want clients to trust them before the call. Peek Productions creates high-quality content that is honest, engaging and shows what you do and why you're good at it. If this sounds like something you're interested in, hit up Peek Productions and see if you're eligible for a free trial shoot to find out more. - Do you find them at www.peakproductions.com.au or on Instagram @peakproductions.co. A big thanks to Peek Productions and if there's one thing for sure, my life is better when I'm peaking. - I had my heart and soul focused on that. - I didn't mention that the doc told me it was probably most likely gonna die. - Tag crime mindset to negotiate a mindset. - Yeah, there's that element of getting that contract and that was a great feeling. - It was really hard to learn. - Life can be hard when you're in your 20s and-- - There's an opportunity here 'cause there's not many people doing this. - At that point, I was not fearful at all. I was just so excited. - G'day, I'm Heath Tune from Team Tunee Fishing and I'm here today talking with Ty on the RoadsWebWalked podcast. (upbeat music) (upbeat music) - Welcome back to the RoadsWebWalked podcast. Here to give real people a platform to share their real stories and their own voice. Guys, today we've got a very special guest sitting in the studio today. We've got Heath Tune from Team Tunee Fishing. Tunee mate, how are ya? - Good mate, yourself. - I'm fucking fantastic. We finally got this going after a few takes but we're here, we're ready and we're ready to go. - Mate, it's almost been like that from the start. Just trying to even tee up times where both of us can get in. It's good to finally be. - Yeah, man, and even like meeting up 'cause I was standing before off there, like I didn't even realize that you were in Queens and I thought you were a Sydney boy. - From Sydney? - So yeah, 100% from Sydney. I didn't realize you were actually living in Queens and right now. - Oh mate, why would I stay down there? I keep trying to get everybody up here. I'm like just, if it wasn't for the people, I probably wouldn't go back to be completely honest. - You're a dirty, blue support right? - I am. - All right, all right. That's been another episode. I'll see you down. - Mate, super keen to have you on. Obviously, like I said, we've been trying to tee this up and reached out to you to come on for an episode after putting out a post about getting stickers and all that sort of stuff. And like I said, I didn't realize you lived so close. I made one you just drop the stickers off and come off for an episode, but you ended up sending them anyway and I think I checked the mailbox and I'm actually like, fuck, maddening and realize you sent them. - Mate, well by the time I run around, obviously family kids, you know what it's like? I was like, you know what? I've probably got a better chance of just getting them there by post anyway and get them in there and get them out. I actually, you weren't the only one. I had someone who ordered a hat who lived the next suburb over and they're like, why did you not just bring this? And I'm like, 'cause it's easier for me to just get it done, take it off the list. Otherwise, it'll sit on my chair and I'll totally forget about it, come back a week later and I'm like, oh, I should have sent that. - Yeah, 100% 100%. Mate, let's get stuck into your story. 'Cause I did a bit of research today and now I'll listen to your episodes with Knuckles from Propagery on. It's the little snippets that you did there, but I really want to tackle your story and sort of what you've been about. 'Cause even from, you know, I know you're in the army, you've moved from New South Wales to God's country. Like, I want to find out everything. So mate, let's go back to young, like young Tony, mate, tell us where you grew up. Age harder wasn't how schooling was for you. - Yeah, good, actually. I grew up in Penreth, born and grew up around that region. Sort of moved a bit here and there within the same region though. The old man was a butcher by trade, owned quite a few stores and shops ran him all himself down that way, and mum was in retail and went to school in that area, yeah. - Yep, yep. So obviously mum and dad, you know, having the jobs and did you have any siblings? - Yes, so, are you ready? - I'm ready. - Okay, old man's been married four times. - Copy. - A family forest, not a tree, okay. - That's amazing. - My mum was marriage three. - Yep. - They had myself and my sister. Then dad's first marriage, my older brother. Dad's second marriage, second oldest brother and older sister. And then mum remarried and had another little brother. Then dad remarried and now he's still with her. So I have four halves, one full sister. But we don't, none of us consider each other halves, which is pretty cool. - Yeah. - The older one sort of came through with us a little bit as we went. And then it's funny because you hear a lot of people talk about, like we said, army earlier, military tradition. A lot of families can be a traditional military family. That sort of started with our generation. So I was the first to go in. And then the oldest joined and then the second oldest joined. So we sort of started that military tradition style family from there. - Yep. - How was schooling for you? - I actually really loved it. - Yeah, okay. - So I've heard a couple of people talk on your podcast where they're like, "E-10, wear it out." I went through to high school, I ended up being a school captain. - Yeah, okay. - During primary school, I was playing footy locally for, at the time I think it was Mitchembury Jets. So I'd played rugby league around the region as a junior. I grow up and I've played since I was about four. Then in '06, I got a scholarship offer to go to St. Pat's in Blacktown. So Stephen Crichton went there. It's produced a number of different players. And it's funny that now I mention it because I was watching a TV show the other day of the CEO of Panthers. And it was actually him who picked me to go to that school back in the world. We're talking 2005. - Yep. - So I went there for a year and then I got jack of the travel. It was an old boy's school. All my mates were, you know, I mean, 40 minutes away at my local school. And I was doing all this travel back and forth and ended up getting over it. So I decided to come back in year eight and kick on high school with everybody else. - Yeah. Just sort of touching on the family side before we sort of delve more into schooling. But like, what's the age gap between the oldest and the youngest? - 13 years. - Okay. - And then my younger brother's probably, I'm probably the dead set middle. - Right, okay. - Of either all, my full sister's three years younger than me. - Okay. And she's there the full, like, full youngest or? - No. - There's one below her. - Okay. - But on the mum side. - It was always like, did you, obviously you weren't all living together, but like, when there were times where, like most of us were together, as it just kind of, kind of. So the eldest was with my old man. So he came through with everybody. And then the other two to dad's second wife they stayed with mum. But we saw them relatively free, like, every now and then. And then we had my youngest brother, obviously, where my parents split, mum remarried. And then we grew up. - Yeah, how was that for you? Because obviously, like, you know, a lot of normal, I'm gonna say normal families, but like families that sort of stayed together, you know, they grow up all together, but for you, like, that would have been a bit of a, I don't know, like, different sort of thing because you gone from place to place or-- - I don't think I really understood it. - I can. - Young, you know what I mean? It was always just, oh, that's your brother, that's your brother, that's your sister. That's how it was. It probably wasn't until my parents divorced, that it got ugly, you know what I mean? Like, I remember-- - How old were you when they divorced? - About eight. - Yeah, I can remember. - You were still relatively young. - Yeah, and then I remember, like, doing the old Mac is drop off. It would be, you go there, jump ship, come back, and just doing the whole handover thing. I wasn't really a fan of it, but what can you do? It was the way the courts managed it. But it then got really dirty too. I remember sometimes there was like, a parent would buy that set of clothes. Well, they stay here because you'll leave them there and it could get really messy, which it was bad at the time, but to see how full circle it's come now, where everyone can be in the room and be amicable, is good for my kids at least. - Yeah, 100%. - Because that's how they now get to see it. They don't see what it was like for all of us. - Like when you guys were growing up. - Yeah, exactly right. - So going into school, man, when we get asked this question, you know, a lot of the times like, what do you want to be when you grow up? What do you want to do? What was that for you? - It's actually a really bad name, but it means nothing like what it sounds like. Pretty much from primary school, all the way through to close to year 10, I wanted to be a herpetologist. Which is a reptile scientist. - Okay. - So I've always been in the snakes, lizards. - Why don't they just call it a reptileologist? - Well, it could be named a way better. But in the parks that some previous speakers have spoken about down in Oskampark, we'd go down there every afternoon, we wouldn't come home until it was dark, just catching lizards, chasing snakes. It was just the thing we did down there. I also did work experience at Taronga Zoo. - Okay. - So my stepdad worked there and was able to, well, I applied for it and got accepted for it, whether he had a hand and not, I don't know, but did some work experience there in year 10 and really got the gist of it. And that's where I turned off it, surprisingly. So being behind closed doors, it's not like the exhibits in the front, where patrancy, behind doors, it's just got brown snake doors locked and all that sort of jazz. So whilst the experience working there was cool, the shine sort of come off the job from what they do compared to, like people they looked up to, like Steve Irwin back in the day, what he was doing in the field was probably more the angle that appealed to me than the zoology side of things. - Yeah, but you can imagine like, he would have had to have gone through that sort of stuff to get to where he was at that time. - Yeah, and he's old men own the zoo, which he then took on. So a little bit different exposure, but that's sort of where I ended up closing the door on wanting to be in that profession. And I sort of ended up then going towards the military. That happened roughly around year 10, year 11 as well. I won a defense scholarship through year 11 and 12. And what really drew me to that was, I got involved in politics. So around year 11, I got involved with the federal member for Penreth, and started getting heavily involved in politics. And then the sort of shift changed from her pathology into politics and wanting to go down that route. And I just went full dive into it, I loved it. I had a full access pass around Canberra, around Parliament House. - Yeah, right. - And then I was like, well, what credibility do I have as a year 11, year 12 student to be in politics? And that's what drew the military interest for me, was that I was like, okay, well, I'll go serve. And then I'll have something to show when I go into politics that I'm here for more than just doing the job. So the politics sort of rubbed off through high school. Once again, I went and got elected. I guess you could say into school captain at school. And then I continued through politics. And I noticed that we didn't have a sports field. A lot of other schools had dedicated sports fields. So I then lodged and kick started the application to get a grant for funding for a sports field at our school, which I didn't see the end result within the timeframe that I was there. However, you drive past now and boom, there's an open football soccer field established up on the oval. - Yeah, right. Bitter unpacked there, mate, touch it. - It's a good dive, I love it. Take us back to the herpetology side of things. Like you said, you know, you love snakes, lizards, all those sort of reptiles, but what was it about it? 'Cause fuck, I touch a snake or fucking even a lizard. Like I see a water dragon that work and like fuck that, stay away. I don't call snakes fucking no proges. They can go and get fuck for all I care. - I honestly don't know. It was a made of mine. Him and I were heavily, like we'd be heads down in books all day learning about every little thing. Actually, I say a mate, there was probably three of us. - Okay. - That we're heavily dedicated to learning about it. We'd go out into the bush. Half the time could have been a load of bullshit that we were looking at, but we would just take what we learnt from documentaries, books, go out in the bush and then start identifying tracks or something might live here and then we'd go out and try and just explore. - So you're a very curious person in the sense of like, when I find my interest, 100%, so I ended up getting a dime and Python in 2000, she's still kicking now. - Yeah, right. - My Mrs is waiting for the thing to pass on so that we can get the real estate of our racking back in the garage, but she was born 9th of December 2000. I should say, tomorrow. - Tomorrow, yeah, right. - She'll be 25. - Fuck. - What's the life expectancy for that? - So funny thing, with dime and pythons, they reckon up to 30 years, right? But there was a massive issue keeping dime and pythons in captivity. I think I read it about it about maybe 10 years ago where people were struggling to keep them past four. Now I've done nothing special if not borderline stretched it, especially like whilst I was in the arm. It came on base with me. The thing's been on base, she's been everywhere. Every family members looked after her in that time. My sister refuses to now. - I don't blame her. - She stupidly went to feeder through the top of the tank 'cause she'd lost the key. So she made a little hole in the top, put her hand in with the rat and dropped the rat but stupidly left her hand there and looked at the bottom of the tank while the rat was sitting and they're going, oh, how am I going to get that? Whilst that's a good, the snake grabbed her hand and wrapped her up. - Like better hand or just wrapped around her hand? - No bit and then wrapped. - It thought it was like it was on and she rang me and she's like, that's not hysterical. The snake's wrapping on my arm. And because with pythons, they've got thousands of teeth and all their teeth face backwards. So I said to her, you actually have to push your hand in further and then what they do is they stick their airway out to the side a little bit so they can continue to breathe while they're constrict and eat. I said, you're going to have to block it. So you're going to have to shove your hand in further and then just push down on a bottom jaw and it released and then all I hope is this snake is thrown against the body tank. - Yeah, yeah, yeah. - And she's like, that's it, I'm done. I'm never feeding it again. Come get it, so. - Are they venomous? - No. - No, okay. - So what? Why diamond pythons? Why not like a blue tongue lizard or some sort of different snake? What was it about a diamond pythons? - I looked at lizards but they can be quite a bit of work. You know, on a mean like constantly feeding, constantly cleaning snakes are relatively easy. And diamond pythons was sort of just where we fell. I spoke to people about children's pythons, a lot of people start there. But they're boring, they're small. They don't do much. Diamond pythons are a boreal, so they like to climb. - Yeah, exactly. - And they got quite a pretty color to them. So it was really handy just to have a snake that looked nice and yeah, it was good to watch. - Yeah, sort of talking, you know, before we started, you grew up with two members that have been on a podcast before. - Correct. - They have a podcast their own called The Two Pissed Gants, Major Langham, shout out to the boys. Mate, tell us some stories about growing up with them because it's like I've heard their stories and sort of what they've been through but to sort of add you into the mix and like sort of what you've told them about before, sounds like hell of a childhood. - Mate, I've learned a lot through your podcast, listening to those boys. And we didn't really catch up until about high school. It is where we sort of started to cross paths. We used to do, and a lot of people from Penrith will know from our era will know what Maconats was. Basically, it was the car meetup at the Maccars right out front of Penrith Panthers, League's Club. And it was the go-to Friday Saturday night. So as soon as you got your peas, boom, you were up at Maconats with the boys. I think I had a Hyundai XL and I stuck some Neons underneath and you put the fusion bloody speakers in it and you're like, yeah. And back then, I think I was like, I know might have had like a Commodore or whatever. So we used to go catch up, do sort of just cruises until we became 18. I disappeared for a little bit, went and did the military side of things, come back. And then yeah, we've just been kicking on ever since. - Yeah, right. - But I know there was an instance where we went, those boys are in their motorbikes. I absolutely love 'em. I'm absolutely terrible on dirt bikes. Love my road bikes. We went out to Wyzen's Ferry or out that way, Picton, and there was a big bike track out there. I remember taking a lane and a bike for a run. And they're always like, oh, when you hit San, go faster. Well, stupid me, slow down 'cause I was like, getting wobbles, I was like, what the hell is that? Don't drop the bike. Ended up getting through it. I got off it after that. I was like, no, screw this. I was getting on the beers and water boys have a run. But I remember we were having a camp fire. And one of the boys thought, oh, let's amp it up. Let's put some petrol on it and we'll get it fired up. So he pours petrol onto the fire. It runs up into the Jerry Can. He sees it, the rose, the Jerry Can, but throws it directly across a tent. Now, the material of a tent didn't stand a chance on this Jerry Can on fire. So I think about four of us ended up having a sleek, huddled, like bloody penguins on the dirt and just cuddle up because it was so damn cold. We were talking the bottom of the blue mountains in winter. That's probably the memory that stands out most, especially with those lads. Yeah, no way. - Out of that way. Nice. You're talking about, you know, you got elected to school captain and that's sort of like sort of what started your thing for politics. What was it about politics that sort of, you know, made you curious in that sense? I think it was the ability to instill change and sort of give you the ability to help people. I think my common sense, impacted or affected it probably negatively. I know in the penance region, like you would see around these parts of Brisbane, where they're putting in all these estates. So we were talking one of the biggest estates in penance that they were building at the time. And I remember them discussing population growth with it. And the first question I asked, like I'm 17, was okay, what are we going to do about the roads? What schools are they going to go to? And like are we going to do anything with the hospital? Like what's going to, what infrastructure are we going to put in place to support this growth? And they looked at me and they were like, oh, that'll come after. And it's 17, you're like, oh, okay, cool, whatever. And now I look back and I'm like, it's still the case now. Do you know what I mean? Look at the growth of Brisbane. Mate, it's the same. It's the same in this suburb. I don't know if it, did you come the back way? Yeah. Yeah. So if you went past Greenbank Raiders football club down to the road, there's all road works there. Oh, really? Yeah. Like they're making into two lanes each way. But for some reason they'll put all these houses in. They'll put all these estates in, but they won't do the roads first. The centenaries, one lane each way. And the population growth out here has been well over three million, at least. Like, it is huge. And with what they're doing all the way out west. Crazy. It's like they want to make money quick by building all these houses, getting all these people in and then like, well, we'll save our money and then we'll do the roads after. That's what got me into politics. I was like, it just didn't make sense. And I was like, okay, well, let's get into it. And then I started being involved in the elections. And one memory I remember of Canberra was, I was with the member, we had done some work. And now we're talking, John Howe, it's still Prime Minister. Yeah. Joe Hockey's there as the treasurer. All the big wigs. And I just remember them, they were going in for a dinner. And anyone below front bench, go home. And all the front benches went in a room. They shut the door, shut the blind. And I just turned to 18. It was one of my first b's I'd had. Was that Parliament House on top? Yeah, right. It was mad. So how did you get involved with the whole going to Parliament House and having that, you know, that all access past you were talking about before? Well, I ended up working for the federal member. Okay. So I expressed-- We're doing what? Just admin tasks, helping out with scrutinering. So after the election closes, going in and counting ballots. So I was doing that at 1718. Handing out flyers. I remember I got this one dude out the front of St. Clair Shopping Center. And I was handing him a pamphlet. And he just gave me an absolute spray. Now I was quite cocky. I was happy to debate. I was like, okay, what's what's you go? And all I remember was him here to a union tattoo on his leg. It was the Maritime Workers Union. And so my uncle, who is a avid member of such union, I knew, okay, we're in for a-- We're in for a bit of a battle here. And I just remember making what sounded like common sense. And he just took a different angle. And I was like, that's crazy. He didn't see me as a 17-year-old handing out pamphlets. He just saw the cause and was just off tap. And rather than be deterred, I was intrigued. And so it just kept me going. Yeah, right. It's just crazy. Because I've done 50 of these episodes, but I've never had someone on that says, you know, they're into politics or they want to get into politics and, you know, quote, make change. So it's just sort of fascinating to me to hear about these things. Because, you know, you're right in what you're saying. Like, you know, these people, they wouldn't see you as a 17-year-old. You're advocating for a party that they might not be, you know, they don't want to support. So they don't see you as a 17-year-old. They basically see you as the enemy. Yeah, correct. And it was funny because I was involved in federal and then I did a little bit within state. And so I got to see both elements from within that party. Now, fast forward to today, I'm probably more intrigued in getting back involved in it. However, not potentially with that party. Okay. Only because of the way it's diluted, but that's another. That's a whole lot of podcasts. Yeah. So, mate, what was the, yeah, going through high school and like, you know, you're saying you've got school captain, coming towards the final, final years of high school. What was sort of on the agenda for that of, like, next? Because I know you spoke about, you know, wanting to do politics, but, you know, you didn't really have, I'd say, like a life-experience sort of thing. So, you know, you question yourself, what can you do? Yeah, so I then, the army services. Sorry, what's an army? It was Air Force. Okay. So, I initially wanted to join Air Force. I was doing Air Force cadets at the time. That is not widely known. It's funny. When you join the military, if you've done cadets, I highly advise just keep that under wraps. Yeah. Because it'll be the first thing that gets brought up, and you'll get sprayed for it. Yeah. In all in good band-up, but you'll cop it. But no, it did cadets. And then, army was there. I was also playing rugby at the time. So, I played League right up until about 16. And then, I had a PE teacher go, "Do you want to go hit someone off the ball?" I'm thinking about putting a team together. And then, that decision changed the entire outlook of my career. Within the military to today, I then started playing rugby union. Played union all the way through to the end of Year 12. And then, yeah, military came up. And I remember it stalling. Back in the day, I'm like today, where they're screaming for people. Recruitment at that time was slow. And I remember being in Canberra. We were at Parliament House. And the member asked me that I worked for, and she was like, "How was the recruitment going?" Have you applied? She was an ex-air force person as well. Yeah, okay. And I was like, "No, I haven't heard anything." And I remember putting on a post, and I was like, "Here. Go to this office after lunch." And I was like, "Oh, all right, sweet." And so, after lunch, I go to this office, and I've looked up, and I'm like, "Oh, and I've walked in like your heath." I'm like, "Yeah." They're like, "Oh." Minister for Defence will see you in a minute. And I was like, "Okay." Yeah, right. And it was Brendan Nelson, Dr. Brendan Nelson at the time, and got pulled in. He just sat down, he had a chat, and he was like, "What's going on?" And I said, "Well, I applied, but I can't get an answer out of him." I'm like, "I'm 17." I would have been turning 18 the following year. Like, I'm sorry, I was 18. I'm keen to go. Like, "Let's do this." And he was like, "Okay, cool, no, wait. He's just hurt me out and sent me on my way." Within seven days, I had a phone call going. You're going to Capucah. Yeah, right. So, I applied for Air Force, put in, I think it was Infantry as my second option. And Army snabbled me. They're like, "Yep, you're off." And within seven days, I was on a bus. Paramount I hadn't done a walker. Yeah, right. So, what year was this that you applied? Two, I applied in '06. So, end of year 12. And I was gone July '07. Yeah, okay. So, that would have been like, you know, sort of smack bang, Iraq, Afghanistan. All those sort of tours going on. In that time. Yeah. And because I can imagine like, especially after events of like 9/11 happening, you know, they were saying they're going to start sending people over. And I've listened to a lot of podcasts, like one being zero limits with Maddie Morris. So, like I've listened to a lot of their stories. And I mean, I mean, there's no disrespect at all. But like when you listen to so many podcasts of like so many, you know, people going over there and serving all that sort of stuff. Like, for me, listen to it. And when you hear stories start to connect, it just sort of feels like you're there. Like even though, like, because I'm a green keeper for a job side, pretty much just sit on a mall or a roll up, doing cricket with kids. But like I've always got my headphones on, listen to podcasts. So like, you listen to a lot of them and you start, you know, hearing all these stories. And then when they start to connect, it's like, you know, it's like you're flying the wall sort of thing. Yeah. So like, you know, I hear about like, people going to Capuco. And then they go to Sing-o or they, you know, go do the IETs and all that sort of stuff. And you start to pick up on the terminology and all that sort of stuff. I'm impressed that you're able to recap on all that because a lot of people, I was listening to five of the Diggies the other day. And I heard in talk, and he's like, these bloody acronyms. And I could hear him spelling them out where obviously I understood what he was trying to do. And I'd have a little bit of a giggle. But yeah, no, IITs, you're all over it. And you're in it. Yeah. So made talk to me through, you know, you've, you've, you've applied. You've seen the minister for defense seven days later. You get the call saying you're in. Yep. Talk to me when you get on the bus heading down. What's, what's the feelings? There was a bloke who rocked up. We're getting on the bus. And he looks me like he was in a nice track suit. Like, but we were all in suits and tyres. And he was in this track suit. And there was this little sergeant with a mustache. And anyone who's been out of paramatter in that time will know exactly who I'm talking about. And he absolutely loses his nut. He makes this bloke get off in a track suit, unpack the car. Now, everyone's families are along the side of the road here watching this poor dude unpack the entire bus to get to his bag, to get changed into college shirt, slacks and shoes. And so we're all like, oh, well, I guess we better help him. Like, we're not even in day one yet. And this poor dude's getting berated. Pulls his back, finds his bag. So we start helping and we just get told. Drop. Get on the bus, sit in your seat. We'll leave on this guy's dress. And they did it in front of. It was funny because all the mums then just started sobbing. Because all their daughters and sons are about to experience what this poor kid just copped in front of everybody. So let me get on the bus and travel on down the walker. And probably the biggest memory I have arriving or of that trip was driving in through the gates. And on the left hand side, it says, home of the soldier on a big plaque, like big brass riding on a rock. And all our memories, it's just got real. Like, that's when it hit me that, oh, where we're on here. Yeah, right. Like I said, I hear all these stories about people going to Kapurka. Some shit themselves, some of the stuff that they dunk it out. And they boast about it, but then they get in the shed for it and all that sort of stuff. So you rock up to Kapurka, you get off the bus. Is it basically screaming from the get-go or how is it for you? I think it's the culture shock. It's the yelling. It's the move now, shut up. Do as I say, sort of it all just hits you at once. You get off the bus, you line up on these. I think it was dots at the time. So they put you into sort of like a formation. So what? I don't remember too much of that element because I came from what I played footies since I was four. So the whole mentality around being in a team, I think helped going to the military because it was like, okay, coach is yelling at me. It's cool. Getting the line sort of follows through. But I remember like, we then then go to your rooms and then you're laying in your bed, your first night and you're like, what have I done? Have I done the right thing? What have you done yourself into? Oh, man. And yeah, it's pretty, it's a bit of a culture shock. I don't know if this is another thing that I just want to talk about. What a hallway were you in? I was 12 platoon. Yeah. And what is that sort of entail? So 12 platoon, I believe was, they're going to shoot me if I forget this one. I think it was Bravo Company. It didn't mean too much after that. I mean, that was just sort of where you were put. We had, I think we were a majority boy, like a bloke platoon. And then we had a couple of girls join us. I think it was like through a full women joined the platoon. I don't know if it was from immediately, but I do remember them going through the back end of us. But then yeah, it just went through and started kicking off training. I, you might have heard previous discussions I've had on what occurred with me. I remember sitting there cleaning my weapon and I was starving. And I just remember them going like, we used to have these little hot boxes. These little trays with 300 grams of food in it. And I go seconds and I was like, I am out of here dump my weapon and I just took. And I get there. And as I touch it, all I hear is start. It's the last one. Where's your weapon? And I was like, Jimmy's looking after it back in the room. And they're like, not good enough. Go get it. Come back. Because there's always, always about weapon security. And so they were instilling it in us. And I was like, oh, here we go. But it was funny because I had that rapport with the instructors where. I knew their job. I knew why they were doing it. But they also, it felt like there was a bit of. There was respect there, definitely. Yep. That I knew I.K. Cool. I'll play the game. Went back, got my weapon. I come back and it's empty. They went and grabbed it and took it in the office where the corporals are. And I just remember getting the box. And all I hear is laughing coming from the instructors office because they'd obviously just watch me walk out. And then just be disappointed that the food was gone. And I just remember like, ah, far out. And even I had a bit of a laugh because I was like, Touche. Touche, it's on now. Let's go. Was that sort of lesson learned sort of thing? Definitely with the weapon thing. I never forgot it after that. Yeah. Especially when it came to having a feed. Yeah. But no, I had a really good rapport with my instructors. You hear a lot of people go through. With the bastardization and get him, oh, I got bullied. We all copped it. But I think the sport mentality and the background sort of it felt like being within a 40 team. So you're like, it is what it is. Because even back then, like, and a big thing that's always touched on his political correctness. Oh, yeah. Wasn't a thing back then. Not like what it is today. I think we were probably like the back end of the introduction to that. Yeah. So I on the hospital thing. Correct. Yeah. Yeah. And I think sort of it, especially at that time, you're getting set up to go to war. And like as an infantryman, as a rifleman artillery, anything to do with infantry. And I hear a lot of this, you know, with Jesse's five with the digger or even zero-elements. Their first job when they go overseas is to kill. You know, like, there's no tip towing around it. Like that is literally what you're paid to do. Yeah. You know, because when you come face to face with the enemy, it's kill or be killed. And I don't think a lot of people really realize that until one someone tells you that. Someone that's actually done the time over there. Or you listen to someone that has been over there. Now, I want to footnote it for the people who know me. Just in that my combat experience is Neil. Okay. So I was one of those people that I never deployed. I actually went to New Zealand to play rugby for the Army. That was the only time I left the country. So whilst at Capuca, they do a big introduction on all the sorts of jobs and trades that the Army cover. And I remember them saying, the job I ended up going to, which was as an air dispatcher. And it was based at Richmond. I'm like, well, I'm from Penrith. Richmond, our local base, I ended up throwing in a bloody trade transfer whilst I was at Capuca and got accepted. So once I left Capuca, I then stopped being set up for Rolferman. And then I went core of transport and went and became an air dispatcher. Yeah. Okay. Just a quick way backtrack. When you said you applied first up for the Air Force, what was the role that you applied for? Adji. So airfield defense guard. Okay. I laugh because it's always the, oh, they're the infantry of the RAF. And we give them stick significantly, especially from the green side. But yeah. So that was the role that, like I said, I was going for Rolferman. So it's sort of just made sense to double tap both jobs when I applied. Yeah. It talks me through like a normal day of basic training. I was like, you know, we see a lot of like, you know, all these movies that we see, all the stuff that they do. But like from someone that's actually been, you know, feet on the ground going through it. What's a normal day? Most of it's pretty, pretty similar to what you expect. We'd be up at six, down, grab a feed, and then you'd go into whatever training was designated for that day. Whether it was medical training, down at the range, anything like that. Probably the biggest significance is it's a very different cultural, a very big difference in cultural training from what you see in the American shows to what you see how we operate. They're very, the screaming and the yelling is all done for a purpose so that under fire you react and act accordingly. So there is purpose to everything. But like when you go to the range, no one's kicking in the back of the head, you're the moment the weapon would live rounds. And a lot of the time, the instructors want you to do well. I think you don't really realize until the end that the instructors understand that you are now when you match a colleague. So I think in our experience in the Australian army or my experience was that I could definitely tell that there was the element of, okay, we're going to fuck, we're going to fuck you around, but there's a purpose to it and to at least have your shit squared away in order to deal with any significant change at the drop of a hat. So, but you would then go so up at six, conduct training all day and you'd be in light out bed at 10. And that was pretty regular. I know through a lot of the briefings, I don't know why they put it after lunch or towards the evening and you be sitting there doing lessons and dudes would be going, going to sleep within minutes. The room would be just temperate. They turn all the lights off, get the power point up and then boom. You'd be like dozing off trying to take notes as you were going. But I think the biggest, I was actually talking to someone about they're going to Capurca in February. And I was like, just remember, Capurca isn't the army. It's a culture shock to get you into a or to a level of preparedness for what's to be expected when you get out. But after that it then becomes about the comradery, the job role and the teamwork within that. Yeah. How's the like the fitness training when you're actually in because obviously you got to do, you know, like your your PFA, which your pre fitness assessment? Yes. So that's before you go in and then when you are actually and you do your BFA, which is your basic fitness assessment? Correct. So it used to be a barrier. I don't know what it's like now. But in '07 you had to do a fitness test to get out. You'd conduct a couple of trial ones whilst you were at Capurca. And then, yeah. So there wasn't too much. The fitness test, sorry, the fitness training was full on, but it wasn't like you could go to the gym after work and training like you were absolutely spent. And I remember, I think I, I've got down to sub 100, which I hadn't been in a long time. I think I remember leaving Capurca and I could get into like a 34 pants, which was rare because I was like, what the hell? But it was a stress way because you're always worried about is my stuff ready to go? Am I good for tomorrow? Where's this bit of equipment? You know what I mean? You're always on the go that even by the time you head hit the pillow at 10, you're gone. And then hear the trumpets playing in the morning and you're like, oh, here we go, sheets off. And it was almost almost like a groundhog day. Here we go. And I remember the one moment where I was like relieved at Capurca chest and I actually felt proud was I had a Ramy corporal royal Australian electrical and mechanical engineers. I hope I got that right because boys will get up me. But he was a Ramy corporal and he was, he was pretty intense dude. And I remember him telling us, you boy, like you guys are now Australian soldiers put your hat on and we put our slash hat on for our police to go then march out. And I remember that just being a significant moment at Capurca. I was like, this is, we've done it. We're on. Yeah, this is what it's all about. Yeah, definitely. You mentioned before about trumpets gone and sheets coming off. Yep. Hey, talk to me through the bedmaking and how meticulous they are about it. It was full on. You could even like we tried to cheat too. Like you try and get a couple of like spare sheets and try and like pre-make it or dudes and sleep under the, I remember falling asleep under my bed all the time because it had to be made and you couldn't get into it till 10. So it stayed made from six. So in the morning, they make you take your bottom sheet. So you get like they weren't fitted sheets either. So you had two flat sheets and a blanket or what we called the horse blanket because if you got it on your skin, you're itch. And six a.m. you were required. You'd hear lights on hallway 12. Sheets over the shoulder, boom. Stand at attention outside your door. So you had to make your bed every time. And then you had about like 15 minutes to brush teeth, get dressed, bed made and then be back out front at attention and they go through and check your rooms. If it wasn't right, there were times where they would make us get back into pajamas, make us get back into bed and do the whole process again. It was just, it was relentless. I look back now and I laugh, but at the time you just like, can we get this right? And if one bed wasn't right, the whole platoon would do it. So it was just all about trying to build camaraderie and have everyone hold each other account. But also to help you mate, if you see him struggle and don't let him hang out because he's going to be one that costs you the next time. Yeah. And I saw that there's like in a, you know, a sense sort of thing that sort of preparing you for like, you know, if you're in the battlefield, you see you mate struggling to help him out sort of thing. Yeah. I think that's where all that sort of training stems from 100%. Talk to me through, how do you ever fight a gun before? Never. So talk to me through first time you get, do you get given a gun and you're alive on the fire range? They have what's called the wets, which is a weapon training system, but it's a simulation system. So you start and the drills were meticulous to the point now where I still do them. I recently went and got my firearms license. When got my firearms license and the guy said straight away goes, oh, a UX Army or something. And I was like, yeah, why he goes because I can see the drills. They're still instilled now. Now I've been out almost 10 years and it's still there. But I'm firing away for the first time was kind of daunting because I didn't know what to feel, what to expect. What was going to, you know, I mean sort of happen. But I don't remember it vividly to the moment. I think just because we spent so much time at the range, you get a, you know, I mean, it sort of desensitises. It really patterns me because the story that you told on on proper tree arm was you didn't have a license when you got out. There's no like RPL, there's no nothing. Do they say why that's the case? Because I would sort of think, you know, the whole registering for a license or a gun, you know, it's all like in sync with the government. I think it comes back to we're going political again. I think it comes back to state versus government. Okay. So firearm licensing's state run, but military's federal. It's weird that there's no correlation. And I know when I post, I've used that video from proper tree arm on my YouTube channel. And some of the comments are like, I know people who have led 100 men and couldn't get out of a paper bag. Like, and yes, there are outliers, I guess you could say. But the fact that you don't get any sort of recognition for what you've been able to do is kind of crazy. I think a lot of people just think that that occurs, but it doesn't. Yeah, because you hear a lot of stories, too. And again, I'm referencing back to other podcasts. I don't listen to like, you know, a lot of people spend years in the in the defense force. You know, they do all this stuff. Yet all these I learn all these skills, all these tickets, these courses that they don't and they go into civilian life. And it's like, let's just start it square one again. It's crazy, too, because I think what's going to occur is then now since that event out west with the young coppers out there, they've got ambush that they're potentially looking at mental health testing or barriers now within the licensing realm, which could impact military members that might have been impacted that way. It'll be an interesting space to watch on how they manage that process because obviously what occurred out there is crazy. And I don't know, I've spoken to friends who are police officers and I'm like, what are you taught in ambush training because obviously we get a taste of it. Now, as an air dispatcher, it wasn't my bread and butter, but I haven't awareness of it. And they just said, this is where do we fit the training into teach, you know what I mean, these young officers out west on ambush training. And I'm like, yeah, point, you know, I mean, like it's just it's not there, bread and that day was set up from the get go. Yeah, 100%. So come and sort of towards the end of Capucar, you know, you're talking about it before you're graduating, you put your slouch out on, you've done it. What's what's the process from there, because like obviously we spoke about IITs before, but you're saying that, you know, you're training to be a rough member, but then you got that that trade transfer. Yep. What's sort of the go with that? Why did you change and what sort of spark that? I got to trade transfer because I wanted to go back to all the time. Okay. So out of our friends group, Langham Major, everybody else, I was now the soldier. And I don't know, I think I just wanted to get back around my mates and get back home. I hadn't really ever been out of pan-rath living wise, like I'd never done any of that until I joined the army and did some postings. So I saw Richmond. I saw aviation was involved again. So that whole Air Force interest came back in and flying in planes, pushing shoot out the back. And, you know, I mean, having a mad time. I was like, that sounds like the go to me. Yep. So when you said you go to Richmond, is it is Richmond where you, you know, do your IITs or do you have to go to different places to learn different aspects of the role? Yeah. So as an air dispatcher, you're required to be a driver first. So I went to Puckapaniel and did driver training down there first. And then from Puckapaniel, I then went to Richmond and conducted air dispatch IITs there. But the IIT training is conducted by an Air Force owned unit. And then you go to the Army unit, which is also on the same base. So it's literally three or four hangers apart. Yeah, okay. How long were you Puckapaniel for? Three months. Yeah, okay. Talk to me through that. So it's an interesting place. It's barren. It's spread out like all, like I think what school of artillery, school of armour and school of trucks down there. So went down there did the biggest thing about IITs is now you're not under the rigors of what you were at Puckapan. That's probably the biggest shock is that now you are required to be out front at 9 am ready to go. Put yourself to bed once you finish like once you finish work times your own. Do you want to go to the Boozard? Do you want to go into town? You're back to being an adult, I guess again. It's not Puckapan. Exactly right. So it's like a normal job again, however you just live it on base. So you had to be there full time. So there was times that during the weekends, if you got the weekend off, I'd be in Melbourne. And it was funny because I only just went back to Melbourne for work two weeks ago. And it's the first time I've been in Melbourne since 2007. Yeah, right. Which is I was like, oh, this is crazy. So much has changed mind you. I don't remember too much of Melbourne either because we were 18, just got out of Capurca we're in the army. And it didn't matter if we spent all our money because our accommodations paid for our foods paid for as long as we got money for a ticket back to Puckapan, you're West's way. You just wait two weeks and go again. Do you have any stories from the Boozard or anything sort of when you went into town? Not really. Not in Melbourne. We were pretty time. I remember being actually in Bendigo. We went out and did a weekend in Bendigo and I do remember we locked our key in our room and I'm like, oh, no. But one of the boys managed to climb up a fire escape to the building across from it and our window was open. And I was like, you're not going to do it. I think I can do it. And now we're a half cut to and I'm like, I don't know how we're going to explain this. This isn't a good idea. No, I've got it. And I thought, all right. Well, if it means me getting in the bed tonight, I have a crack. We're about four stories out. And he's looking at this window and he just starts charging at it. And I remember watching him jump and I was like, please make it because this is going to be a bad story to tell. Boom, straight in the hole, made it. I was like, yes. So that's probably one of the funniest stories from down that way. Not too much really happened outside the normal was pretty sensible. How was the driver training? It was really good. I hadn't done four billion or anything like that previously. And now I'm doing it in a Unimog and a Land Rover. So it was really cool. And mind you, I was on my piece at the time. So to be driving medium-range vehicles over obstacles, lock and diffs, with loads, without loads. Like it was really good night vision. Limited lighting, all that sort of jazz. It was really, really cool. Didn't get to drive any bushmasters? No. Never. Yeah, okay. Not even in my tow career. It didn't drive bushmasters. Shame. Yeah. I got the Hawkeye. Yeah. People know how I feel about the Hawkeye. That's probably the only rule. Oh, in the MANs, the new MANs, I was an instructor when I got out of Army. So I instructed out here a green bag. Yeah, because I see I always drive along the R2 road there. You know, they're always in and out. And you always see people driving, you know, driver under instructor. Correct. So I was an instructor, civilian instructor, contracted to defense for the introduction for those vehicles into service. Yeah. Okay. Add it. Emily. Yeah. Right. Yeah. True. So leave Pacupano, what's next after that? So I left Pacupano in December '07. I get to Richmond. I'm meant to have a room. I'm meant to be known that I'm coming. And I remember knocking on the door at the duty member. He must have been laying down watching a movie because we were on the raft base. But the Army, we sort of just get tucked away in the back corner. You know, I mean, we're like that ugly step child up the back. And I remember knocking on the door and this duty member looked at me and he's like, I have no idea who you are. We weren't told you were coming. Anyway, long story short, and I'm getting a room. And then I don't even, I think I had to put in a leave application, which I'd never done. And my admin had always been sorted for me from go to war. And because I got there in December, everyone had shut down. They were off on Christmas holiday. So I think I returned shortly after in January. Returned, but returned to work in January and started from there. I think I went on air dispatch. I tease around March. I think it was. Yeah. So run me through that because that's an interesting role in itself. Because like you're saying before, you're pushing shit out of a plane. I assume that you're, you know, you're latched onto the plane as well. You earn a harness and everything like that. Because I actually, and I don't think I really told this story on any podcast. But I actually applied to joint defense force in 2016. So I did my youth session. Have my meeting with like the careers counselor there and all that sort of stuff, picked out my roles and stuff. And I only had to do the fitness test, which I was at the time. Like I was pretty fit. I'm pretty sure I was going to ace it by that time. Dad was diagnosed with early onset dementia. So I sort of put a bit of a hold on that. And then I just never went back and I was 2016. So nine years ago. And I was, I looked back and they're like, it's something I wish I did. I think part of me still maybe wants to do it. But having a Mrs and two young kids that sort of puts a bit of a thing on it. And then also doing this and all that sort of stuff. But for me, growing up, it was just one of those things. Like, I think like the same as you had, I wanted to serve my country doing some sort of thing. So I think I was, I was applying to be a loadmaster in the Air Force. But I think at the time they said it's pretty hard to get into. So there was a couple of other things that I would think it was leaning towards to. But yeah, it's never sort of really followed through with it. I think that's the case for a lot of people. And if it's not, if it doesn't feel right. I know people have pushed through that and end up costing a more than what it was worth. Like that gut feeling is definitely, you've got to be locked in, you know what I mean? Yeah, hundred percent. Family have to be, you have to be, I totally get it. And Odie, hey, well essentially we worked side by side with them guys. Yeah, I'm doing what we did. So we would do under slung. So under helicopters, we would do air drop as well. So I didn't do anything operationally air dispatch. It wasn't really a role required. A lot of the air dispatchers got deployed. But the reason they got deployed was because of their ability to do terminal roles. So they had the ability to air drop. We get all the forklift tickets were truck qualified. So you've got three job roles within one. So a lot of the air dispatchers would be deployed on the basis of not just their air dispatch role, but their ability to run a terminal when they got over. Yeah, okay. So they're very diverse what they can do. Correct. And we had, we're such a small trade that if your numbers are not, not pick. Like this people in infantry have never been deployed either. I was only listening to Jesse the other day and he had a sheeler on there done 10, 10, so years and it never deployed. And it's probably a more common story than not because you always hear about the issues and scenarios overseas. And I guess from my perspective there mates, but I definitely chose a rugby route. So I got involved in Army rugby played Army rugby from about, I think it was the end of our weight 2009. And then I played a straight service rugby as well. And I remember my sergeant major coming down in these like you're going to be a corporal by the end of this year within my trade. And I said to him, I don't see it happening. And he's like, what do you mean? I'm going to make sure of it. It's too much for you. Like my focus was solely on just getting out and playing 40 and traveling, doing 40 that I sort of paid the job off probably a little bit. And I look back now and I'm like, I wish I had it given him the opportunity to at least see me promote a little bit better. 'Cause the rapport I had, I still talk to that sergeant major today. And our cohort is very, very strong. There are times where I look back at promotions, but it is what it is. Yeah, we each and to get deployed was just sort of what happens. My hand was up. If I got picked, I got picked. I wasn't too concerned. Where does rugby come into it? 'Cause I know they have the triceps of sports and all that sort of stuff, but obviously you had a rugby league slash union background. But where does the thing come to you say, hey, we got a rugby team come and play. So they used to have what's called Kapooka Tens, which was a ten on ten rugby comp down at Kapooka every unit would get involved. So I heard, oh, there's rugby comp. I mean, let's rock and roll. So rugby, many in defense, it probably rubs in the wrong way that it is probably the pinnacle sport. Definitely within army, potentially Navy, Raf aren't massive on it, but it's played at Duntrune. You've got all the officers that a majority of them are involved with it somewhere, whether it's I'm talking. I'm generalizing here, but private school, previous adjoining military. So rugby has a massive influence within defense. And so I got involved with it that way and continue playing all the way through essentially. And you're talking about, you know, you had the rugby services Australia. Yeah. So there's army, which is the service level. And then from the services level, you go into what was known then as Azure or Australian services rugby union. Within Azure, I played Papua New Guinea in the Pacific military cup, and I also played a game at Vick Barrick Sydney against the combined US military team. Fuck how did that go? Mate, they are absolute athletes. But because their sports NBA gridiron are black and white, once, for instance, the Rucks formed, that's it. To them, okay, spread out, Rucks formed, let's go, we'll set the play up, where for us, well, the Rucks formed, but the Rucks not over. So we'd counter-Ruck or we'd stick our hand in and drag the ball back, like illegal, but only if the ref sees it. And that's where I give them a hit up, and the dude's eight foot tall, this big African American dude just run an hour, could run the hundred in 15 seconds, like he was an absolute beast. And you're like, whoa, or the kicker, you give a penalty within 60 meters, the kicker or knock it from the sideline over the post. So you had to be very careful in how you approach it, because they were athletes in their own right. They just hadn't learned the gray area of the game yet. And that's probably where we got him. Like in the scrum, I remember one of my second rowers, he was a captain. He unbounded from me, he's like, you got it? I said, yeah, I've got it. What are you doing? And he unbound, it starts up and cutting him through the, through the scrum. And he's like, get this up, you stepo, he's like, having a whack, and I was like, what the hell? And it's funny, because even since that game, we played him in two or three games, maybe two, Sydney and Canberra. And I've stayed in touch with two of the dudes, two Navy officers from America. I've got a couple of them on LinkedIn wanting to play him for Seattle. Seattle Seawalls, the professional rugby comp over there when he got out of the military. So it's cool. There's a good little cohort that's, yeah, it's just mad. How does it go when you, you know, your army and then you first name, you're like, obviously, they'd be banter and all that sort of shit. Like, you know, our army's better known, and Navy's better and all that sort of stuff. But how do you sort of tackle with that? My banter wasn't probably so much with the opposition, but my father-in-law today is going on 40 years Air Force. So the first time I played Air Force, we beat them 73-5 at Tugranong Vikings in Canberra. And I just remember going, as soon as I finished the game, shook hands, it was what it was. The Raffer Big Touch-Footy boys, they're not necessarily, or rugby league orientated, they're not so much union. And because their job role dictates that they're required elsewhere. So for them to gather a team is quite difficult. Given their, they're so spread out operationally, like, if an aircraft goes, the entire support team goes. With the army, if a unit goes deployed, you just go pick from one of the other battalions. It's pretty easy for an army and Navy to put a team together. But I remember after that 73-5 win, I was on the blow of the father-in-law going, "Yeah, give it up, yeah." And he's a super nice dude, so he was just like, "Yup, two Shay, I expected somewhat of a flogging." And I was like, "Oh, so yeah, it was good fun just to give some stick to the old man." Yeah, 100%. You were talking before about head New Zealand player rugby. How was that? The best experience 40s ever given me. So besides the networking that rugby provides, the trip to New Zealand was awesome. It was the Australian Army versus New Zealand Army in 2009, as the curtain razor to the Brombe's Hurricanes. Yeah, okay. So we flew over a little bit earlier, flew into Wellington, we stayed at a place called Upper Hut, and I remember the best hands act they have ever done, like Dawn Service. We were up at the local town, we were looking at the community hall where they're conducting the service, and the fog is all sitting around, like, roof height. And then Azra Valley plays at the end, two Iroquois fly through the cloud, separating it, and all you see is these choppers come through, and it was kind of like a scene out of we were soldiers, you know, at the end when those Huey's come through and we were like, "Whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo, whoo." It was exactly like that. Like, give me goosebumps to talk about it now, but the best hands act they have done. And then we couldn't get on the source because we were playing later that night. So we went down to the cake tin in Wellington, and like, I remember going past like Marlonu, like in the hallways, and like just all these all black players, and then the Brumbies were there as well. It was an epic experience. We got flogged, but I just remember even the field was like a mattress getting tackled, you're like, man, and it held up so nice compared to some of the fields here. So before we went to New Zealand, we played the Navy at the Sydney football ground, but they'd mowed it for soccer, which they go down to almost dirt. It was almost like a cricket pitch length. So to go over to New Zealand after that, it was just pure rugby heaven. Yeah, because I think, and this is just coming from like a green keeping sense. I think at rugby, they mowed it to like 30 something mill, anywhere between 25 and 30 mill. So like that's that's pretty decent. And like that coverage like on a professional ground would be pretty thick. So that's probably why it did feel like a mattress and the weather and like it's just suited conditions over there in Wellington. Like they get plenty of rain and it was just epic. Yeah, what's going on in your personal life? Like what's what's sort of going on outside of army in rugby today? Like like during that time. So I and I got to Richmond's end of '07. I met my now wife in '08. Okay. And we've been together ever since. Yep. So I was catching up with all my old mates. I ended up then moving out and moving closer to where all the clubs were that we used to hang out at. We were 18. So my house then became not only the ages were coming back, but mates from laying in major. They'd be coming over after we went out on the source for a night. I remember the night I met my wife and we were dancing. The lights come on and the night is about 3 a.m. And she goes to walk away. I remember grabbing her by the belt and I pulled her back in and then we kissed and she wouldn't give me a number. So she leaves. And I'm like, oh, okay. Sweet is what it is. Just another night. Let's go home. And I'm showing age here about a week and a half later. I get a my space. I was about to say it's all about my space. So as you said, Sean, imagine there's something about my space from Bebo. Yeah, my space. She cacks me down and yeah, we went out on date and we've been together ever since. The rest is history. That's it mate. Nice mate. So sort of coming towards the, I would say like the end of your service. Yep. What sort of sparks the interest about leaving like were you medically discharged? Were you, was there something going on? Like were you just getting over what was to go? So a few things occurred throughout, but the main factor was I was looking to commission. So I wanted to get out and become an officer. Okay. I couldn't do this. I got rejected for a service transfer internally because they said the wait's too long. Your best option is to discharge, separate and reenlist. And I was like, it's a bit of a gauntlet because you can get out and potentially be rejected on returning. And then you've given up your career essentially. But I was like, nah, surely I've got this in the bag. So I run the gauntlet. I separate. I think it was November 2016. It was the 16th of November 2016. I separated the same day I get the letter from separation from Army, which was that November 16. I reenlist. I'm back at defense was recruiting going through like everybody else. So I end up passing officer selection board. I get offered not logistics officer, which I thought, well, I've done trucking air dispatch. Like it makes sense in the Air Force. I got accepted for intelligence officer within the Air Force. So I was like, okay, cool. I'll take it. Let's go. It was my second option. Let's do it. It gets to a point where medical get involved and they're like, ah, you know that parachute injury from 2008. And I was like, yeah, no, we're talking tangially to them and 1718 now. I'm like, yeah, I'm fit for service. Thanks for coming. Class four straight otherwise. See you later. And I was like, hang on, I got out and it wasn't an issue. I served another eight years after it wasn't an issue. Like, what is the geo here? Oh, and you know what they told me? And it grinds my gears. Oh, it's just due to the rigors of service. And I was like, I just did almost nine and a half years. What do you think you're telling the wrong person that statement? Obviously she's been told to use certain terms. Terms exactly right. But I just remember grinding my gears and then just out of spite now. I'm like, all right, well, let's go move on and make something of it. Yeah, okay. Talk to me through the parachute incident. So it was on my third jump. So I had come down and I remember I was heavy. I had I had maxed out the shoot weight with my gear to the point where my other mate who, you know, I'll put them on Nathan was next to me. He was about five foot and they just loaded them up with whatever I couldn't carry. So they put him up to weight of what I was without my gear. So me jumping clean was what he now weighed. And I remember him hitting the deck and he's like, dude, how do you do it? I was like, that's me normal. They're now strapping bags to me to jump with. What are you talking about? I'm now another like 40 kilos heavier than what you are right now. He's like, dude, that, that sucks. He goes, how fast are you falling? And the rate of descent on those shoes at the time are like six meters a second. Which is what I was coming in that fully loaded. And you jump from about a thousand feet, so it's about 300 meters. So yeah, I've jumped, I've come down and all, I remember the wind just taking us. And I was loving it in the air. All three jumps in the air, you're like, whoa, till you hit the tree line. And then the tree line's like moving, like it's hooking. All you just see is almost like when you're in the car, driving past the tree line. And I was like, this is going to hurt. And I remember just going heels, ass, head, whiplash, boom, hit the deck. And I ended up, I've now, I think they caught a cervical spondylosis through the lower back. But they, at the time, they just put it as a lower back, soft tissue injury. And that is what stuck through my med records and stopped me from commissioning. Yeah, right. Like even as an officer role, like you're not exactly hands on, but you're leading. So like, do you think that would have affected it? Well, the, my part of contention was is in the role I was doing, I wasn't going to be parachuting. I wasn't doing the same role as a completely different role that I could effectively serve as. Like I'd done another eight years, post that injury for it. Yeah, it just hung around like a bad smell. What, what kind of stuff were you carrying? Because like, I've, have you seen band brothers? Yes, I assume you have. Episode one, there's a, a bit there just before they're about to jump. And Joe Toy is going through all the stuff that he's, you know, he's laid everything out on the ground. And he's gone on about, you know, everything that he has to take and how heavy it's going to be. And like for a combat jump like that, you know, going into the, the basically behind enemy lines and taking all this stuff, like, from my point of view, I sort of just think, you know, you drive full, you medicate and that's basically it because I actually had to go on your fight. And by like, like, for you, what, what stuff are you carrying? I even though it's a training jump. In a training jump, you're just in a weighted, you have your pack, but it's weighted. And then you'll have a training weapon strapped to your side. Now, that's the easy part. And I take my hat off to the boys at the time. Three RAR were still operationally jumping. Yep. You're talking more to plates, more to tubes, like those dudes are jumping with like heavy weapons, not just what I was jumping with, like it was, yeah, hats off to them dudes for that. And I remember working with three RAR on a jump. And I'm like, why don't you just let us rig. We can create a little package that lands next to you with all that gear. And you might reduce your injury rate. Like, it makes sense for match having a more to tube poke up any ribs and crack it when you're letting it. Like, it's not nice. Yep. And then I think there was an ego thing. No, no, no, no, this is what we do. I'm like, all right. That's off to you, but us as air dispatchers, we could rig that and have it fall. We could tether it to you if we have to. Yeah. And have it fall within 20, 30 meters of you. Like, let's go. Hmm. Um, but never took us up on it. We did do drops like resupply elements like that, but not operational. Well, those three jumps were they all training or they are all training. Did you do any? I felt too short of qualifying for my wings. So I had two night jumps to do after that. But I was in hospital getting my back checked out and then boom. Off course. Go home. So you couldn't even like go for it again pretty much. I could go back to parachute training. And to be honest, if it was today, I probably would because they've changed the parachutes around. They've created a sense half, which is epic for big rigs. But it came back to, do you want to keep playing footy and, you know what I mean? Or do you want the ego of the wings to keep coming in if that was to occur again? I'm just like, ah, it's not worth it. On my third jump, I remember being up in the aircraft just cutting laps. It was a bloke from three hour big red. And I believe it was a tip and fib that popped through his kneecap on landing. That's what I mean. That could be your next jump. That could be you. So I sort of waded up and I was like, does that just happen because of the way they land? Like, are they not landed properly? Or essentially? Yeah. I guess there's a lot of factors undulating ground. It's not like it's perfectly flat. You might hit a bit of a null. You might hit a fence. You might hit a tree. It could be heaps of thing. But yeah. This fence gnarly injuries out of it. Oh, I can fucking imagine. 2016 is when you, when you like left. And obviously that's sort of coming towards the end of Afghanistan. And that sort of, you know, war that's gone on there. How's the retention rate for the army there? Because obviously like, you know, at that point, everything's coming to an end. I can imagine like they're not screaming for people per se. But like, I'd imagine they would want to at least try and keep their stuff. Like, in that sort of sense, when you're trying to, you know, apply and even though they're, they're turning your class form not suitable for service. Like, did you appeal it or did you say like, you know, I want to get back in. And I want to keep serving. Does that make sense? Yeah. No, I did appeal it. And I did attempt. But we're talking like three, two years on post applying. Okay. So we're getting close to like 29 a.m. And I'm just like. Why did it take so long? It's got to go through Canberra. You got to get evidence like the medical process is huge. To the point where I was like, you know what? I'm now over it. You've talked me out of it. And then the birth of my first child was in 2019 as well. So it got to the point where I was just like, you know what? I can wait for this career to hopefully return. Or about turn and just get on with life. And that's what I chose to do. Retention wise, a lot of my mates are still in. I think this, my experience in my job role as an air dispatcher is slightly different to the rest of the defense. People get frustrated with the job and will leave. But for the ones like, we don't post Richmond is essentially your only posting if you want to stay in the trade. You can break off defense going to two routes. You can go trade route or you can go regimental. So if you want to go regimental and become an RSM somewhere, you can then go through goby a Kapooka, go be an instructor, go to military training, you can go that route. Or you can stay in the trade and just promote through the trade. So the good thing with air dispatches they're essentially just posted to Richmond. So when you've got a family, there's stability within an organization that's not very stable with postings. So it's the one job role where a lot of my mates are still there. A lot of the time they only leave for better job prospects or they're just over it or injured. Was there any time they wanted to leave to relocate somewhere else to the family to some new? I did an out of trade posting in 2009. I came up here to Amberley. How was that? I loved it. I'd never been to Queensland posting wise. I'd done a few trips up here with the boys. Had holidays up here, but that was the first posting relocate live. I've done the Brisbane to Sydney, Sydney to Brisbane trip so many times. In 2012, I went back to Sydney. I came back up in 2012, went back and then came back up in 2015. I've been here since. You were saying earlier on the podcast, you were talking about your siblings joining. Was that sort of something they joined because you joined? Did you say this is the benefits, these are the pros and cons? What was their reasoning for joining? I don't understand. I don't know their reasoning too much. I just know that I think having the insider knowledge might have helped make that decision easier. I don't know if it was something that they'd always wanted to do. They just never did it, but I think from seeing how my career had progressed, fully lifestyle, housing, health, all that sort of contributed to it. Both my brothers have deployed. They've both done their service overseas. One's still continuing to serve now. Are they both infantry? No. One was transport, and the other was ordnance. What's ordnance? Ordnance is like EQE's here, warehouse staff. Yeah. Loggies. He was over there as that. He achieved the highest rank. The second born son, Corporal, and the eldest is still serving now. What did you finish as? Private. They wanted me to promote, they had it lined up. The runway was there. I just had to take it. But I went 40. This has gone back to the politics side of things. Did you still have that inkling to want to go down that route, get promoted, get somewhere to a point where you could, after you've left, say, have gone this far and defence? I'd totally forgotten about it, to be completely honest. I'd sort of withered away the defence. I just got wrapped up in the whole organisation, the environment, the traditions. I absolutely loved every bit of it, where politics sort of faded away. Now I see what's occurring in the world that I might. It's probably more now that that interest in politics is coming back around. Yeah. We're going to take quick break and then we'll come back. We're going to talk everything post defence force. Podcasts know that a great sound makes all the difference. And that's where PodPerfect Productions steps in. Their team specialises in professional audio editing and mastering, making every episode sharp, clear and ready to impress. But they don't stop there. Every episode is proof listened from start to finish, so nothing slips through the cracks. It's all about quality, consistency and attention to detail. With fast turnaround times and personal service, you can rely on. PodPerfect Productions takes the stress out of podcasting, so creators can focus on what they do best. Telling their stories. Get in touch with the team today on Instagram or email
[email protected]. PodPerfect Productions, bring your vision to life one episode at a time. All right, we're back here with Tony. It talked me everything post defence force, what sort of was going on after you'd said, obviously you bit the bullet, you said I'm done. I'm not going to appeal. What was sort of next? So in my last couple of months within defence, I'd actually applied to go do an education degree. Okay. So I went and started that. So when I moved up here, I came close to USQ where I was doing secondary education. Where our mate holding was also in my class. So I then started lifeguiding at the local pool at a Ryan Lagoon. So I started lifeguiding there quickly became duty manager of the whole facility. I think purely I was the oldest there and with the experience I'd had there like, yes, sweet. This was 2019. Oh, 2015. So October 15. I moved up here. I think I started maybe November 15. Working there. I absolutely loved it. I'd lifeguarded before back down in Penrith three year, 11 and 12 just to get some money in. And it was just an easy sort of transition to come up here and allow me to study whilst doing it. And yeah, that was how we arrived in sunny Queensland and kicked off. Yeah. So what was it obviously you'd been up here before? Well, what was the drawing card for you to come up here? I just loved it. I'd spent majority of my life in Sydney. I could see the way it was going like out around that pond's western Sydney area. It was just getting bigger and bigger. And the biggest thing I noticed too and I missed when I was down there was, I say this quite often to everyone when I try to get in the middle of Queensland. Like on a Friday Avo drive down the Great Western Highway, the M4 in Sydney and tell me what you see. But during the time it's people trying to get home. When I drive down on a Friday Avo down the highway in Brisbane, I see boats, caravans, campers, roof tops, motorbikes, four bees. Like Queensland's all about what you do away from work, more so than what you do for work. Which is what I noticed in Sydney. Life style up here drew me to that. It was about working to live, not living to work. Yeah, I love that. I love that one. So you start, why education? What was the education that sort of drew you to that? I've always liked that element of being able to pass it on. And what I liked about education was as my mates had done education degrees while I joined the Army and went off and did that. And they were super successful in that role. But I felt like they didn't have a story. They had gone from primary school to high school to university now as a teacher. And I'm like, well, what do you offer in the grand scheme of experience? Especially in the early days, you know what I mean? And I thought, you know what, I now have a story. As a teacher, there's an element of interest in world knowledge, I guess I could bring to that job, bro. And lifeguarding was that just to sort of bring money in there? That was just to fill the gap. And you spoke before I, a person you met at lifeguarding, Ben Nash. Ben Nash? Mate, tell us about Nashy, because obviously I know him from cricket, but you would have met him a lot longer before I met him. I met him 2018, 2019. Yeah, okay. Yeah, actually, it probably wouldn't have been too far off. He was one of our lifeguards. Him and Tom Holding were the boat exit boys that ended up coming out there and working lifeguarding, holding ended up becoming a duty manager with me out there, but just lots of fun. Yeah, I mean, what am I? I can't even tell you how old I was. Let's say 25, 26 maybe. It was just good to see the young legs come through, have a go. But also, I'd seen the worst of some of the lifeguarding incidents as well. So it was good just to have the energy there, but then to be able to sort of shape them into, or just be mindful as good as this is, like, the boys, you got to be careful. They haven't a perv, watch in the water, and you're like, look, just remember those kids. And some of the incidents we had there were pretty serious. Like I remember, there was a four-year-old, four days before Christmas. And we got him, and he was unconscious, unresponsive. We got him back on CPR, on compressions, he coughed up water. We got him under the ambulance, went home. And the ambulance, we later found out that he had only ingested water. He hadn't inhaled it, so he was sweet. But we were talking four days before Christmas. Yeah. Like, it was gnarly. That place is packed, especially when it opened, it was chockets. On a summer's day as well. Definitely, man. And school holidays. Ridiculous. I think there was days where we had 5,000 patrons. And that was an estimated head count. Now, you're trying to watch every little bit of water. So it was hard. So luckily we got this kid back. And I remember, it was funny, because you know how? You sort of forget the military way. You sort of adapt to the environment you're in. And I remember the manager, the venue manager, sent that bloke home after bringing that kid back. Now, he was also responsible for that area. So he then felt it fault that he hadn't seen the kid sooner. He wasn't tracking that one. I mean, there's 200 people in your area. You can't, you know what I mean? You've got a sort of group people where, okay, that could belong to that family, but he might not. But you've got to do your best with what you're given. How old was the life card? I didn't know. And I remember, I chased after him, because there was an experience when I was in the army that is stuck with me. And what had occurred was a parachute has jumped. And his parachute candlestick, which means it didn't inflate. He pops his reserve. It doesn't inflate. He gets to about 30 meters from the ground, pop, pop, pop, both shoots in flight. And he hits the deck. A lot. And he's shaking. He's packing his shooter. And I remember the Colonel went straight out to him. Took his shooter. We helped pack it, like, repack it for him. And he got him straight into the car, drove him straight to the flight line, put another parachute on him, took him straight back up in the plane and pushed him out the very next stick. And his whole mentality was, if you do not jump now, you will never jump again. The dude jumped in. I believe he continued to serve, however long he did. Holy. So I took the same mentality with this 19-year-old who had just had this incident with this four-year-old. And I caught him out in the car park, as he's about to leave. Is this after he's just been sent home? Yes. Okay. So I've chased after him. He's been told knock off. Now I'm the duty manager, so I'm two I see to the bloat that's sent him home. And I remember running after him, I caught him in the car park, and I was like, you can't go home. He's like, but I just clocked off. I said, don't worry, I'll fix up your hours. I'm going to put you out there with someone else now. So I buttered him up, I said, you cannot go home. He lived at Gatton. So we're talking an hour, an hour and a bit drive home for him. That's a long drive to have a really good think. And he's already blaming himself. So I'm like, you will not come back. And he's like, but I didn't see it. I'm like, the end result was good. We got it. You're actually now more valuable to me than what you were before. Because now you know what it's about. Your instincts are sharper. You've experienced why we train the way we train. And I was pretty hard on these lifeguards because I knew something like that could occur. And that was the reason why we did it. He ended up staying for like two more seasons after that. And that's what he said. He goes, I would have gone home, blaming myself the entire time. And so I just buttered him up. I said, the next couple of shifts, you're going to have someone with you. Not to help you, like not to carry you, but for you to vent. And talk about what did you see? And just work your way through the trauma that you just experienced. And then I could put him back out on his own. And then when it came to the training, he validated it. Because he could turn around and go, well, it's true. It happened to me. Yeah, because some of that would have enhanced his experience. Definitely. And made him a better lifeguard. 100%. He got the end result. Came back on, like everything worked. The process worked. If he leaves now, he'll never return. He'll sit there, blaming himself the entire time. And I now have to train someone else up from scratch who doesn't understand why we do what we do. So it was that experience in the army that I was able to implement in that instance. And yeah, he ended up staying for a couple more seasons. Yep. With the secondary education and training to be a high school teacher, what's the sort of go with that as like how long and you need to have to be doing that? It was a four-year degree. Yep. But I stopped. I'd sort of stopped and started. I guess I was swayed by the amount of prac I had to do whilst trying to bring in an income. Like I was a lot of the cohort that I was at uni with. We're living at home. So there was no stress of having to pay the bills, pay for the car, pay for the, you know what I mean? Because all of them, they would have been fresh out of high school, start starting their adult life. And you an experience in the army, full of life experience. My wife and I, house, cars, dog, like I had to pay for it. So I sort of was in and out. But it really got knocked on the head when I went and did prac at a local state school. So I had a year, I think I got a year eight geography and I got like a year 12. I guess you could say geography as well. She mounted these sort of classes I got given. And I remember rocking up and they're like, oh, well, we'll allow you to run it for this week. You pick the topic. You pick this. This is your options. And I was like, okay, well, we're out of deep switch. And they said, you can either pick Chinese or Easter Island. That's what you've got to sort of follow through history element. And I was like, okay, well, I'm going to go Easter Island. And they're like, oh, well, we're going to go Chinese. But there's just so much more content on it. I make 99% of the students in there are Polynesian. Why would I not teach Easter Island? Like, how am I going to engage them if I teach them something that has nothing to do with them? Like, it doesn't make sense to me. And then I started to get this sort of sense that I'm like, okay. There's sort of a red flag for me. I was like, okay. And then I remember them telling me, hey, look, don't worry about what you're learning in your degree. Because once you get to the school, you'll just adapt to how they want you to work anyway. And I guess I already knew that that could be the case. But the fact that there was just the easy route every time. And I remember I had an autistic boy in the front row. And they said to me, they said, look, he doesn't engage. Don't take it the heart. It's just how he functions. By the end of the week, his arms are up, his answering questions. I've got all the Polynesian boys who they said were going to cause me trouble engaged. Like, it was super awesome. And I found a really good way to connect was to sort of, um, discuss my path. Which gave me credibility. Like, oh, you've done stuff. Like, what was that? Like, what's this? And so you could engage them on a completely different level just coming from high school. And even to the point of like you, the year 12 lesson, they had to coordinate like a trip. But I changed it from them organizing a trip into sort of like a twist on take in the movie. I'm like, all right, you and your friend have just traveled to here. You've lost your friend. You lost them about four hours ago. Where could they be within four hours? What modes of transport are in the region? Have you checked their Facebook? Could they check in? Have you, and they started to think along, almost like his investigators. And they're like, oh, we didn't think about that. And then two of them come up to me at the end of that week. And they were like, we're traveling to Europe for schoolies next year. You've given us some good insight to at least checking on Facebook of our location so that there's a known last point that if no one hears from us. Because I think everyone thinks the world's all sunshine and rainbows. And so it's far from that. Yeah, exactly right. So it was cool to see the kids actually engage and take on board what we covered off. Yeah. So you didn't follow through with the degree? No. So after that, I was really turned off by how they had the mentality behind it. I was still super interested in working in the school. But what annoyed me was within the crack, I'd just shown I could do it. So why am I paying this university all this money to do this degree? You know what I can already, you know what I mean? Like it already effectively done. Now I'm sure there's going to be academics out there that go, well, no. You didn't do your 40 units so you can't be a teacher. You didn't register. But I'm like, if I've already done it, I'm only providing this university money to do it. And the whole, I got turned off the business side of university. And now having done it, it almost goes back to high school where back in the day, it was get a trade, go to uni. Essentially, they were the two routes you brought up following until you find a job. And I look back now and I'm like, there are so many ways around year 12 that with my children, when it comes to year 12, the pressure I had on me to get a good UAI at the time or ATAR as they know now. It was so, like there was kids there stressing, like it's kill themselves over trying to achieve a good ATAR. But there's so many ways around it. Like I look now and I'm like, if you want to go to university right, say you don't get the right ATAR, you're bomb out. You go to the bridging course at the university and you rejoin the degree you want to be in with all your mates in you too. You've lost no time. You just went a different route. But those routes aren't highlighted. A lot of the time, it's get a good grade in year 12 and you'll go to uni. Well, that's not the only way to get there. But I feel like it's these kids stress over that element. So that's why I'm focusing with my kids. I'm like, look, we can work around it. Even if you want to go to a trade, right? You go to a trade these days. You can do two years at school. You're 11 year 12. You get out. You go do two more years. With that four year qualification, you can then go do an engineering degree. Potentially go into a Masters. And if not, you're ahead of the game and you're paying for your own degree compared to going in through Hex. So I don't know. I just think this, the business of uni is like, oh, yeah, yeah. High school has come here, come to it this way, but there's so many other routes that people aren't aware of. Would you, and this is just coming from a sense, you know, when your kids grow up, are you pressuring them? I don't know if the word is pressuring, but encouraging. Are you encouraging them to finish school? I encourage them to finish year 12. Would you be comfortable if they said that data I want to drop out after year 10? I want to get my year test to get. I want to go get a trade. I want to. I would. I see where you come from. And I get it. I would guide them through to year 12. Okay. Purely just to, even if it's just the complete their trade, get those first two years under your belt at school where the support is and then move in to those other elements afterwards. So now the fact that you can do two years of your trade at year 11 year 12 now, I'm not against them doing a trade, but I'd rather them stick it out and see the whole way through high school and go that way. Yeah, okay. And if universities that go then I'll happily, you know, I mean, support that as well. I know it's not the only way if it's not the case and it's not the case. But yeah, definitely see it through. Yeah, 100%. So I was sort of next after you had sort of given up on the, on the uni side of things. So I ended up when I, when I got out, you obviously get your separation training and all that sort of jazz. I then went and did my, so I'd already got HR through the defense or heavy rigid driver's license through defense. I then went and did an upgraded it to MC. So I then left lifeguarding and went and did B double trucking. Out at Lara Pinter. Okay. Yeah. So I was running curtain B doubles out of there, hats off to the company for taking me on green. And I, because I did not know how to drive a B double one bit. I could drive the truck, no dramas, but reversing into some of these docs and that that we had to get into was insane. And I remember ringing the guy one time, I just, I'd loaded the wrong trailer combination the wrong way. So on your A trailer, you can't load it up fully, because the trailer will tip, because all the way to the front. For the B trailer to come on to. And so I'd snook at it. I'd split the load, loaded the A. Now I can't drop it. I have to have the B on it to hold it up. And I remember ringing and I was just super stressed trying to get it right. And the guy that I rang, he's like, "Ment, don't worry. I'll send another driver out there. It's all good." And had it not been for the patients they gave me. I probably would, would have quit within a week. I was super stressed. But then they, I was doing like, choose that a Saturday. They'd clear my Saturday and they just had me reversing in the yard all day. And I was like, what's the tip to this? Like, is there a trick? Am I looking for a thing? They said, once you get it, you just get it. And weirdly enough, they were right. Every situation was slightly different. But when you just got the feel for where everything was meant to be, came in. And I ended up doing that for about a year and a little bit every year. And then I got a job as a contractor with defense, instructing on the MAN vehicles. Yeah, okay. The guy, Ryan, my audio guy, he obviously is going to listen to this. He works for follow-on and he drives the gay self-check truck. Yep, nice. So he drives us, he's going to get a good laugh, listen to this. Yeah, man, it's gnarly. There is an art to it. And I remember just being at some of those depots and I'd watched some of those, the follow-on, it was SVG. Anyway, some of those companies come in and they just smooth as butter, and they just put a straight in, you're like, wow. Mind you, I hadn't had half the experience. And the truck in community was really good. I found like, I had some islander truckies get out. And they, I was stressing, I was sweating bullets. I was just like, ready to throw it in. And he got out and he just talked to me from the, I just ran down my window and he's just like, that's what I mean. All right, little left hand down and just guided me. He wasn't a driver trainer, he wasn't nothing. Just wanted to help me out. Yeah, and I'll give him a plug here. He started his own podcast called Trucking with Podge. Okay. Great, great, great concept of what he's doing. He's getting other truck drivers into, and for a chat, sort of talk about the journey through trucking and sort of like the, yep, behind the scenes of it. So it's a really good insight to, you know, truck driving. I don't believe this, you know, with our trucks, Australian stops. 100%. So I think, you know, what he's sort of doing is opening up the world to truck drivers in Australia. Well, I still truck now, casually. So I, some of my stories on Instagram and that, but I think I did 15 hours the other day. So I just drive Woolies out of La Repenta on weekends now, just because I'm giving my current Monday to Friday. It just gets me out of the house, out on the road, and sort of ties me back to sort of where it all came from anyway. Sort of grounds, just sort of. Yeah, definitely, you know what I mean? I really enjoy it. Yeah. Talks me through getting back with defense. Like obviously you're contracted to them, but yeah, you're sort of stepping back into that world. How does that sort of happen? It was fairly easy, actually. They were just looking for military driving instructors and I was like, well, I'd been posted to it when I'm posted up here. Originally, I was out of air dispatching into trucking. So I'd been posted at the truck unit in Emily. And then this opportunity came out. And finally enough, a lot of the dudes I worked with in the army had gotten out. And they were there then operating, or instructing. So it was really good to get back into that space. What was new for me was being the contractor within defense, where I look at that community. I'm like, oh, I'm a part, oh, I was a part of this. But they see it as, oh, no, you're a contractor now. You aren't. And so there was a bit of a culture shock there. Because you're like, oh, I'm back on the base I worked on. I'm back with the uniform, like not that I wore it, but back with the uniform members that I was in. But they didn't see it like that. They saw it as in, oh, hang on, you're. Rightfully so. You're not a service member anymore and you're. You're an outsider. You're a paid instructor. And so I was like, oh, that's weird. Okay, cool. And then once you knew your boundaries, it was pretty straightforward. What was any challenges that you sort of tackled doing that? Because like, you know, like you said, you're not a uniform member. You're a contractor. Obviously, that would have been a bit of ban to there. But like, you know, instructing these new people on how to do their job. Even though you're not a uniform member anymore. It was different. Yeah. Because I'd had more time in uniform than some of those dudes that were there at that unit. And some more so than me in other instructors had been there way longer, had probably way more kilometers under their belt, trucking for defense, than what some of those people in that office from the military standpoint had. What, what year was this? 2000. 19. Okay. Yeah. So just before COVID? Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. It was there because that was a whirlwind of a time going through that. But yeah, that was probably the biggest thing was like, you're like, oh, the banter. You got to be mindful because whilst you are from that community, they are now the client. So you have to be very careful on that professional line of now being a contractor and not falling into the banter you would have had with your soldiers back in the day. So that was a bit of an eye over. And what, where were you stationed at? Embley. Embley. Yeah. Did you do any work at Greenbank? That's where we would do all our off-road driving. Oh, okay. So out at Greenbank, they've got what's called this SDA, which is a safe driving area. And they've also got their off-road truck course there as well. Yeah, because that's like, this has just gone from knowledge of being around this area for a long time. Like, you know, you've got the entry there at Greenbank, but then it goes all the way up to-- Forest Lake there. Forest Lake, Forest Al area. I am like that. And then it goes on to the centenary heading towards like Northern suburbs. Yep. That area there. So like, that's right. So it's a fairly big base. And like, so obviously, because I know they've got signs that have said, like, you know, live shooting these days. Correct. So they do all that there? All of it. Yeah, okay. Demolitions, small arms, rifles, all that jazz. Yeah. So all the ranges are there. So when I was in, we'd go there for rain shoots. But we used to go through the Forest Lake entrance. The Forest Lake entrance now is just sealed off. Now that main entrance on this side of Greenbank is now the go-to. Yeah, okay. So that's why all this truck wash bay areas are there is because obviously that's what they are. Yeah, okay. So when you come off off-roading so you don't take mud on the road and flick it everywhere, come out going on your trucks down, and then we drive back to Emily. When you're doing this driver and trucking and like, you know, you're on base, you're helping out. Is there any part of you that's sort of thinking, fuck, maybe I actually do want to get back in? I miss it a lot all the time in moments because I miss how it was when I was in. Yeah. Give me the same people, give me the same, you know what I mean, I miss that moment in time. I do miss being a soldier, but I don't know if I'd want to be involved in that capacity in today's military. Just because of the way it's changed, I'd probably end up in trouble. You know what I mean, I'd probably say the wrong thing, or do the wrong thing and get proud for it. But there were elements of it, definitely. But I liked the instructing element too for the fact that I could pass on what I knew from B double driving now that I knew these guys didn't have. They were coming from medium ridgids or heavy ridgids and did any of a dream for defense. And you're like, well, there's so much more to it. And I even, I cross, pollinate the knowledge with the civilian truck drivers as well. Like you see some of them and you're like, use all the space available to you. Because especially in defense, they'll want to just keep left and then try and make the turn from the turn to turn. And you're like, man, where 15 meters long, you're not going to make it. You're going to take out the bloody post. Make your position known, take up all the space you can. And if anything, prevent them from doing anything like other drivers, I mean. So it occurred to me when I was coming out of Forest Lake, I was in a B double. And I had my B trailer in the left lane, A trailer in the right lane. And I was turning left that around about as my B trailer tracked into the right lane as I'm coming around the corner, a posty road up the inside. And the B trailer cut the corner, obviously, as a wood. And I didn't see him until I got around onto the straight. Look at my mirror and all I see is letters all over the grass. Because what had happened is he mounted the gutter to get away from the B trailer cutting across because he thought he could get in front. But the lane he was trying to take ended within like five meters of the turn. And so I've taken that experience on and I'm just like to take up all the room you can and do not allow them an inch because they'll take it. Because you like to think, and I know this is a saying that it was always said, but you'd like to think common sense would prevail. But some people just don't get the concept of what you're trying to do. No matter how obvious you make it either. So yeah, like I said, I took up two lanes with the left indicator on and he saw the B trailer move despite the prime going around the corner and trying to make the scoop for it. Yeah. Coming into 2019, obviously COVID hits like towards end of 2019. How was COVID for you and what did you sort of go through? I survived it pretty well in comparison to how other people suffered through that time. Being contracted with defense, there were elements in place, but our contract was maintained through that period. So we were pretty lucky that there was no real loss of income or anything through that period purely because of that contract with defense. Did you have to get any mandatory shots done? No, no. No, there was no requirement for it, but the mask thing was a big thing, especially when you're trying to instruct from a driving perspective. Like it was masks on in the cabs and all that sort of jazz. It's funny now that you look back on it and you're like, what a waste of time. Did you know what I mean? Like 100%. Like the amount of resources that got on it and all that I see anyone that's gained from that moment or from that period of time is the cost of everything went up. Nothing's returning despite how good it got. And it just seems to have been this flow on effect of how we live today. Yeah, it's crazy. They say they were back to normal, but I'll be really like, everything's going up and they're sort of thinking, well, we'll just keep it that way. Yeah, exactly right. Well, why would they go back? Everyone's accustomed out of living that way. Yep. Crazy. How long were you doing the driver training for? I was there for, till the end of contract, which would have been about June 2021. Okay. What was next after that? So then I just moved into the contractor space. So I work with clients now in the e-learning environment. Okay. So I went from physical instruction and facilitation now into specializing in Moodle, which is a form of learning system, learning management system. Okay. And what's, what are you sort of teaching there? Is it still driving? No. So I'm a system administrator, so I'm just you coordinating user access, helping facilitate the entire system so that people and clients can use it appropriately. And what, what sort of stuff are you offering? So I manage their systems for training. So there's a range of training from logistics to security, all our clients are predominantly defense and national security clients. Yeah. Okay. How do you sort of come about that? That's a pretty unique job in its own. It's me and my mate still laugh about it. So I saw my old corporal from the army posted a, posted a thing on Facebook going, if anyone's looking for a job, give me a bell and I was like, okay, what's this about? So I messaged him and I was like, hey, my contract's coming to an end. What's this, what's going on here? And my previous company had received a contract to conduct the air dispatch training online. So it was to move all the facilitation and learnings from air dispatch physically into the virtual space of e-learning within army. And I was like, okay, and we were going to be employed as the SMEs, as the subject matter experts on air dispatch. So we're like, okay, we know who, who in the zoo to talk to, all our mates are still at the unit. So we're able to coordinate the expertise and the training and sort of put it all together. And that's where it kicked off, purely from a Facebook post and we still laugh about it today. It's here, right? Yeah. Obviously, the old corporal mate, he wasn't in, in at all. No, he'd gotten out. Okay, cool. Yep. So he'd been headhunted for the position. Yep. And then he was looking for anyone else who was keen to jump on board and get involved. And then that started our e-learning journey and we're still doing it today. So that's what 2021 to now. Yeah. Okay. So have you progressed up the ladder at all, like the career ladder as they call it? Yeah. So I'm now the associate director of learning systems and my mate is the director of learning systems. So we now offer the services of whether it's learning design, whether it's course management, course delivery, all that jazz, whether one stop shop now. Yeah, right. And that's, is Australia wide or is that just in Queensland? Australia, international, wherever it's required. Yep. Yeah, obviously it has some pretty big contracts with some pretty, pretty big clients. Yeah, predominantly our clients are Australian based, but our mood is so international, but there's also a number of different elements that we can operate on that if the client was to come from overseas, but they utilize that learning management system we can facilitate it definitely. Yeah. Cool. One of the biggest things that I've sort of taken away from, you know, seeing all over your socials and all that sort of stuff is team tuning, fishing. Yep. What's the idea for team tuning, fishing, fishing come into play? I was thinking about you asking this question actually and team tuning actually wasn't started by me. The idea was from friends when I was playing rugby in Sydney. Okay. They came to a grand final and it had team tuning on this massive sheet. They'd painted up with all my old rugby colors and friends and my misses and all that just rocked up to the game on the hill. And so team tuning became this thing at rugby where, oh, team Tunis here was just a little fan group of friends that would rock up to games. And then one day 2017, I'm at BCF looking at fishing jerseys and I'm like, everyone's got these jerseys. You go down the boat ramp. There's nothing special about them because there'll be 15 other blokes with the same Shimano shirt. I probably shouldn't say the name, but you don't mean like other businesses that have those jerseys. You know, two Shay, like what the markup on them, they're probably paying $2 as a unit. Not that I thought about the business and the time, I just didn't want to look like everyone else. So I looked into how do I get my own jerseys made purely for me and the old man to go fishing. You didn't want to be a sheep. You wanted to be a shepherd. Yeah, exactly right. So we got two designed and then we had like a DigiCam design originally and I hit up Quintracks and asked if I could put their logo across the front of our jerseys just to make it look cool. And they were like, yes, sweet, like go for it. So we plastered it on my shirt and the old man's and then someone found, we were walking past someone and they're like, oh, where'd you get your jerseys from? We haven't seen them around. And I'm like, oh, they're custom and they're like, how do we get one? And that's what sparked team tuning fishing was purely the lack of design and the amount of shirts that were out there that looked the same to us designing our own to that one person asking, hey, how do I get one? Yeah. And I thought, oh, maybe there's something in this. So I followed through with it. So our original logo was an anchor. Pretty, you know what I mean? Standard. Standard. Yeah. And then it sort of evolved and I come up with a bunch of different designs. We've always paid homage to defense. The Camo was always a big influence. And then I thought, maybe I've got to start doubling down on this and see what comes of it. So the logo, the Pelican is actually the mascot of the air dispatch squadron unit mascot. Are they yours? Yes. So my unit within army, the Pelican was the mascot. So I used the Pelican to come across because no one in fishing was using Pelican at the time. So I was like, I kind of fit everything. And I got a local veteran Cody's art to do up the logo for me. And we took off from there. So we've always sort of supported a charity as we've gone and got really serious. Currently, our charity of choice is young veterans. So we always try to promote them. We try and donate what we can, but it's expensive, just to operate a bloody website now. But if I can sproot them and hopefully get them out there that people might throw a couple of bucks away and help some veterans afterwards. And then yeah, we've got sponsors involved for like competitions when we go in on the bloody classic and get involved in that. Sponsors want to be involved. So it's good fun. Is there what's sort of, what sort of stuff are you selling? Is there the right way? So the catalog of products we've got at the moment of hats, jerseys, we just did a run with Budgie Smuggler. Okay. Smugglers are available. I've sort of gone away from stocking items now because you might have a medium in stock but someone wants an extra large. So I've gone back to the pre-order style of it. Yeah, okay. I think over the next year, where do I see teams in the fishing going is we probably move away from the retail element. I would really love to have an invitation or fishing team. So there's a bunch of comps around the country, $1,000, you've got SCFs, King of Kings in Japan. Yep. The bloody classic Malacuda down in Victoria. So some really good comps, what I, my dream would be is to get some sponsorship together for an annual sponsorship rather than event sponsorship and then take a team. So just bunch of good dudes and we go and fish those comps and sort of create, you know, in rugby, you've got the bar bars or you've got those touring teams, the Lions who are just a combination of everyone and go on a trip and, you know, I mean, have an epic time. That's essentially what we want to try and drum up. Yeah, okay. That sounds like a pretty good idea. Yeah, man. And, you know what I mean? Like, and then build the brand value through that with team tuning fishing because the retail is good. But the first thing you copy is, oh, but I can go buy Shimano for 40 bucks or I can go buy an Abu Garcia jersey or, you know, I mean, some other company at BCF, I can get two for a hundred. Yep. I'm like, well, I'm not going to explain, like, go or get one of our jerseys and check them out. You know, I mean, I don't skimp on quality with our gear. And something I've learned through this business journey is, don't ever fall into the trap of trying to prove why you're better because you invite the argument. Yeah. You can only provide you the ways in which we are different because you can't challenge that. Yeah. We're veteran owned. We support local businesses. Like, if I start going, oh, our quality is better, well, it's subjective, isn't it? Yeah. A hundred percent. And so I don't fall into that sort of, we're better than this, better than that. We are just different. We're Aussie, and it is worth it. I shared something on Instagram a few days ago, and this is probably something that would sort of relate to what you just said with someone coming up to you, like even if it was friends or family, coming up to you saying, oh, I can go buy a shirt from BCF or Taco World. That's a bit cheaper. But I shared this thing and it was, and I don't know if you saw that. I didn't see it, no. It's basically just a picture of Bart Simpson, and it was pretty much just AI generated. But it's holding a sign and it says, support your friends and family, just like you support celebrities who don't even know you exist. It's so true. And I don't know if you've experienced this. I found friends and family the hardest to get on board. Yeah. The hardest. Doing this podcast, friends and family. What are you wasting your time for? Yeah. Like, you're not going to make a million bucks out of it. You're not going to do my brand awareness is worth more to me than my sales. Like, yeah, sales are good. But I've been down the goal coast and someone saw my youth with the tensiony fish, or we follow you on Instagram, like yelling out at us. We follow you on Instagram, like giving us a shout out, the bloody classic, the young kids. Oh, we follow you guys on socials, like that's the sort of interaction I love. And how often do they get to meet Mr. Shimano or Mr. Abu Garcia, you know, you probably never missed a tackle. Well, exactly right. Like, I like that ability to be able to converse with everyone and show them what it's about. It's not for everyone. If you don't get on board, it's cool. But we're here if you want it. Yeah. So obviously you're an avid fisher. Yeah. You have fishermen. Sorry. Yep. I, like I said, the knuckles at time, I am a professional amateur. Yeah. I just absolutely love getting out there and if we don't score anything, then just being out in the boat and the water is just as much of bloody wind for me is catching a big one. Yeah. So when you sort of first start, you know, dabbling to into the side of making merch, hearts, shirts, stuffy coolers, what sort of routes do you, socks, what's, I actually just noticed that. It's awesome. What sort of routes do you need to take? Like are you looking online at different suppliers, are you mixing matching, like break down the whole backstory of it? It's hard. So sublimation is purely the best form for quality and for the long lasting sort of kit. Yeah. Kind of find a sublimator in Australia is awfully difficult. And that's the first one that thing everyone says is, oh, do you have some border strand? I'm like, I could, but it would be a $450 shirt by the time we order it, like there's some given takes with it. And I think that's probably a good reason for the charity element as well is that we still give back to Australian charities in that regard, but trying to find a sublimator was super difficult. Just so just for people that don't know, what is sublimating? OK, so it's the process in which a pattern, color, design is transferred onto clothing. Yep. So basically they'll print it on paper, cut out the pieces of garment, put it on top and then they bake it across and it transfers that way, rather than like a screen print, which is ink put onto a shirt. And a lot of the time you find people will do promotional stuff with screen print because it's cheaper, but over time it'll peel, OK, not always, but sometimes or fade where sublimation is imprinted into the fabric and is just super durable. Obviously, we've gone to hoods on our fishing shirts as well because I find the biggest argument, I'll come back to it. Hoods on, mull on the lawn, you can put your hat on your head sock. If you want a head sock, we've got pro series jerseys now that have the head sock built into it, which is super handy for being on the boat. You don't have to worry about whether you're broader or not. So yeah, sublimation is super hard. I go through middleman because he does all my designs or they do all my designs as well. So I pay a premium for that service. But when I compare the quality of product at the end, go to BCF, feel around, I can feel that they've gone for mass production over time where mine are made through reprieve, which is recycled material, plastic bottles, and the thickness of material, the stitching, everything just seems to be that next level up. And that's what I identified within the fishing jerseys is, everyone's like, oh, I can get him cheaper. I can get him cheaper. No one took the premium gap in the market. And I was like, you know what, no, we, our gear is premium. So I've priced it accordingly and that's the element we're going to take. I found with fishing across a lot of the brands and merch and apparel mobs that are now popping up. They're fighting for that piece of the market that everyone wants to be super cheap. And I'm like, well, that's not the route we're going to take. I'm going to maintain the quality because that's what people are going to recognize my brand with. And we're just going to take the top end. I'm not going to say, well, I'm not going to say what Gucci, but you don't walk into Gucci hoping to pay camera process. Yeah. 100%. So like I said, I don't have any real will, everyone's pinching for a dollar at the moment, but we hold quality gear. Yeah. That's sort of what you want, the end goal to be is you want your brand to be known for quality. Definitely. Quality over quantity sort of. Definitely. You do one bad shirt and boom, tarnished, which is why I, my costs are premium. But that's why we're priced premium is because I don't want to afford. I could go to Vietnam. I could go get super cheap jerseys and that works for some people, but I don't want my brand to be recognized with it. And I sort of with my other products, I'm bouncing with other people as well, like we're here wearing knuckles, CTC hats. It's leveraging each other to help promote each other. He's known for his quality in truckers. Hey, that's what I want to be known with, budgies known for their quality swimwear. That's what we want to be known with. I don't want to be considered. I'm just saying that that's the route we're taking. Yeah. 100%. Are you guys doing the possibility of like fishing gear, like fishing rods, liwers, anything like that? Is there anything in the works for that? Not at this point in time. I wouldn't mind partnering with someone if that's the way they want to go and do a series of rods that are you know, I mean team two new special along that line like that could be a super cool veteran spin on that sort of stuff, like come to the armory. You know, we're we're we're working here with firing, you know, I mean, come to the armory and get your weapon of choice, you know, I mean, could be a six foot spin rod or a seven and a half foot bait castile, but you know, I mean, I'd be more inclined to work with people in that element. I really would like to see that invitational style of touring team come out probably in the future, rather than doing tackle. Hmm. There's a lot of people doing it, um, some do it better than others and finding that line. There's a lot of R&D trying to identify quality stuff that I'm like, I probably don't have the time at this, um, impency of team tuning fishing. Like we've been around since 2017, but our brand awareness is probably our biggest thing. Is there a, uh, I think for you to possibly want to do this full time? Is there a way for you to do it full time? Potentially. Um, I've looked at potentially going down the non-for-profit route as well and doing veteran fishing trips and sort of giving back to the community that way, but other people are doing that. And I'd rather help them push up then, um, take something away from me. Then try and compete. Yeah. Um, I'm really happy in our space of just doing content. A lot of people say to me, why don't you do veteran tours and that and I'm like, to be honest. Some mates I wouldn't go fishing with for four hours a day, they didn't know the hell out of me. So I'm like, I'm very aware of it. But what we aim to do is advocate for the life that can be had after defense. A lot of people find that, you know, I mean, the black dog chase them a little bit and what we try to show is it's like go live, go check it out. There's fun to be had. Get out there and do it. Yeah. And that's probably another thing that I've, you know, forgot to bring on with you as well. Like a lot of people have been in for defense for so long. That's all they know. As soon as they leave school, they're straight into the defense force. They're in there for, you know, five, 10, 15 years, even longer. And then they come out and they're into civilian life. Yep. They don't know what to do with themselves. And that's why through team tuning fishing, we're trying to highlight and advocate that there is a life to be had. Don't worry about what you were. There are times where I look back and I'm like, I could get sad about it, but I almost take it hours. It was a job I had. You know, I mean, I'm no longer that now. This is where we're at. And that's probably the way we help people is just go or keep tracks down board. Let's go. This is what you can do too. Yep. Yep. 100%. I listened to something today. Can you tell me or what it was? What is moist tackle fishing? So that was a little bit of play on words. I have had, I wouldn't say arguments, but there's been so many discussions around the use of moist tackle. It was purely a way for us to stay in people's heads because some people despise the word. Yeah. Moist. But it's only how you interpret it. Yeah. And I leave that purely up to everyone. Mind you, majority of the people that have issues with it are female. And I can see why. But I could put wet tackle. Like this? It's not as appealing. Exactly. But the reason we put it in there was it plays to the larykinism of the Australian soldier and that it would rub some people the wrong way. Like it's almost that, the bait. But also it was a way of people remembering team tuning fishing like moist. Like what? And it's a really funny discussion point. Yeah. Because what I listened to today was you'd given your supplier a logo and you didn't pick up on it. So we did a run of a ton of major and Langham got one as well. And no one picked up on it because the brand awareness was so strong that oh, yeah, it just looks the same. But it wasn't until I was in the line and someone behind me went moist tackle fishing. And I was like, what? How have they put that together? And then I looked at the logo and it was a concept art. So I was in the process of potentially thinking team tuning fishing wasn't the right way. But maybe moist tackle fishing was the way to go to forward for us. And so I got a concept artwork done up. Now stupidly when I went and got the design and the artwork done for the jerseys for that year, I had sent the concept art, not the logo. I signed off on it. My artist accepted it. No one picked up on it until this one drunk dude in line to register for the flady classic brought it up. That was what sparked it and I was like, so I rang my suppliers like delete that file to never use it again until we talk about it. But yeah, purely came from that could come back as a rare sort of piece of art. Well, on the budgies, on the budgies, I've included it on the front because once again, it plays on, you know, I mean moist tackle, you're going to get wet if you wear and budgies in the water. So we thought, ah, it fits, put it on the front logo on the back and go from there. And the reason we part paired up with budgies was, I wear them when I go fishing purely to standard boardies or whatever, quick dry, it's nice and easy under 40 shorts. And so I was like, I'm up for a new set. So I messaged budgie customs and was like, let's get this done. And they're like, yep, let's do it. And then I just threw it out there and ended up selling quite a few pairs. So I was like, oh, sweet. Must be something people are interested in. Let's go. Yeah. This comes to Clotsie from Bloody Brent Beers, because he has a thing with budgie smugglers. And he's just got an absolute dad bod of a rig. But when you see a guy like that wearing budgie smugglers and you know, a guy like me, I could be like, fuck, you know what? I'm actually my look that couldn't budgies do. He's been with him for a while, too, hasn't he? I think so. Yeah. I played rugby against him. I had to jump. Yeah. So he plays for, or he played for Jeeps over an Ashgrove. Okay. I come up against him on a Friday night and make top bloke, good, good for a bit of a laugh that bloke. He was a life of the party, definitely after, after a footying around the bar. Yeah. You were talking earlier before, I think even before we started that you went to the Potty Royale. Was it last year? Did you go? Or did you go into both? No. So I only went to the last one because the boys laying in a major were going. Yep. And so they gave me one of their tickets. And I was like, all right, well, for you to allow me to come. I'll film for you. So alongside Trista when that, I just filmed him. And it got to the point where when they were walking over for the fight, I was like, I'm just going to follow him. No one's hit me up for a ticket yet. And I walked straight into the back of the sheds like where everyone was getting ready. And I just had the camera in hand, but because everyone was doing it, we just got let through. And the boys, we ended up going through the wrong door and we walked the entire way around the building. But it looked awesome because it was like a UFC entry. Like you're walking past the sound guys, the TV guys, the lighting guys in the tunnels. Like it looked really cool. And I was like, oh, this is epic. And what an event. Like I said to Langham actually the other day, I was like, how do I get involved? I was like, I want to get in there and have a bit of a round. He goes, you got to be on a potty. I'm like, maybe if I just guessed enough podcasts, knuckles will give me the call up in the heavyweight division. Yeah, well, there you go. Come have a crack. Let's go. Well, I think they're looking not only for podcasters, but influencers as well. So mate, put your application in mate. There you go. I'm definitely going to have a crack because I was like, man, that was short. So goxy was running late and they thought he wasn't going to show. And so I was like, mate, you looked at me and he's like, should we just throw it? Because we're at the weigh in and goxy's nowhere to be seen. And they're like, is he even going to come do this fight? And we're all looking around and I was like, yeah, just point it out. I was like, I'm 125 kegs or like, we can probably pull this off. Let's go. And it was the night, like night or the night before. And goxy obviously ended up showing up, but that was pretty funny. But what? And I was just like, how good is it to see the podcast community lift everybody up? I feel like in the veteran community, it's getting better. Veteran businesses and influencers and that sort of stuff. But it's very much, oh, did you, when you come back core, were you not come back core? Did you do anything overseas? Did you not do anything overseas rather than just in the podcast world? It's everyone just, like you said earlier, everyone just bring everyone up. Yeah. Sort of just like when you come back to the army thing, like it's, you know, it's what you did away. Didn't do. It's not. Hey, we all served Australia. That's right. Yeah. Yeah. There's gates to credibility with veterans. Yep. But no, the podcast Royal was epic. Did you end up going? You didn't go to the gym? No, I didn't know. I had the Frazier trip and then got tons of artists and that was in hospital. And then I was saying to Taylor that like because I got out of hospital on the Thursday and I'd been shot out with a whole of antibiotics. And I was like, do we get it to, do we, because I think there was still a couple of tickets, like standing tickets. Yep. I get a couple of tickets and go down. But when Saturday rolled around, I was just, I just wasn't feeling it. Yeah. So I think I just laid on the lounge and just ordered it. And I think I got to about the fourth or fifth or five before the stream actually started working properly. I heard that. Yeah. Problems with it. Well, they sold it. Better be. It was a sponsor and better be ran out. Yeah. They sold the joint out. And everyone was like, oh. So hopefully, where do you hear that happen? Well, tell me about it. So hopefully next year, you better be double down on their supply because we were on an all day. We're like, yeah, this is good to go. And I hadn't really had better be prior to it. Yep. I actually spoke with better be for the flatty classic last year. Oh, okay. But I think I left it a little bit too late, because I was like, hey, do you just want to be our beer sponsors for the, for the flatty classic? Like, well, we can do logos on jerseys and try to really work it out with them because the amount of work they're doing in that space is crazy, like for all the podcasts and that. We were like, oh, we'll throw out the invite. And I'm a firm believer, like even from that early days in politics, if you don't ask me, it's a guaranteed no. Yep. But you never know. You just might ask. And someone might go, you know what? Let's do it. Yep. So what's sort of on the agenda for team Tony, for Heath? What's sort of the go today? Um, at the moment, we've just finished up our most recent pre-yielder for budgies that will be, they should be arriving next week, I believe. So we should have them out a week after. We should have them out before Chrissy. Um, I've just put in another pre-yielder for shirts, but I've opened up the pre-orders for our jerseys and budgies. And I'll close them at the end of December. Okay. It's usually about a six or seven week turnaround just because of the process to manufacture. Just for context, this episode will come out in 2026, but when you do put the stuff up, I'll be sure to share it all. Yeah, no drivers, man. We'll probably do another pre-order early next year, and now we will start to reach out to sponsors or potential sponsors and see what sort of stuff we can drum up. A lot of the time, we do it just for the flady classic. That allows us to fund accommodation, people, fuel, all that sort of just to go. Hopefully next year we can get a bit more of a boost and then we might be able to look at potentially increasing our competitions that we get involved in, go from there. Yeah, cool. Well, do you have like a, you don't need to say, but do you have a favorite fishing spot, so in fish, you like to catch? To be honest, I just like being out in the water. I went fishing early at the start of the year at 1770, and we went a couple of hours off shore with the Mrs. Cousin in his boat and got me first Spanish macro. Nice. And that was epic. So I want to get north a bit. There is one comp I want to do, which is Malacuda, black broom and big flatties. What about those? Down there, Victoria. Okay. I wouldn't mind getting down there, but yeah, I'm pretty much open to everything. I'd like to learn a little bit more fresh water. It could be potentially on the cards next year to try and find someone who's in the fresh water and maybe just get them some team tuning kit and I'll come with you on. Show us how it's done. I love fishing. I just never get the time to do it because we used to, as kids, we used to take a family holiday down to Stuart's Point. Yep. It's about 30 minutes north of Camsie. So we used to stay at the little holiday park there and you have the McClay River. They go through there and then over the bridge and then it's about a five, ten minute walk and you're at the beach. That's mad. So I know it was certain spots because I have a family that lived down there too and they sort of know all the secret spots. Yep. So I always used to go fishing there as a kid, but never really, like I've been at Jacob's well and all that sort of stuff, but I like everyone goes there. Yeah. No, that's sort of the problem that everyone goes there. You don't want to, you know, you don't want to be that follower. I've been trying to get out in the bay a little bit more just to learn more because I've always been pin south. Yep. I really want to try and get pin north. I want to try and get a bit more experience up around the bay area, even maybe getting off shore. There's another dude on YouTube out of line. He does a bit of work out of the bay. I think he's a ready bay boy. But funnily enough, talking about we went away on holidays just for the flirty classic down to foster tongue curry. Okay. I put the boat in. So I just put on this new boat latch. So I had the ability to drive up on the trailer and it just hooks on and same for a release. You drive forward at unhooks and you go in the water. And I remember setting the boat up. I was like, sweet. Good to go. So I unhook the boat. I drive in my car and trailer still in a boat ramp. And I always go through a bit of a figure eight with the boat, make sure everything's working, electrics are on. And I'm like, man, we're getting a bit heavy on the right here. And we're taking on like, something's not right. And I don't know why, but I immediately just went because I've never been in that situation for I flick the build on and it's pump and water. And I was like, I didn't put the fucking bugs in and so I literally just put the throttle down to try and get up on the plane trying to drop some of the water and the bow start in the climb. And I'm like, oh, no. Luckily I was about six meters off the ramp and I just ram it onto the trailer. I get the hook, the hook catches and I yell out to my mate and I'm like, oh, he come pull the fucking root forward, pulls me forward and just let us start pouring out the bag. And I was like, lucky I didn't send it because on the plane it's not really going to take on, but I could have been out in the middle of, you know, and Wallace Lake and sunk it. So I got super lucky that time. And to the point now where I've just had a decal artwork approved, which is, what do I call it? GTB, get your buns and put a picture of a bun on this and I've got made a decal up over that story that I'll be throwing up and definitely sticking on the back of the boat just to remember. Just give yourself a reminder. Oh, I was feeling, it was in front of everyone to all my old mates from school and that they just like, you forgot the buns in the yard. Have you had sort of any idea on maybe starting starting your own, like I know you do socials and stuff, but like start your own show or a little vlogs here and then I've never been the one that wants to talk today. We're going to be chasing Floodies with this lure and that's it for some people. I'd rather just show having a good time because I think more people can relate to that. But I have started the series on YouTube and I started quite a while ago. So YouTube has been going. I think I'm a 403 subscribers at the moment, so I push them for the five hungey. But I identified a space. So I was in the SCM, sorry, Sunshine Coast competition, don't do much fish up there. I was like, where am I going to put the boat in? So I start reviewing boat ramps and I'm looking and I have to jump on Google Earth, is it a concrete ramp, is it a dirt ramp, is there parking, is there lighting, how safe is it? And so I had to do all this research into going to this boat ramp and I'm like, the idea is struck that, oh, I'm going to do boat ramp reviews. How handy would it be to be able to go on a YouTube and see where the local tackle shop is, is it a toilet, is there, because when you go kids, is there a toilet, is there someone to get it on the eat? What facilities are around, is the infrastructure good as a crap. So I started a YouTube series called boat ramp reviews, where I literally just travel around, go different boat ramps and review the boat ramp so that people that are looking to go to those regions and fish out of that spot can jump on YouTube and see, none of them really go over 15 minutes. I always try to keep it short sharp and simple. But I cover off, is there toilets available, is there power, is there cameras, is there lighting, how, what's the condition of the boat ramp, is it good, is it trash, does it seem safe, is there a jetty, whole heap of different things. So land-based fishers I guess could use it too, but I thought there was just a bit of a gap in that knowledge so I was like, I'm just going to get out there and share the love a little bit. How's it been going? Good actually, and it's been awesome in the fact that like, I'm in down to Coffs Harbour, I did some boat ramps down there, I've done, I didn't do 1770 but I've been up north and done a few up there, Foster, pretty much anywhere I go, I'll try and buy the boat ramp and get a video done. And the amount of community involvement, oh yeah, yeah, if you go to the left here, there's another one over the other side, all this sort of little feedback. So if you get on there and have a look, definitely check out the comments because a lot of people then add local knowledge to it and build it up so it's really, really good. Yeah, nice mate. Nice. Hey, I think we're coming sort of towards the end of the conversation, mate, it's been a fucking hectic story. No, thanks mate. I haven't been here in everything that you sort of been through with, you know, wanting to get into politics, heading off to the army, leaving the army, doing a bit of truck driving, doing your e-learning, starting team tour needs, fucking phenomenal, all you've been doing. Yeah, it's probably 80 HD to be honest, I can't sit still and I'm just looking for the next best thing, but no, I really enjoy it. No, also mate. I've got some guest questions to finish off if you can. So first off, mate, what advice can you give to people about completing their goals in life if they're personal, professional, people want to join the army, if people want to get into fishing, what advice can you give? As a blanket, block the noise and just run full tilt at it. To the military, I always suggest try doing something you can't do on the outside. I know a lot of people who would drive trucks on the outside, go, "I'll just go be a truck in the army." Yeah. "Why?" You can make more money on the outside than you can in the army. Go do something you can't do anywhere else, whether it's tank driving or parachuting or something like that. Go live. Hmm. Would you recommend defense forces a job to someone coming out of high school? 100%. Yep. It was bad stories, but I think that didn't have any organisation. But from my experience, I had an awesome time. Awesome, mate. Awesome. Now, when you're not doing team tourney, when you're not driving trucks, when you're not doing e-learning, what is something you'd like to get up to in spare time? I love Milan. Yeah, okay. I'm a bit of a lawny. All right. I think the men and a couple of mates have a Facebook group that we're on chat where we just throw shade at each other for how bad their hedges look or something like that, but I'm absolutely love getting into the lawn and get it squared away. Yeah. Is there any certain things you're running like Cylinder Mowers put a self-propelled Honda at the moment because I'm on 900 squares, so it's quite a big space. I would love to re-turf it to be able to then get the Cylinder Mower in, but financially I'm just not there. Yeah. I'd rather go take the boat out, put some fuel in it and get the flickle of it, so it's just wild grass mate and just keeping it looking nice. Yeah, 100%. Now, you've sort of spoken of before, but what are your plans for the near future? Just to get out more, get out, live a little bit more, get the adventures happening, whether it's forbian, fishing, camping and try and get a few more coordinated trips up and get yourself the 2PK boys up here and get out there and have a good sash, whether it's on the boat or on the mud. Next time, I've got a four-wheel drive with a high luck, so mate, forbian, I'll be there any day, fishing. Let me know next time you get out on the boat, I'll come with you. Is your manual auto? Auto. Yes, sweet. So you can throw it in neutral when I have to pull you out. Hey, we're actually, we went to Fraser and Taylor's stepfather, he's got a Colorado, like souped up, all the glam done to it and all that sort of stuff, I had to pull him out of a boghole, stock high luck, it's pretty much part of a pull, mate. There you go, there you go. Now, you've been a pretty open book this whole chat, but what is something that people don't know about you? I actually brought this up at a corporate event recently that when I was in primary school, I found a human skull, just to add to the stories that you've heard today. Fucking hell, it's something about that. So we were on a camp trip in year seven, year eight, so it must be, it was high school. It was year seven or year eight, we were down at your minor, no, Aladala. So we're down at Aladala and we're snorkeling on a camping trip with school and means to make sort of fish swim under a rock and we're like, oh, let's go for you, let's see if we can get it. So we swim down and we flip it and it's the top half of a skull, the bottom jaw wasn't there. All I remember was this three of us just bubbles, we're like, what the hell? And then it got to the point where we're like, all right, we'll just take it back. So we went back down and we put it in, I had a rashy on. So we took my rashy off through the skull and it took it back to the bank and the teachers like what the, so police came, like divers came, there was massive investigation involved with it. And we found out later on, mind you, I lost my rashy too, they kept that, but found on later on that it was an old Aboriginal burial ground and that it was potentially the skull of a six year old girl from that region because the erosion had just come into the ocean in that area. Yeah, right. So yeah, a little bit of, fuck, yeah, that's definitely going on, no, and that's why we have these podcasts we learn, we learn all new things. Now I ask a question to everyone, this question's always different for every guest because it's just a question that sort of tailored to the person's story. So what's something that you learned in the army that you took into team Tony? Probably tenacity, like, don't be afraid to take the fight. But head on. Yep. Whether that's setting up your business, the challenges you face, the amount of criticism I caught from friends and family, like, what are you wasting your time, your money and all that jazz on and just when you've got your objective, seek it and achieve it. Yep. Yep. 100%. Love that. Mate, you've committed a crime and it's got your death row. The last move you watch, and the last meal you eat, can be a TV show. I'd probably go and I think this because I apply now, I have children, but lower abiding citizen. Yeah, okay. That's with Jared Butler. Yep. Either that or the Patriot. That's a great movie. Yeah. Heath Ledger Mel Gibson. Yeah. Stop it. Epic. It's gotta be some barbecue, brisket, ribs, something like that. Have you been a rusty penny? No, I haven't. Oh, man. Oh, get down to rusty penny. I've been on their podcast twice now and now I hear everyone gets invited, like Uber's paid for, they get taken for feeds, I'm like, these dudes in the, I had to take my own beer last time I went on their podcast. I was like, these guys have stepped that up, I'm going to have to get back down there and crack. Well, I said to, I said to Langham because we're always planning to make the trip down to Sydney. So I come down, I'll do three podcasts with you guys, I'll do Tristo Langham and Major. Yep. And then after that, we'll jump on and do an episode with you guys. Yep. There's a fucking long day. I think I got there at 8 o'clock in the morning and we end up leaving majors at like 5.30. I was fucking, I was cooked afterwards, but we were just all fang and just to get to rusty penny. I don't blame you. Got there. Actually, there's a really good barbecue joint at Cal bar, two mates, Shano, runs it. Okay. Best I've had around in this region, definitely. You have to send me the link and I'll go check it out. Yeah, go check them out. They're good. Yep. And that's a message to Major and Langham next time Tony's down there, mate, just take him to the fucking rusty penny. Yeah. Fucking tied up. Let's go. Now, three people dead alive, you sit down and have to know with and why. Stay though and it's going to be on there. It's almost like, I feel like I say things about Rob killing it at the moment. I'm like, it's almost like the uncle you never had. You've always felt a part of the family, never been, but never been actually related. Three people. I think someone along the lines of Richard Branson would be really interesting from a business perspective. Okay. I think that's good. Maybe John Howard. Yeah. Okay. Did you ever meet him when you went down through Parliament? Briefly. Yeah. Very, very briefly, but to actually be able to sit down and have a young would be interesting. Yep. So stay though and Richard Branson, John Howard. Yeah. It's nice. Nice. It's nice. It's nice. Now, this is a bit more of a serious question, but 100 years after we've gone, we've left this earth. How would you like to be remembered? As an epic, probably by then, great-grandfather. Yeah. Now, honestly, everything I do now is for my family. If I can get team tuning fishing off the ground, my goal is to employ my kids. Well, you know what I mean? At least offer that ability for my kids to then take something and run with it. If they do, they do. If not sell it, make some coin and go live life. Yeah. But everything I do now is to purely set them up. Yep. I had, and this is a few episodes ago, I hadn't Maddie on from Country Duds. Yep. And I sort of asked her that question and she said something to do, like because obviously she has her clothing brand, but she wanted to create generational wealth. Yeah. So it just helps her kids out and it sort of just feeds down the line as well. Yeah. I think that's important these days, and I think it's getting to that point where you almost have to otherwise, if you're not thinking of setting them up now, you could get a hard route. Us now. Yeah. It's going to be like with them. Yep. Something that I didn't touch on, which I usually do touch on, may run me through Fatherhood and how that is for you. You know what? Because usually when I come to the end of the podcast, I usually finish it with a happy feel good story. Like usually it's, it's how, you know, you met your wife or you met your partner, but you sort of explain that. Yeah. You know, Gary Kirstner should hear you up on my space, but we really talk about Fatherhood. So how's Fatherhood for you, mate? I absolutely love it. It's been the best job I've ever had, and I think it's helped me get over the military. Yep. 100%. Um, I do not remember life before them. Weirdly enough. I think I'm in the same boat, eh? It's like they've always been there, and if they were, if I was to go back, the whole that would leave, like it's purpose, it's, it's the reason everything gets done now. Yep. Is them. How, how old are you kids? Six and three. Six and three. Yeah. Okay. Nice. Sorry. Yeah. I, I don't know. I love it. Absolutely. It's tiring. It's challenging. Yep. It's just zero fucks given. Yeah. 100%. Boy and girl. Yeah. Boy's youngest. Boy's youngest. Yeah. And he's just like, like, you know, don't touch that. My daughter will be like, okay, cool. That's it. Don't touch it. But boys, I'm, what'll happen if I do? Like he's just like that. My daughter's like that. Yeah. She just, she actually just turned three yesterday. Oh, there you go. Yeah. So she's just a fucking man. Yeah. I love it. But he's, you're like, oh, you put your hair out, but you're like, it's fun too. Like you're like, good. No, I'm glad he's got a bit of kick. Yeah. Yeah. 100%. Now, mate, a bit of a bit of reflection, you know, obviously we get so caught up and we're so busy and like that. We don't get to sit down and reflect and all smell the roses as people like to say. So mate, for you today, what's it being like to sit down and reflect on the journey that you've been through to where you've gotten to today? Humbling. Yeah. Humbling. Definitely. Like, I look back and I'm like, I know I've done a lot to actually sit back and talk about it. There's like a level of appreciation with it. You're just like, cool, but also it's gives me credibility that I'm where I am and I'm where I'm supposed to be. Yeah. And it's also true. And I've said this on a lot of podcasts, especially with guests that do have kids, you know, in 10 to 20 years' time when your kids have grown up and they, you know, started getting to the social media side of things, they start listening to things. They can, you know, at that time, they can go on and they can listen to what Dad has done, what Dad's been through. And the good thing about this is it's not, it's not anyone else, it's not your friends, it's not your family telling your kids about what you went through. It's you. It's your voice. And that's why I say at the start, you know, I'm here to give a platform for real people to share their stories in their own voice. Yeah. So your kids can hear your story from your voice and, you know, appreciate sort of everything that you've done, you know, to this day and I'm sure any year, in a year's time or six, six months or a year's time, we'll get you back on. We'll get an update on how our team turn these up. But yeah, just sort of give them that sort of thing for them to listen to and sort of know where you've been through. Yeah, definitely. And like I said to you off, off air is, I learn about my mates on here. Yeah. Like it's been awesome. So that was a big driver for me to be here today. I even said to the Mrs. This would be something the kids can listen to if anything ever happens. Yep. If I'm lost to see you fish and chase a big one, then they can jump on here and know I was happy doing it. Yeah. Speaking of chasing a big one, Marlon, have you ever tried anything around that? Man, soldier on another charity. We're running free Marlon fishing trips annually out of Newcastle. I was on the list both times and had to pull out and they've never run one since. No. I haven't, but I'd love to. Yep. Have you caught any, um, uh, barrel or anything like that? Barrow, I have. Yeah. So my brother and all lives in Townsville. So and then my Mrs. Cousin lives up near Gladstone. Yeah. Okay. We get the ability to get out there and head up there. So I'm trying to get up to Gladstone in the next couple of weeks. Yep. Um, cause they've got like, ah, I can't even think of the name of it. It'll come. No, no. No, no. Okay. I think the one I'm thinking I was near like Thunderbird. I know the one you're talking about. Yeah. Now he's a one girl and then we want to try and get off to the islands a little bit. So if we can get up there and have a bit of a flick, um, it'd be funny to run into the alpha bloke's with their bloody, um, what, what are they? Lower is there right now? The alpha loose. Yeah. Yeah. So if you find any to get up there and give them a bit of steep, we see him out and about. And the dams have been getting down a bit lately. So I'm, um, no, can you get up there? Um, no, can you get up there and have a bit of a flick? Yeah, awesome. Awesome. Ah, social media reach out. People want to get in contact with you. If they want to buy some merch, if they want to check out Team Tune Efficient, where can they find you out? Definitely mate. So www.TeamTuney.com, we're on Instagram, Facebook and predominantly YouTube. So jump on there. Instagram's our main platform, but we're across. Do you do a majority of them? TikTok. A little bit. Okay. A little bit. Yeah. I love film. I'm doing a bit of Carpool karaoke every now and then, so that's good fun. On the way, just on the way to fishing. Yeah, exactly right. Yep. Just carving up. Yep. Now, so mate, mate, this has been a hell of a chat. I really appreciate you taking the time. It's, uh, coming up to almost near eight o'clock. So we've had a pretty good chat. I can't thank you enough for making the drive out here and, you know, showing your story with us. No, thanks for making this one. Allow me to be here. Appreciate it. No worries, mate. Alrighty, guys, that was another episode. It done and dusted. Make sure you be kind. Stay humble. The next episode of the Reds and Walk podcast. This has been another podcast-perfect production.
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