No Release: A Phenomenological Study of Australian Army Veterans of

Afghanistan and Iraq Post-Military

Robin Purvis

Bachelor of Social Work

A thesis submitted for the degree of Master of Philosophy at The University of Queensland in 2017 School of Social Science

Abstract

This study explores the lived post-discharge experience of seven combat veterans of Australia’s Middle East wars. The study has identified there is academic and popular recognition, interest in and knowledge about the process of socialisation into the military. However, there is a noticeable gap in material that explores the process of socialisation out of the military.

Eighteen in-depth semi-structured interviews were conducted with the seven participants, some ranging over a twelve-month period. A phenomenological, interpretivist approach was taken using current literature, and input from military advisors, to help contextualise the participants’ stories. Three themes emerged from the study as relevant to understanding the process of transition out of the military: the militarisation of identity, the impact of combat exposure as more deeply embedding the militarised identity and the challenges to this identity in negotiating the liminal space between military world and civilian world. The study identified that the challenges these veterans individually face on exiting the military, and the role their society has, collectively, in assisting their re-entry into the civilian world is not well understood.

The study highlights that as well as understanding of the personal challenges these veterans face, the context of social recognition and response is a critical factor in their post-military adjustment in transition. Cultural dissonance, absence of place, unwitting stigma and marginalisation, and societal disavowal were characteristic of the experience of these men in their journey of transition from their military world to achieving re-assimilation in the civilian world. Civilian world accommodation and a system of repatriation to assist re-entry of combat veterans into the civilian world are identified as key aspects of re- assimilation.

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Declaration by author

This thesis is composed of my original work, and contains no material previously published or written by another person except where due reference has been made in the text. I have clearly stated the contribution by others to jointly-authored works that I have included in my thesis.

I have clearly stated the contribution of others to my thesis as a whole, including statistical assistance, survey design, data analysis, significant technical procedures, professional editorial advice, and any other original research work used or reported in my thesis. The content of my thesis is the result of work I have carried out since the commencement of my research higher degree candidature and does not include a substantial part of work that has been submitted to qualify for the award of any other degree or diploma in any university or other tertiary institution. I have clearly stated which parts of my thesis, if any, have been submitted to qualify for another award.

I acknowledge that an electronic copy of my thesis must be lodged with the University Library and, subject to the policy and procedures of The University of Queensland, the thesis be made available for research and study in accordance with the Copyright Act 1968 unless a period of embargo has been approved by the Dean of the Graduate School.

I acknowledge that copyright of all material contained in my thesis resides with the copyright holder(s) of that material. Where appropriate I have obtained copyright permission from the copyright holder to reproduce material in this thesis.

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Publications during candidature

No publications to declare

Publications included in this thesis

None

Contributions by others to the thesis

All contributions by others have been declared in Acknowledgements

Statement of parts of the thesis submitted to qualify for the award of another degree

None

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Acknowledgements

Acknowledgement must first of all go to the seven participants in this study. Their willingness to share their stories and generosity in giving their time is deeply appreciated. I hold these young men and their fellow combat veterans in the highest regard for their integrity, contribution and courage. I think they, and we, do not fully recognise the meaning and depth of their commitment on behalf of the rest of us. I would like to think this study will go some way to redress this lack.

I especially want to thank Dr Patricia Short and Dr Diane Hafner, my advisors in this work, who were a source of encouragement and enlightenment during the course of this thesis. I felt their divergent backgrounds of Sociology and Anthropology complemented the research process and provided me with frameworks of conception that enhanced my thinking and analysis. Thank you for your guidance.

I would also like to thank Dr Rose Melville who commenced this journey with me as an advisor. Her insight and direction in the early stages of encountering the challenges of this research were invaluable.

I would like to express my appreciation to advisors in the military: Major General Greg Bilton, who did not participate in the research, but provided perspective and relevant links to military personnel. Military Chaplain Renton McCrae has informed on factors of Australian military culture, training and preparation for combat in the Middle East. He has generously been available throughout the study for discussion and for clarifying perspectives. Colonel Rob Crowe has reviewed chapters and provided comment from a military perspective. His interest in the study has been affirming. Lt. Col. Natalie Leaver helpfully facilitated a visit to the Soldier Recovery Centre at Gallipoli Barracks, Enoggera.

During the recruitment phase support for the study and relevant introductions were provided by Tony Dell of Stand Tall4PTS, Dr Miriam Dwyer CEO of the Gallipoli Research Foundation Greenslopes Hospital Brisbane, Janice Johnston of Mates4Mates, Paul Nash of Go2 Performance, Lyn Needham of Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service (VVCS) and Pano Dimopoulos of Agile Transitions who promoted the study with clients, ex-military colleagues and on Facebook.

I would also like to thank those friends, colleagues and family who have been supportive and helpful during this time, in particular my husband, Wal. His support, encouragement and patience in seeing this endeavour through has been a lifeline. v

Keywords military identity, combat exposure, Middle East wars, combat veterans, resocialisation, agency and identity, liminality, transition

Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC)

ANZSRC code: 169999, Sociology not elsewhere classified 40%

ANZSRC code: 169901, Gender Specific Studies 30%

ANZSRC code: 160104 Social and Cultural Anthropology 30%

Fields of Research (FoR) Classification

FoR code: 1608, Sociology 80%

FoR code: 1699, Other Studies in Human Sociology, 20%

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Table of Contents Abstract ...... ii Declaration by author ...... iii Publications during candidature ...... iv Contributions by others to the thesis ...... iv Acknowledgements ...... v Keywords ...... vi Australian and New Zealand Standard Research Classifications (ANZSRC) ...... vi Fields of Research (FoR) Classification ...... vi List of Tables ...... x List of Abbreviations ...... xi

CHAPTER 1: INTRODUCTION ...... 1

1.1. Introduction to the study ...... 1 1.2. Current Australian research ...... 4 1.3. Rationale and contribution to knowledge ...... 4 1.4. The development of the topic ...... 6 1.5. Research questions ...... 8 1.6. Conceptual and methodological approach ...... 9 1.7. Giving voice to the discharged population ...... 10 1.8. Militarisation, combat and transition ...... 11 1.8.1. Militarisation of Identity ...... 11 1.8.2. ‘Warrior’ socialisation ...... 13 1.8.3. Meaning making and transition ...... 14 1.9. Outline of the thesis ...... 17

CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY ...... 19

2.1. Introduction ...... 19 2.2. Phenomenological Approach ...... 19 2.3. The Participants ...... 21 2.3.1. Table 1: Description of Participants ...... 23 2.4. Methods of data collection ...... 24 2.5. Recruitment ...... 24 2.6. Data management and analysis ...... 27 2.7. Validity and reliability ...... 28 vii

2.8. Researcher positionality ...... 29 2.9. Ethical considerations ...... 30 2.10. Summary ...... 30

CHAPTER 3: MILITARISATION ...... 32

3.1. Introduction ...... 32 3.2. The Shaping of a Military Identity ...... 32 3.3. Military Training – Rite of Passage ...... 35 3.3.1. Value Identification...... 37 3.3.2. Skill development ...... 38 3.4. Mental Toughness, Military Masculinity and Mateship ...... 40 3.5. Duality of Military Socialisation ...... 43 3.6. Training for Combat ...... 46 3.7. Summary ...... 49

CHAPTER 4: COMBAT EXPOSURE ...... 51

4.1. Introduction ...... 51 4.2. Deployment and Combat Experience ...... 51 4.3. Commonalities of deployment experience ...... 52 4.4. Differential experience of deployment and combat ...... 56 4.5. Dissonance of ‘lived experience’ in combat ...... 59 4.6. Disrupted combat identities ...... 62 4.7. Trauma and moral injury ...... 65 4.8. Disjuncture of Identity and Meaning ...... 68 4.9. Summary ...... 71

CHAPTER 5: TRANSITION AND THE LIMINAL SPACE ...... 73

5.1. Introduction ...... 73 5.2. Re-forming identity ...... 74 5.3. Self-identity ...... 76 5.4. Displacement ...... 78 5.5. Separation from the Army ...... 79 5.6. ‘The place between’ ...... 84 5.6.1. Marginalisation ...... 85 5.6.2. Non-recognition of economic, social and cultural capital ...... 87

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5.6.3. Cultural Dissonance ...... 89 5.6.4. Lack of shared language...... 90 5.6.5. Disavowal ...... 91 5.7. Becoming...... 93 5.8. Summary ...... 95

CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION ...... 97

6.1. Knowing them better ...... 99 6.2. Implications for future study and research ...... 101 APPENDIX 1 ...... 103 APPENDIX 2 ...... 105 APPENDIX 3 ...... 106 APPENDIX 4 ...... 107 List of References ...... 108

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List of Tables

Table 1: Description of Participants ………………………………………………….. 22

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List of Abbreviations

ABC Australian Broadcasting Commission

ACMPH Australian Centre for Post-Traumatic Mental Health

ADF Australian Defence Force

AJs Army Jocks

ANA Afghan National Army

ANFO Ammonium Nitrate and Fuel Oil

CMVH Centre for Military and Veterans Health

COMSUPER Commonwealth Superannuation Corporation

DVA Department of Veterans’ Affairs

FOB Forward Operating Base

IED Improvised Explosive Device

IPA Interpretive Phenomenological Analysis

ISIL Islamic State of Iraq and Levant

MEAO The Middle East Area of Operations Health Study

MPHWS Mental Health Prevalence and Wellbeing Study

MTF3 Mentoring Taskforce 3

MTRF Mentoring and Reconstruction Taskforce

PNG Papua New Guinea

PTS Post Traumatic Stress

PTSD Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

RSL Returned Services League

RTF Reconstruction Taskforce

SF Special Forces

TPI Totally and Permanently Incapacitated

VVCS Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service

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CHAPTER 1: Introduction

Forty-One Australian soldiers have died in Afghanistan, most of them in Oruzgan, where Australian forces were stationed at the large Tarin Kot base from 2006 to 2013. Chief of Army Lieutenant-General Angus Campbell said he had always seen Australia's involvement as part of a coalition that was working to secure the country as a whole, rather than just Oruzgan. "The sacrifice of our people is a sacrifice that is I would say worthy and it's a terrible loss but it is, about a contribution to Afghanistan, not a contribution to either the valley in which they might have died or the district or indeed the province but ultimately about Afghanistan," he said. "I always have been of the view that our work in Afghanistan is work as a member of a coalition of about 50 countries. And necessarily in the period of our time there, that 50 countries were applying a security pressure to Afghanistan, across Afghanistan. (Campbell quoted in Wroe 2016). 1.1. Introduction to the study

This study explores the lived experience post-discharge of seven Australian Army combat veterans of Middle East wars. Socialisation into the military, that is, the shaping of a ‘soldier identity’ through training and combat exposure has emerged in this study as a significant factor in understanding the challenge for soldiers exiting the military, and their re-socialisation. The study has identified recognition, interest in and knowledge about the process of socialisation into the military and has drawn on research studies and thinking about the ways in which military socialisation transforms civilian recruits to soldiers. There is however, a noticeable gap in material that explores the process of socialisation out of the military (Higate 2001; Bulmer and Eichler 2017). This study aims to contribute to this knowledge.

Australian troops in recent times have been deployed to the Middle East in the Gulf War (1990-91), the Iraq War (2003-2009) and in Afghanistan from 2001-2013. Australia’s participation in these wars has been controversial in the wider community as reflected in the 2003 street marches against the nation’s involvement in the Iraq war, and ongoing discussion and debate about social responsibility for veterans in the media in recent Australian history. Notwithstanding this, re-engagement in Iraq commenced in 2015 and continues. More than 26,000 Australian men and women served in the war in Afghanistan during the 12-year period to 2013, the longest combat engagement in Australia’s history.

1 Official statistics report 41 soldiers killed in combat as of October 2013 and 249 (247 Army and 2 Navy) physically wounded. Some 17,500 served in the Iraq War, where two died and 27 were wounded. 1

In Australia, the implications and impact of operational experience in a war zone for the serving men and women of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars have and continue to be the focus of community discussion, research studies, media reporting and documentary making, suggest a heightened community concern for the experience of young veterans who have been deployed to a war zone. These expressions reflect also, cultural acknowledgement of different perspectives, and political critique of Australia’s participation in these wars. Contrasting perspectives on war and militarism can be very visible in Australian society. Historically cultural critiques of militarism were situated within the context of challenges to conscription in both World Wars, protests against the Vietnam War and the war in Iraq. Currently, the cultural awareness and current political comment is reflected in personal stories, media accounts, art, theatre and critiques of formal, institutional responses. A Senate Inquiry (November 2016 ongoing) into suicide by veterans and ex-service personnel has highlighted the community concern with regard to the mental health of veterans and is identifying some of the hidden cost for combat veterans of service in a war zone. Lamperd (2016) reported the statistic of 41 veteran suicides in Australia in 2016, which equals the loss of life in combat in the thirteen years of the Afghanistan war.

Australia’s role in the Iraq and Afghanistan wars was characterised by different tasks and operations. Australians deployed to Iraq from 2005 did not have a combat role, although individual experiences may have varied considerably based on where people served and at what time. Engagement in Afghanistan in 2006 involved mainly Special Forces establishing themselves in Tarin Kot. By 2007/08 the Australian Defence Force (ADF) mission was focused on reconstruction tasks, mostly on engineer work (building schools and other projects) with arms units providing security. These units had sporadic contact with the Taliban and suffered few casualties. The early missions were called Reconstruction Task Force(s). This was changed to Mentoring Reconstructing Task Force(s). By 2010 the reconstruction element was completely gone as Australia moved to

1 As at June 2011 the ADF workforce comprised 83,681 including 18,906 Navy, 46,438 Army and 18,337 Air Force permanent and reserve members (ABS, 2013).

2 a greater mentoring/combat role called Mentoring Task Force(s). The period from 2009 - 2011 was the most dangerous and busy for Australian troops insofar as casualties sustained. By 2012 the mission had changed and the wind-down towards the 2014 exit (from Tarin Kot) had begun (R. McCrae pers. comm. 2016). The study has found that the time and phase of operation is significant in the individual soldier’s deployment experience. Each of the participants had at least one combat deployment to Afghanistan and four have had two or more. One participant was deployed to Iraq in 2005. Five of the participants in this study have experienced ongoing participation and exposure in a range of peacekeeping roles, which involve confronting human distress and devastation, and violent, inhuman behaviours. Australia’s involvement in Timor saw the commencement of Australia’s active re-engagement in war (Timor 1999, Iraq 2003-2009, Afghanistan 2000 - 2013, ongoing Middle East deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan) and peacekeeping roles (Timor, Sudan, Rwanda, Somalia, and the Solomon Islands among others) 2.

In a comprehensive review of international literature on military service Australian researchers, Pietrzak, Harpaz-Rotem, Whealin and Southwick (2012) found compelling evidence that military deployment with combat exposure negatively affects the mental health of deployed personnel, especially the incidence of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Elsewhere, the impact of exposure in a war zone has been of particular interest in bio-medical and psychosocial studies. Canadian researchers MacLean and Elder (2007: 188) found that “veterans exposed to combat have suffered worse outcomes than both noncombat veterans and nonveteran military personnel”. American and British studies (Pflanz and Sonnek 2002; Hoge, Castro et. al. 2004; Greenberg, Langston and Gould 2007) found the degree of psychological trauma from operational duties related to the type of warfare fought, the length and numbers of deployment, adverse living conditions, heavy casualties, and lack of choice about deployment. These studies establish the often- adverse impact of combat exposure, a theme that is explored in depth in this research to better understand the implication for soldiers in transitioning to the civilian world.

2 The Australian Defence Force (ADF) has been involved in peacekeeping since 1947 when four Australians (the world’s first United Nations peacekeepers) were deployed to the first UN peacekeeping mission - the United Nations Good Offices Commission to Indonesia (UNGOC). Since UNGOC, the ADF has been extensively involved in both UN & multinational peacekeeping and peacemaking operations. The tempo of these missions has notably increased since the first large deployment of Engineer Troops to South West Africa in 1989. INTERFET in 1999 / 2000 was the largest deployment of Australian Troops since the Second World War and since September 11, 2001 thousands of ADF personnel have been deployed in international campaigns against terrorism operating in the Middle East, Afghanistan and South West Asia. Australian Services personnel continue to demonstrate outstanding capabilities in these often dangerous and hostile foreign environments.

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1.2. Current Australian research

Existing empirical research into the military in Australia consists primarily of quantitative studies of currently enlisted servicemen and women commissioned by the ADF (MPHWS 2010; MEAO Health Study 2012). The MPHWS (McFarlane, Van Hoof, Vernhagen 2010) survey of prevalence of mental disorders found 54.1% of the ADF experienced an anxiety, affective or alcohol disorder at some stage in their lifetime, higher than the Australian community (49.3%) and that this population is affected by a range of stress factors caused by the nature of their work. The MEAO study (Dobson et. al. 2012) investigated the health of 14,000 still serving veterans of the Middle East over the previous decade. They found that while the overall levels of psychological distress among MEAO veterans was not high, those in direct combat roles, Army personnel and female personnel, were more likely to report symptoms. It was noted that ex-ADF personnel reported high levels of PTSD symptoms (16%) compared with 2.7% of those still serving. These studies and popular media commentary tend to dominate the extent of our knowledge about the impact of combat and operational experience on mental, physical and social health of ADF veterans of the Middle East engagement.

Personal accounts, autobiographical and reported, present the experience of discharged veterans. These sources suggest that mental health and associated outcomes for veterans post-military are being seriously underestimated (Bearup and Cantwell 2012; Nicholson 2013; Neill 2014), in contrast to the figures purported by the ADF relating to currently serving veterans, which has estimated rates of PTSD to be as low as 2.7% (MEAO 2012). The phenomenological, interpretivist approach taken here in studying the challenges veterans individually face in exiting the military gives voice to a human face of war little studied (MacLeish 2015; Bulmer and Jackson 2016). The rich personal data shared in telling their stories can inform understanding of the subjective experience and unacknowledged costs of deployment experience for these veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan and complements what is known from extensive, large-scale quantitative analyses. 1.3. Rationale and contribution to knowledge

The timing of this study, commenced in 2014, was relevant to contemporaneous public interest given the official withdrawal of Australian troops from Afghanistan announced by then Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, in October 2013. Currently, re-engagement in Iraq has

4 been determined to assist coalition forces in the fight against the Islamic State of Iraq and Levant (ISIL). In this context, a somewhat exceptional focus in the media has supported public interest and enquiry, and concurrent representation in various art forms including painting, theatre, film and numerous documentaries on deployment experience for service personnel. This research contributes to these attempts to illuminate the realities of deployment and combat experience, which reflect cultural debate and challenge to our participation in these wars.

Exploring the lived experience of combat veterans from a post-military perspective provides for them recognition and acknowledgement, and gives value to their experiential knowledge. A phenomenological exploration allows articulation and interpretation of participants’ stories and will address the current little-studied, subjective experience of discharged veterans. Their voiced experience and reflection on the impact of socialisation into the military and the shaping of the ‘soldier identity’ through training and combat exposure enables understanding of the challenge to exiting and re-socialisation out of the military.

The research approach departs from the more usual quantitative studies of the military conducted in Australia for example for the Department of Defence by the Centre for Military and Veterans Health (CMVH), which is a consortium of the University of Queensland, the University of Adelaide and Charles Darwin University tasked with studying the impact of deployments and other health issues on defence personnel3 and by the Australian Centre for Post-Traumatic Mental Health (ACMPH). The studies conducted to date assess objective reports on patterns and trends in behaviour and coping and provide valuable information on physical health, mental health status and lifestyle trends. These studies assist to identify areas of concern regarding individual, family, health and social function. This study’s qualitative exploratory enquiry complements these findings by enabling articulation of the ‘less voiced’ experience of servicemen. From a theoretical perspective, greater knowledge of how shifts in identity, disrupted identities and meaning making are implicated in individual veterans’ internal constructions of their war experience

3 The Military Health Outcomes Program (MilHOP), a partnership between Defence and CMVH, is a body of research commissioned by Defence to determine the impact of operational deployment on the health and wellbeing of service men and women and includes: the 2010 ADF Mental Health Prevalence and Wellbeing Study (MHPWS); Middle East Areas of Operations (MEAO) Census Health Study (2001-2009); the MEAO Prospective Health Study (2012); the MEAO Mortality and Cancer Incidence Health Study.

5 will benefit understanding and responsiveness within the military and society in general. MacLeish (2015:11) asserts the study of the embodied “predicaments of survival, endurance and management of life exposed to death” are central to understanding the war experience of veterans. The particular contribution of the present study is to provide insight into an area of social experience which bio-medical and psychosocial research into the military has not much dealt with, at least in the Australian context. 1.4. The development of the topic

I am a social worker of 45 years’ experience. The impact of traumatic experience on selfhood and identity has been a focus of interest and research in my clinical practice. For the past decade, I have been working as an outsource counsellor for Veterans and Veterans’ Families Counselling Service (VVCS) in Brisbane. This study has evolved from counselling work that I have been doing with veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq. In undertaking this study, I sought to articulate and understand the complexity of experience that resulted for the young men in this cohort presenting to my rooms. My training and practice has been in psychotherapeutic approaches. I bring this perspective to my work, however the experiences these men were relating could not be fully understood from this perspective alone. My decision to undertake this research was motivated by the question of what responsibility the nation must accept for their well-being. In wanting to better understand their experience in the context of the social worlds they inhabit, to look at the context of their lives, I chose to pursue a sociological focus in this research turning my attention to how social structures and cultural milieu, military and civilian, impact on their lives (Basham, Belkin and Gifkins 2015).

Many of the veterans who have presented for counselling post-deployment have expressed aspirations of contribution and service. However, the question of the cost of their dedication seemed to be little articulated by them, in the literature or in common understanding. On joining the military to ‘do their bit’, to contribute, these young men would appear to have had little awareness of the potential legacy of damage, the split between the ‘warrior hero’ and the ‘damaged ones’, which too commonly is the legacy of war. I work with young men (and young women) in pain. It is through desperation that they find themselves in my rooms, often with encouragement from partners, friends, or their doctor. They present with individual stories and individual expressions of their vulnerability, hurt, fear, anxiety, anger, shame and grief.

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They all know and talk about Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith, the Afghanistan war hero and recipient of the Victoria Cross and the Medal for Gallantry for extreme heroism under fire. In the words of one equally heroic young man, who had a mate die on his watch:

… most decorated soldier in Australian history. A good man, humble, a good soldier. They have a statue to honour him outside Campbell Barracks (Special Forces Headquarters Perth) (client A, pers. comm. 2013).

But this young man’s journey is a different story. Although he had demonstrated similar strengths of dedication, integrity and capacity as Corporal Roberts-Smith, he struggled with daily intrusive thoughts of guilt, worry, and a deep sense of injustice for over five years. He was or felt an outcast. He left the Army feeling alienated, unsupported and blamed for a superior officer’s incompetence.

Apprehension and anxiety predominate in the presentation of many combat veterans, post-deployment. Underlying this is a fear that in signalling difficulty in coping, they will be ‘marked’ men among their peers. Even more unnerving for them is the fear that acknowledgment will result in a life-long debilitation, “living through that prism” [of the trauma] as one young man spoke of it. Daily lives plagued by reactivity, loss of control of emotions, distress at loss of control in their interactions with partners and children, intense feelings of anger, injustice, despair, flashbacks and constant replaying of distressing events, grief and guilt at the loss of a mate on their watch, nightmares, night terrors, inability to sleep, anxious and fear filled days, hypervigilance, alarm, never feeling safe or able to relax, and phobic in public places are characteristic. As the young man quoted above observed:

They’ve all got it [PTSD] you can tell. You can hear their voices change. It doesn’t take long before they start ‘welling up’. They’re heaps reserved, won’t divulge information, yes/no answers – get agitated if asked for more. [Within] the Army they’re blocking it, don’t understand, don’t want to understand (client A, pers. comm. 2013).

He speaks to the cost, largely unacknowledged by the Army, civilian world and the soldiers themselves, of service in a war zone. As veterans, they have a bond of knowing and sharing experience that is not known or understood by those who have not experienced it. It can be likened to a brotherhood. They care deeply about each other across the generations. One Vietnam veteran described the concern for these young veterans: 7

These boys in Afghanistan, we [Vietnam Vets] think it will be worse than Vietnam. We went out on patrols for two weeks at a time. These boys have to go out and come back every day – it is like having to climb the mountain over and over again (client B, pers. comm. 2014).

This shared experience also separates and isolates them from the civilian world. This experience is difficult to share with anyone, even with mates. Their sense of isolation and difference on re-entry to the civilian world is little recognised or understood. Large scale quantitative studies predominate in the literature, but there is still much work to be done focusing upon lived experience of men such as those I see. The phenomenological approach adopted in this study has been used to give voice to individual servicemen and explore how they recount their service and their military life post-discharge. Their accounts of their journeys of transition out of the military into the civilian world, and their experiences of re-socialisation contribute to our understanding of the distance to be travelled in re- engaging with their civilian-selves. This thesis in generating a rich analysis of the experience of militarization and combat exposure has revealed understandings on “the liminality of unmaking militarized identities” (Bulmer and Eichler 2017:3) that are not properly understood. 1.5. Research questions

The central question asked by this study is:

What is the lived experience of moving from army to civilian life for veterans of combat in Afghanistan and Iraq?

In exploring the lived experience of veterans moving from army to civilian life the aim of this study is to identify their views of the factors that shape the formation of their soldier identity, and the significance for them of the soldier identity in the context of:

• military culture and training

• deployment experience and combat exposure, and

• the personal, organisational and societal challenges to re-forming identity post- military.

As a sociological analysis of the lived experience of veterans transitioning from army to civilian life, the thesis draws on particular bodies of literature which are pertinent to the exploration of the military socialisation process, the impact of combat exposure in

8 embedding identity, and challenges to ‘soldier identity’ in the transition between the military and civilian worlds. Concepts of traumatic exposure and moral injury provide the theoretical lens to assist understanding of the internalised, experiential lifeworld of soldiers in a war zone. Sociological (Mead 1934; Berger and Luckman 1991; Fourny 2013; Jenkins 2014) and anthropological (Turner 1987) theory on transition and liminal spaces have provided a framework for conceptualising the journey required in moving from army to civilian world and the challenges involved in re-forming from soldier identity to civilian identity. 1.6. Conceptual and methodological approach

Acknowledging the lived experience of research participants as the subject of enquiry, in order to facilitate understanding of the participants’ descriptions of their military and post- military lives, I have adopted a conceptual framework that focuses on the militarisation of identity, agency and combat exposure as it implicates post-military adaptation. It is informed by studies of military culture and training and the ideology of masculinity that governs military life (Brotz and Wilson 1946; Barrett 1996; Ben-Ari 2004; Braswell and Kushner 2012; Bulmer and Eichler 2017). In this study, I have aimed to illuminate the role of military ’depersonalisation and de-individuation’ (Braswell and Kushner 2012) and the shaping of the combat ‘warrior’, in the context of identity formation and meaning making in post-deployment, post-military settings. Theoretical conceptualisations of moral injury theory (Litz et al. 2009; Brock and Lettini 2012; Maguen and Litz 2012; Shay 2014; Litz et. al. 2015; Frame 2015) assist to better understand within the affective domain, injury of the mind and spirit resulting from war experience.

The role of combat exposure in more deeply embedding soldier identity is highlighted in this study as a key element influencing transition experience. To illuminate understanding of the individual soldier’s ‘lived world’ of combat I was drawn to explore participants’ experiences of a culture based on self-sacrifice and a belief that one’s life is expendable, in which identity is necessarily shaped by the subordination of the individual to the group (Braswell and Kushner 2012).

Understandings of adjustment and adaptation to the social environment as fundamental to the development of identity (Mead 1934) underpin theories about identity as a sociocultural, negotiable and flexible process (Jenkins 2008) and provide a theoretical construct through which to explore the dialectical relationship (Berger and Luckman 1991) between the subjective reality of the individual soldier and the military world, and 9 implications for adaptation post-discharge. From this perspective, the move from military world to civilian world, the multi-layered and complex tasks of re-socialisation encountered in the liminal space between these two worlds are conceptualised as a process of transition (Turner 1987) and re-formation of identity.

The conceptual framework for this study thus provides a novel perspective for understanding of the transition experience of veterans of combat moving from the highly constrained military culture to a civilian world where there is an expectation of individual functioning and the exercising of choice.

The study is focused on the experience of male veterans. No women were included in the study. While female army personnel are deployed in war zones, to this time in the Australian military women have not been engaged in direct combat. Combat is formally constructed as men’s work and identifies masculinity as a pertinent concept in exploring the development of military combat identity (Barrett 1996). 1.7. Giving voice to the discharged population

The voice and experience of discharged (for medical or voluntary reasons) veterans is little studied, not the least because this population is difficult to access. To address this lack and a consequent gap in knowledge, and informed by phenomenological approaches, I have aimed to give voice to and gain insights into how individual veterans have experienced deployment in a war zone and the implications for post-military adaptation. This phenomenological enquiry has been the most appropriate methodological approach to gain understanding and insight into the lifeworld of combat veterans. It has enabled an in-depth exploration and generated rich data providing a window to the embodied, lived experience of militarization and combat exposure as it impacts post-military life. The men’s stories identify post-discharge challenges. My awareness of these challenges led me to focus on the socialisation process, the transition into the military and the forming of military identities as a means of understanding the challenges to resocialisation on discharge.

Questions of individual factors, inner subjective realities and internal accommodations (Mead 1934; Berger 1966) required of the individual to adapt to strictly binding rules, norms and authoritarian ideology characteristic of military culture and training (Braswell and Kushner 2012) are explored. Existing sociological research has identified the socio- cultural environment of the military as characterised by an extremely high level of social cohesion (Brotz and Wilson 1946; Kirke 2010), hierarchical disciplinary structures and

10 socialisation rituals governed by masculine ideologies (Barrett 1996; Goldstein 2004; Braswell and Kushner 2012). The study explores the various ways these culture-specific demands and constraints shape the individual, and considers the implications of these accommodations and related internal meaning making for the individual in their post- discharge world.

The men’s stories identify significant internal challenge to re-forming identity post- discharge, compounded by feelings of abandonment by the Army, a lack of recognition and acknowledgement of their contribution by the civilian world, isolation caused by lack of shared language and experience, and non-fit of their training and professional soldier skills in civilian employment. The stories articulated of the individual journeys and the challenges negotiated in transition on exiting the military give voice and insight into the post-discharge world of these participants. Bulmer and Jackson (2015:26) reference “the politics of embodiment, of voice, of listening” as a way reorienting thinking and research approach to understanding veteran experience. 1.8. Militarisation, combat and transition

These themes emerged from the stories of the post-discharge experiences of the combat veterans involved in this study. Identification with their soldier training and the embedded nature of combat reverberated in their stories. Listening again and again to what they say, they reiterate the impact of this training and combat on their identity. In addressing the central research question of this study, I argue that the construction of a ‘military combat identity’ in which highly specific, specialised combat training shaped by values of duty, service, loyalty and commitment construct the military warrior. Additionally, the implications for these military warriors of their combat experience in more deeply embedding their soldier identity has been found to be of significance for their transition post-discharge, while operational experience challenges meaning-making and personal adaptation post- deployment. Thus re-socialisation involves challenge to this deeply embedded soldier identity in navigating the liminal space between discharge from the Army and reassimilation into the civilian world. By way of introduction I elaborate briefly on these key themes below.

1.8.1. Militarisation of Identity

Sociological studies identify the shaping of a military identity, effected through intense training, as a key aspect of military culture. Sociologists Brotz and Wilson (1946) for 11 example discuss adjustments to be made by soldiers on induction to the army through the activities of basic training. They describe army culture in the United States as a command society, rigidly stratified and a self-contained social world that can be either socialising or isolating of its members. Similarly, Lang (1965 cited in Soeters, Winslow et al. 2006) identified three aspects of military organisations which differentiate them from ordinary organisational life: the communal character (life in uniform); hierarchy, which represents an authoritarian ideology; and discipline and control through a chain of command, which aims at the execution of orders down the line.

Spindler (1946: 83) identified a dualism in the military’s relationship with society in his definition of the military as a corporate part of social structure, yet a separate entity. In relation to military personnel he noted, “the effect of becoming a part of the military is to separate the individual from his former society physically and psychically”. In an anthropological study on war, Simons (1999) affirms the implications of this dualism in shaping identity and a sense of difference, which results from shared experience within the military. Reflecting Jenkins’ (2008) ideas of how individuals and collectivities are distinguished from others she states:

One thing we know about militaries is that as institutions they methodically prepare individuals to sacrifice themselves for others. They also condition individuals to be able to commit homicide and engage in organised violence, something that is abhorrent to most well-socialised people. All militaries achieve these changes via rites of passage, relentless training and drill (Simons 1999:90).

Organisational sociologists Soeters, van Femena and Beeres (2010) similarly distinguish military culture as a specific occupational culture, relatively isolated from other kinds of work in society. Military bases are known and clearly identified as bastions of the military, their personnel wear uniforms, making them distinctive and visible, and the military are demanding of personnel in terms of intense training, hours of work, being on call and being ‘posted’.

This study explores the meaning for identity formation of training soldiers for combat, the use of legitimised violence in combat, and the routine exposure of soldiers to violence (MacLeish 2012). The cohesion or teamwork required for the military collective to fulfil the potentially dangerous and life-threatening mission of the military is a specific focus of study by military authors and researchers (Henderson 1985; Siebold 2006; Kirke 2010). 12

McChrystal et. al. (2015:35) write of the significance of shaping identity in the military collective, the necessity of ‘military discipline’ and the value of team over the individual to achieve maximum operational outcome. Kirke (2010:147) identifies unit cohesion as a critical and basic morale factor and a vital ingredient of high-level operational effectiveness stressing the underpinning commitment to the military collective:

In risking reduced cohesion, a military force risks reduced effectiveness and the nature of modern war indicates small unit cohesion is the only force capable of causing soldiers to expose themselves consistently to enemy fire in pursuit of an army’s goals.

The participants in this study, discharged Army veterans who have had operational experience, represent a distinct subculture within the military (Strom et al. 2012: 68). They are imbued with values of duty, honour in personal relationships, teamwork, unit cohesion, and self-sacrifice setting high standards and high expectations, which underpin and embody their identity as combat soldiers. The implication of this acculturation provides the frame of reference for this research in understanding post-discharge challenges experienced by veterans. This includes how the shaping of identity in preparation for combat involves significant adjustment to achieve conformity and de-individuation through acceptance of military standards and rules; severance of accustomed social relations; decline of social controls of family and (civilian) society; and the primacy of the present and recession of past and future (Brotz and Wilson 1946:371) for the individual.

1.8.2. ‘Warrior’ socialisation

The role of masculine ideologies in military life, in particular the construction of specific masculinities, is well documented in military and other sociological studies (Barrett 1996; Ben-Ari 2004; Connell 2005; Talbot 2012). Warrior code and warrior values symbolise a core notion of military masculinity (Asken et. al. 2009). Aspiration to ‘warrior’ heroism is a recurring ideological theme expressed by veterans joining the Australian Defence Forces specifically seeking to be trained for combat (Talbot 2012; Masters 2013; Brown 2014). Through training, commencing with ‘basic training’ (Brotz and Wilson 1946; Braswell and Kushner 2012) the military reframes masculinities as a means of meeting the aims of militarisation (Hockey 2003; Hale 2012). Braswell and Kushner (2012) identify gender identity as central to the formation of social capital in the military and masculine unity as forming the cementing principle of military life specifically in preparing men for combat.

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Goldstein (2004:107) observes that norms of masculinity show great diversity cross- culturally, yet various constructions of masculinities typically serve a functional role in the war system, specifically the task of inducing men to kill.

Masculinity theory, in particular Connell’s (2005) expanded concept of hegemonic masculinity, which has incorporated the idea of multiple masculinities, provides a theoretical construct in which to consider the implications for individual experience of ‘programmed military masculine identity’. Barrett’s (1996) study of the US Navy explores how the Navy reproduces an ideology of hegemonic masculinity. He deconstructs the notion of monolithic masculinity and shows how constructions of masculinity vary across job specialties. He argues that these versions of masculinity are relationally constructed through associations of difference. In an Australian study, Talbot (2012:1) argues that warrior identities are socially constructed, evolving and acquiring renewed significance as war has become a more complex undertaking comprising a diverse array of actors. The expanded role of the Australian Army into military operations other than war such as peace keeping, in conjunction with technological innovation, has implications for the conduct of warriors and the shaping of identity, as well as traditional notions of war fighting. These transformations necessitate the acknowledgement of there being multiple warrior identities (Talbot 2012:7).

This study is focused on Army veterans who have had direct combat exposure, the traditional notion of war fighting. Drawing upon insights and ways of conceptualising masculinities, Connell’s theory of hegemonic masculinity and military sociologists’ conceptualisation of ‘warrior’ socialisation (Ben-Ari 2004; Hockey 2003; Goldstein 2004; Asken 2009; Braswell and Kushner 2012) provide the theoretical framework by which to examine the tasks of socialisation for soldiers training for combat. Factors providing insight into the personal adaptation of the combat soldier posed by military culture and training and operational experience in combat zones are explored (Brotz and Wilson 1946; Goldman, Goldman and Segal 1976; Barrett 2011). I focus specifically in this thesis on the role of training in the militarisation of recruits and the framing of ‘warrior’ aspiration in the shaping of men’s combat identity.

1.8.3. Meaning making and transition

Personal accounts in various media describe multiple challenges of operational experience which, post-deployment, challenge meaning making and impact on personal adaptation,

14 belief in self, others and the world (Bearup and Cantwell 2012; Nicholson 2013; Neill 2014). Mead (1934) determined that the internal behaviours of individuals, of thinking, assessing and analysing must be understood in the social context (Turner, Beeghley et al. 2011:343). Understanding how veterans construct or make sense of their military life post- discharge involves recognition of the ‘real life’ experience of operational exposure, which can include, as described in the stories of these participants: ongoing threats to safety, the risks and terror of combat, killing people, being shot at or ambushed, IEDs killing one’s mates or wounding self, harm to the innocent, and potential exposure to cultures that place little value on life.

Some men are deeply psychologically wounded. Connection, restoration of faith and assurance of trust is essential for repair work to be done. The wounding can be at “soul level” (Brock and Lettini 2012). When one’s worldview is challenged by life threat, traumatic loss and betrayal of what one holds as ‘right’, there can be a loss of a sense of safety, purpose and meaning (Litz et. al. 2015). My personal observations of clients, which led me to further study their post-discharge experience, is that there is a disjuncture of identity and meaning at a profound level of their being. Berger explained well the nature of such challenge to self-identity:

Radical separation from the social world or anomie constitutes a powerful threat to the individual who loses orientation in the experience. Separation from society also inflicts unbearable tensions, the ultimate danger, is the danger of meaninglessness, that previously accepted definitions of reality may be fragile or even fraudulent. (Berger cited in Farganis 2014: 257- 258).

The bio-psycho-social-spiritual impact of unanticipated moral choices and demands in being witness to or inflicting injury and death is now being considered in understanding the challenge to identity and meaning making of war veterans (Kent, Davis, Stark and Stewart 2011:1). Litz et. al. (2009) posit that individuals who struggle with transgression of moral, religious or spiritual beliefs are haunted by internal conflicts causing guilt, shame and self- condemnation. They argue that existing PTSD treatment frameworks may not sufficiently target moral injury. Tick (2014) redefines PTSD as a crisis of identity caused by spiritual or moral wounds received in soldiers’ lived experience of combat. Unresolved, the legacy of moral injury impacts all aspects of identity and can be a significant challenge to repair in the combat soldier’s post-military world (Litz et. al. 2015). Empirical research about moral

15 injury has progressed from the developmental phase identified by Maguen and Litz (2012). I draw on key concepts of this theory to examine the challenges to meaning making that can characterise post-deployment experience.

Bulmer and Eichler (2017) assert that such challenges for Defence personnel post-military are not well studied, and Higate (2001) identifies a lack of development of research focussing on the longer-term legacies of military socialisation, post discharge. This research begins from a recognition that the journey for soldiers in ‘coming home’ to re- integrate into civilian life can be a significant challenge and explores this through close analysis of participants’ experiences of their transition out of their military world into the civilian world, post-military.

The accounts of the participants in this study articulate a range of challenges post- deployment and post-discharge. Their reports suggest lack of pathways and lack of supported transition out of the military. Ebaugh (1988) writes on the process of ‘exiting’ and identifies significant psychological and social tasks involved in negotiating major role changes. The process of soldierisation, the distancing from civilian-self, begins with the implications of being trained as combat soldiers and, this study has found, is compounded by combat exposure in a war zone. Jenkins (2014) articulates the range of factors influencing personal identity and the intrinsically interactional nature of the self within the internal-external dialectic of identification in a social world. These conceptualisations provide context for understanding the challenge to self-identity of transitioning between worlds.

The challenge to re-forming identity, the individual, organisational and social challenges encountered by the participants in this study in their journey of transition between military and civilian world are described as the basic constituents of liminality (Kupers 2011:46). Transitional states conceptualised by Turner as the liminal space (1987) are characterised by high levels of insecurity, uncertainty and disorder (Fourny 2013). Theoretical concepts of alienation and anomie, a lack of certainty of expectations (Seeman 1983), are explored in conceptualising the marginalisation described in the men’s stories of navigating the liminal space between discharge from the army and reassimilation into the civilian world.

Adverse outcomes from operational experience are not universal, as reflected in the achievements of Ben Roberts-Smith VC and the autobiographical work of Mark Donaldson VC (Donaldson 2013). Both recipients of the Victoria Cross for acts of bravery in the Afghanistan War, they report on the challenges of combat, which by their accounts have 16 enabled strength through adversity. The factors that shape these different outcomes underpin the questions in this study, which explores the range of personal experience and post-military adaptation as voiced by the seven participants. 1.9. Outline of the thesis

This thesis is structured in six chapters. Chapter 1 has provided descriptive information and background on Australia’s operations in the Middle East wars and peacekeeping initiatives to provide context to the training and deployment experience of these participants. The rationale of the study, the aims and approach to the research topic, the lived experience of veterans of moving from military to civilian life, and the conceptual framework underpinning this research are explained. This is followed by an overview of the literature reviewed to inform understanding of military culture, combat, meaning making and transition experience of veterans, post-discharge.

My methodology is outlined in Chapter 2 and participant demographic information is explained. I outline the phenomenological base for this research as a method that enables the exploration of the subjective experience, to give voice to the lived experience of combat veterans post-discharge. Data collection and analysis are discussed and methodological challenges encountered in the research are described.

In Chapter 3 I discuss the militarisation of identity, noting factors of training and specific skill development, ‘warrior’ socialisation and training for combat as they impact core meaning and value identification of soldiers trained for combat. The duality of military socialisation and the implications for identity and agency of the military collective are identified apposite to post-military re-socialisation and adaptation.

Chapter 4 explores the impact of combat exposure on identity and meaning making. Commonalities and differential combat experience are identified. The dissonance of lived experience in combat and challenges to meaning-making as voiced in the men’s stories are analysed in terms of current theory on moral injury and traumatic exposure.

Chapter 5 examines the individual lived experience of transition out of the military to achieve re-integration in the civilian world. The individual, personal tasks of re-forming identity, the role of the army on discharge and the marginalised experience encountered when navigating the liminal space, the space between the two worlds are discussed.

Chapter 6 concludes and reflects on the analysis of the stories of the research participants and comments on understandings and themes that emerged. Implications for future study 17 and research are considered. The discussion now turns to the consideration of the methods of data collection and analysis used to illuminate the post-military experience of the seven participants of this study.

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CHAPTER 2: METHODOLOGY

2.1. Introduction

This chapter presents the methodology used to explore the post-discharge experience of combat veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. A qualitative phenomenological research design utilising repeat semi-structured interviews provided three points of analysis: the militarisation of identity, combat exposure and post-military transition. The phenomenological approach addressed the importance of hearing the voices of the research participants in order to facilitate an in-depth analysis of their lived experience as combat soldiers post-discharge.

The participant sample was selected purposively, recruited by referral through informal contacts. In addition to deployment to the war zones of Afghanistan and Iraq, some of the participants in this study have experienced ongoing participation in a range of roles, which involve exposure to human distress and devastation, and violent, inhuman behaviours that can characterise exposure during peace keeping roles. 2.2. Phenomenological Approach

A phenomenological framework has been used to explore the experience of these Australian Army war veterans, post-deployment and post-discharge, incorporating specific field research focusing on how participants interpret their own experience. Phenomenological exploration can provide a lens through which to assist articulation of individual experience that may be difficult to voice and can be hidden or overlooked. The approach used aimed to facilitate in-depth analysis of the experiences and perceptions of the participant veterans of their experience in the military and post-discharge. Their descriptions and reflections provide insight and enhanced understanding (Finlay 2012) and can contribute to building knowledge and theory to further understand the impact of contemporary military combat in male lives. Nicholson (2009) states “Phenomenology is disclosure of the lived experience in all its forms”. This approach deals with “everything that is partly known, partly revealed, partly concealed”. The current study has provided opportunity for the men themselves to revisit, gain clarity and give voice to their experience, disclosed, concealed or not expressed. Asking “what is the nature of this lived experience” (Van Manen 1997: 42) has provided opportunity to gain an insider view on the

19 individual veteran’s internal world from an experiential perspective, which will contribute to providing a more holistic perspective of the multiple issues veterans deal with post- deployment.

This study has followed the Interpretive Phenomenological Approach (IPA), pioneered by Johnathan Smith (Smith, Larkin et al. 2009). IPA is committed to the examination of the ways people make sense of their major life experiences and is concerned with exploring experience in its own terms. IPA researchers are particularly interested in what happens when the everyday flow of lived experience takes on a particular significance for people, exploring and interpreting that experience. Human beings are sense-making creatures and accounts participants provide reflect their attempts to make sense of their experience. IPA recognises that access to experience is always dependent on what people express. The researcher then interprets that account from the participant in order to understand their experience, trying to make sense of the participant trying to make sense of what is happening to them (Smith, Larkin et al. 2009: 1- 4).

Finlay (2012:175) suggests that the essence of the phenomenological research approach encompasses five mutually dependent and dynamically iterative processes:

• Embracing the phenomenological attitude

• Entering the life-world through descriptions and experiences

• Dwelling with horizons of implicit meaning

• Explicating the phenomenon holistically

• Integrating frames of reference.

As a phenomenological approach, IPA seeks to understand personal lived experience in the context “of exploring the individual’s relatedness to, or involvement in, a particular process or event” (Smith 2009:40). The subjective experience of veterans is little studied. The themes emerging from the men’s stories in this study relate to the challenges to identity for war veterans in transition from military to civilian worlds and fit with the IPA focus. IPA acknowledges that major life transitions are situated in historical and cultural contexts and have found that identity and identity changes associated with major life transitions have emerged as central concerns of IPA studies (Smith 2009:163). The IPA approach used has enabled the facilitation and articulation of the participants’ experience of their training, combat exposure and discharge experience and has enabled exploration and interpretation of their attempts to make sense of their experience. 20

2.3. The Participants

There were seven participants in this study, to be known as Jim, Jack, Dan, Bill, Rob, Paul and Dave. They were aged between 31 and 58 years with service periods of five to twenty- nine years. Five of the seven were in their thirties at the time of the interviews. Jim, Jack, Rob, Paul and Dave had experienced various active deployments including East Timor, the Solomon Islands and humanitarian aid in Papua New Guinea (PNG), which resulted in exposure in peace keeping and policing roles to communities in violent conflict. Rob, Paul and Dave discharged voluntarily and are currently employed. Jim, Jack, Dan and Bill were discharged on medical grounds, three of which were involuntary and were not employed at the time of the interviews. Each of these four had or wished to make the Army a lifelong career. The oldest participant, Bill, had joined in 1974 and discharged in 1998 to re-join the Army Reserve in 2001, and was sought for deployment to Iraq in 2005.

Eighteen in-depth, semi-structured interviews have been conducted with the seven participants, some ranging over a twelve-month period. The initial contacts of two or three interviews were conducted with each participant between July and October 2015, and a follow-up interview conducted in mid-2016. Three of the participants, Jim (one interview), Jack (two interviews) and Dan (three interviews) did not re-engage in follow up interviews in 2016. They ceased participation without direct communication or explanation. Each of these participants had been medically discharged and on presentation during the study were experiencing disconnection with the civilian world due to physical injuries, PTSD and meaning-making challenges.

The age of the participants in this study varied although their engagement with the army typically occurred in their late teens (see Table 1 below). Rob and Paul enlisted at age 17. Jim, Jack and Dave joined the army or initially the Army Reserve at 19 years, Rob at 20 years and Dan at 23 years. Economic, employment opportunity and career development were motivating factors for all. A desire to serve and contribute was also a factor for the majority of the participants. On questioning, all of the participants referenced and expressed respect for family members who had served, grandfathers or great uncles (World War II), fathers and uncles who had fought in Vietnam and in one instance a brother who was concurrently serving. This familial history was not reported as a significant driver in their decision to enlist.

Five of the participants were in their 20’s when deployed, Jim was 37 years and Bill was 48 years at his first deployment. The year of deployment has relevance to the nature of 21 engagement of the Australian military in Iraq and Afghanistan and in consequence the deployment purpose and combat exposure. In this study, the deployments were: Iraq 2005 (Bill), Afghanistan 2006 (Bill); 2007 (Rob); 2008 (Paul); 2010 (Jim, Jack, Dan, Rob); 2012 (Rob, Jack). Dave, a former Special Forces (SF) officer, had numerous trips and four deployments 2009 - 2014. Bill was 17 when he joined the army in 1974. As such his experience was of ‘peace time’ soldiering. He discharged in 1998 (suffering PTSD nonetheless) prior to Australia’s engagement in East Timor in 1999. Following his re- engagement in the Army Reserve in 2001 he was deployed to Iraq in 2005 and subsequently Afghanistan in 2006.

All of the men had deployed to Afghanistan. Bill was the only participant with operational experience in Iraq. Consequently, the focus of interviews related primarily to the war in Afghanistan. Age, combat exposure, wounding in combat, sense of efficacy, leadership and team cohesiveness were relevant factors. Their experience on joining the army, and training and skill development as a precursor to deployment were explored. Philosophical considerations about war, men in war, the nature and purpose of Australia’s engagement in Afghanistan and the Afghan people and culture were expressed by the participants in their accounts, all of which was interpreted by me as a means of processing their deployment experiences.

Of the seven participants four have been diagnosed with PTSD, three suffered physical wounding, which has been a compounding debilitation and in each instance, has compromised their physical capacity with implications for employability. These four men were medically discharged (see Table 1). Each of these four participants had or had anticipated a long-term career in the military. By their accounts medical discharge has multiple implications for post-military adaptation, which involves a complex renegotiation and re-establishment from the intensely formed military identity to finding self and self- definition in a civilian context. Factors that differentiate a medical discharge include lack of choice in the decision to leave the military, a sense of failure and associated humiliation and shame, loss of ‘familial’ (military) support, and loss of identity and place. The renegotiation and re-establishment of personhood in the civilian world is further challenged by a deeply embedded, often dislocated identity following traumatic exposure and meaning dislocation.

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2.3.1. Table 1: Description of Participants

Age Current At Service Role Deployments Discharge Employment interview Status

Jim Reserve 2 Signals 2010 Afghanistan Medical 2012 Unemployed 42 Army 5 (aged 37) (aged 39) Joined 1992 (aged19) 2007 Solomon Is PTSD, depression, (aged 34) substance abuse

Jack Army 14 Air 2010 Afghanistan Medical 2014 Unemployed 34 crewman (aged 28) (aged 33) retraining Joined 2000 2012 Afghanistan (aged19) (aged 30) Physical wounding 2002 East Timor PTSD 2003 Solomon Is 2007 PNG 2008 East Timor 2009 East Timor

Bill Army 24+ 5 Armoured 2006 Afghanistan Medical 2006 Unemployed 58 (aged 17) Corps PTSD 1974-1998 2005 Iraq (aged 49) 2001-2006 (aged 48)

Dan Army 6 Combat 2010 Afghanistan Medical 2013 Unemployed 31 Joined 2007 Engineer MTFI (aged 26) (aged 29) retraining (aged 23) Physical wounding PTSD Afghanistan 2008 Paul Army 7 Infantry (aged 24) Voluntary 2009 Employed 31 Joined 2001 E Timor 2006-07 (aged 25) Police 6 yrs (aged 17) SE Asia training

Rob Reserve 3 Infantry 2012 Afghan (30) Voluntary 2013 Employed 32 Army 8 2010 Afghan (28) (aged 31) Police 3.5 yrs Joined 2002 2007 Afghan (25) (aged 20) 2006 Timor

Dave Army 14 Reserve 2 9 tours Voluntary 2015 Employed 34 (aged 19) Army 6 (aged 34) 2001- 15 SF 7

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2.4. Methods of data collection

Semi-structured, in-depth interviews combining a pre-determined set of open-ended questions to prompt discussion were used (Appendix 1). This allowed opportunity to explore particular themes or responses further. Smith (2009: 58) notes this method “invites participants to offer a rich, detailed, first person account of their experiences”. A loose agenda was structured to assist planning, consideration of complex questions or sensitive topics and how to frame them as a prompt for more reserved participants (Smith, Larkin et al. 2009: 56). Kvale (1996: 5-6) sees the purpose of the interview “is to obtain descriptions of the life-world of the interviewee with respect to interpreting the meaning of the described phenomena”. The aim is to facilitate an interaction through conversation, which enables the participant to tell his story in his words.

To ensure confidence and transparency the interviewees were informed of the overall structure of the content and the recording method (audio and note-taking) prior to the interview. Taking account of the importance of relational aspects and trust, rapport was established by informal discussion around current personal life-stories and eliciting demographic information. The interviews were comprised of a pre-determined set of questions, which were grouped thematically to be used for reference and as prompts. Relevant themes included: military culture, military training, operational experience, traumatic exposure, pre-determining risk factors, support (unit, army, family, friendships) during and post-deployment. Open-ended questions that allowed for detailed answers were used with prompts and probes to enable further exploration of particular themes or responses (Drever 1995).

Approaching fieldwork without being constrained by predetermined categories of analysis, characteristic of quantitative methods, contributes to the depth, openness and detail of qualitative inquiry (Patton 1990: 40). Methodologies that emphasise the subjective post- discharge experience of these veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan have been little used in studying this population with the result there is a stated perception (e.g. self-reports, media, professional support providers) that veterans’ ‘real life’ experience is not fully recognised or understood by the army, the civilian world, family and friends. 2.5. Recruitment

I initially planned to separately speak with around 10 participants using a purposive sampling method. Support for the study and relevant introductions were provided by 24 members of StandTall4PTS, the Gallipoli Research Foundation at Greenslopes Hospital, Brisbane, Mates4Mates, Veterans and Veterans Families Counselling Service (VVCS) and Agile Transitions. However, the recruiting of participants proved to be a significant challenge. Over a period of six months I sought to recruit participants to the study through multiple pathways. Approaches were made to a number of veteran support groups. I distributed flyers and posters about the research to Mates4Mates, VVCS, and Go2 Performance. I wrote, emailed and had phone contact with Vietnam Veterans Federation, Soldier On, Young Diggers and Wounded Heroes. Flyers and posters, a letter of introduction from my principal advisor and a written outline of the study were forwarded with an offer to meet with their membership. A presentation on the research was made to a meeting of Mates4Mates members. These approaches were however, unsuccessful in sourcing participants. A presentation to a clinical meeting of counsellors of VVCS about the study was well received although no referrals resulted. Commenting on similar difficulties, Chris Masters (2013:xix) reflected on the challenges of engaging with members of the Australian military when he spoke of the difficulties experienced by journalists and authors in gaining the trust and co-operation of soldiers. He attributed the difficulties of engagement in part, to the cultural reservation of the Australian soldier “who unlike Americans, don’t perform on cue”.

The seven men who participated in the study were recruited through a purposive referral sampling strategy. It is of interest that the participants were sourced through more informal networks with whom I had personal connection. A personal association with one of the directors led me to approach Go2 Performance, a private holistic service provider comprised of medical, counselling, physiological and nutrition advisors, some of whom are ex-military. Three participants, Jack, Dan and Bill, were clients of Go2 Performance. An associate in the police force who has an interest in homelessness in general, and as it relates to ex-military specifically, recommended the study to ex-military colleagues. Rob and Paul are police personnel who volunteered. A personal social contact introduced me to one participant, Jim, and one participant, Dave, engaged on the recommendation of Paul. The participants were given an information sheet providing a summary outline of the study (Appendix 2). Consent was obtained at the commencement of the initial interview (Appendix 3). The participants were advised they could withdraw at any time and would be able to view the transcriptions of interviews. None sought to take advantage of that opportunity.

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In looking for a level of saturation around the key themes I anticipated conducting two to three interviews with each participant to give me opportunity to explore their experience in depth. Choice of venue for the interviews was offered to the participants for the purpose of their convenience. Bill engaged in two interviews at his home and two in my office. Dan expressed a preference to meet in my office on the three occasions of our meeting. Paul was initially interviewed in his home on a weekend and subsequently at my office on two occasions as it was close to his workplace. Rob engaged in three interviews in my office as it accommodated his work demands. I attended at Jack’s home for the initial interview and for the subsequent interview he opted to meet at my office. Two interviews with Dave were conducted at his place of work. I attended at Jim’s home for his single interview.

It was anticipated that those most impacted by deployment experience would not volunteer. In seeking to understand how veterans actively make meaning of their experience, the seriously ill and vulnerable such as those with diagnoses of psychotic illness or who were suicidal were not included. A feature of the severely traumatised is avoidant behaviour characterised by inability or ‘unreadiness’ to talk about their experience (Hermann 1992; Bearup and Cantwell 2012; Zinzow, Britt et al. 2012). Interpreting the accounts of the seriously disrupted is beyond the scope of this thesis, though could be a topic for further study.

A reticence to maintain engagement was reflected in the participants who were more severely impacted by their deployment experience. Those participants who experienced significant disruption to their personal identity were less able, in telling their stories, to connect outside their military experience. Three of these participants, Jim, Jack and Dan did not re-engage in the follow-up interviews in 2016 some nine months following the initial contacts in mid-2015.

In aiming to address the lived experience of combat veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq on exiting the military, inclusion criteria for the study were:

1. Men who have had operational experience in Iraq or Afghanistan wars;

2. Men discharged from the army at least 3 months and no longer than 2 years.

The suggested two years in the original study proposal imposed a practical limit on the study, but it became apparent as I engaged with participants in this study that it was not meaningful. A deliberate decision was therefore made to make the proposed post- discharge requirement open-ended. In the telling of their stories, their deployment

26 continued to be a significant factor in their internal and external life-worlds, and was an ongoing lived experience for the participants who at the point of interviews had been discharged variously between one and nine years’ post-deployment.

The individual journeys of these participants in the military were personal and unique. A complexity of experience was described in the process of adaptation and adjustment to achieve the transition to ‘the soldier self’. On a practical level the skill set and the military experience sought on joining, stage at which they achieved the training and corps appointment sought, and ‘actual’ experience during their pre-combat life was a different story for each participant. Each of the participants sought combat experience as their primary goal. In their thinking and accounting of their experience they delineated between being trained for combat and combat engagement. In this context the organisation of the thesis has drawn on the natural structure of the participants ‘soldier’ and ‘combat’ narratives.

The life stories of the seven participants reflected a comprehensive range of experience as it related to the militarisation of identity on joining the army: the ongoing, intense training for the different roles in the various corps they represented; deployment experience; circumstance of discharge; and transition pathways to re-integration in the civilian world. While not selected because they fulfilled representative requirements of statistical inference, the participants’ stories provide substantial contribution to knowledge of the structure and character of the experience of militarisation, deployment to a war zone and transition (Polkinghorne 2005:149). The logic and power of using purposeful sampling in this study lay in selecting information-rich cases for in-depth examination (Patton 1990: 169). The combined experience of the seven participants enabled a comprehensive exploration of their military lifeworlds, informing on the various roles that make up a combat team and the training required to fulfil that role. The various deployments and phases of deployment provided description of the tasks and challenges for the Australian Army of operational action in Afghanistan. Their individual experience of deployment and combat exposure, and discharge status whether voluntary or involuntary, identified the unique complexity of the individual’s experience on exiting the military. 2.6. Data management and analysis

The interviews with participants were electronically recorded with the participant’s consent. The audio-recordings of the interviews were transcribed to written text for analysis and formed the primary data of the study. The complexity of self-reports and the relationship 27 between experience and language expression was noted. Checking on meaning and clarifying their accounts as part of the interview protocol, focused analytic attention toward participants’ attempts to make sense of their experience (Smith, Larkin et.al. 2009:79) and was incorporated in the interview technique. Useful data from other sources including advisors in the military, newspaper reports, television documentaries, film, theatre and art, assisted in clarification of frames of reference (Polkinghorne 2005:138).

I utilised an iterative and inductive approach to data analysis (Patton 1990: 390). This involved a series of steps in initial coding and recording of emerging themes. In the first step in coding it was important to treat each case on its own terms. As Smith, Larkin et al. (2009: 100) note, “To do justice to the individuality of each case ‘bracketing’ of ideas emerging from the analysis of the first case while working on the second is recommended”. When themes were identified and coded, I looked for patterns by layering contextual and narrative elements to assist to identify connections (similarities and differences) within and across cases (Smith, Larkin et.al. 2009: 98). This process was repeated following re-interviewing and checking with interviewees on how they made sense of the phenomena and checking my interpretation of what they said (Mason 2002:149). 2.7. Validity and reliability

To address potential threats to validity my focus was on relationship building, checking and collaborative data gathering with the interviewees. The interview process was the medium through which rapport and trust with the participants was developed. The participants recruited were open to participating in the study and to sharing their stories. This enabled the sharing of rich, detailed, in-depth, first person accounts of their experiences (Smith, Larkin et al. 2009: 56). I checked my interpretation and verified meaning with participants as the interview progressed using questioning, reflection and reiteration (Kvale 1996: 144). I was mindful that the interviewee’s statements are not collected but were co-authored with myself, the interviewer (Kvale 1996: 182). Smith (2009: 84), as an IPA researcher, advocates the importance of engaging in analytic dialogue with each line of transcript, asking what it means and attempting to check the meaning for the participant. Re- interviewing and reviewing transcripts as themes emerged, and interpreting these in the context of related literature enabled a deepening analysis of the data provided by the men’s stories. Participant validation of data was incorporated into the study and I sought feedback from my advisors to check researcher bias. 28

The study is limited to a small sample of discharged veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars. Their experience of volunteering is unlikely to be common to all discharged veterans. However, the stories of these participants provide a holistic picture of lived experience post-deployment and will be one of the first qualitative studies of this population in Australia. As such it will represent a preliminary exploration of the experiences of this population. These men’s combat experience relates to a particular point in history. The Middle East wars have required the development of new approaches to engaging in combat (McChrystal et. al. 2015: 2). The experiences described may not be applicable to the experience of veterans of other wars, however these men’s accounts represent a legitimate expression of the lived experience of veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq.

The strength of the research is demonstrated by the rich data that surfaced. The life stories of the seven participants reflected a comprehensive range of experience as it related to the militarisation of identity on joining the army; the ongoing, intense training for the different roles in the various corps they represented; deployment experience; and circumstance of discharge and transition pathways to re-integration in the civilian world. 2.8. Researcher positionality

I have worked with the client group represented by the participants in a clinical context and bring some experiential knowledge to the study. Although the study evolved from the counselling work I was doing with young veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq, no former or current clients were interviewed in this study. I acknowledge that I have brought my own biases to the research and have used strategies to address this in the research. In the interests of transparency and to ensure rigour and trustworthiness, several strategies have been incorporated including: debriefing with supervisors, keeping a reflective research journal as well as field notes documenting each interview, checking perspective with advisors in the military and return interviews with participants to check veracity of interpretation and understanding of their expressed experience. This feedback as respondent validation has been incorporated, with appropriate permission, into the study (Ward 2007).

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2.9. Ethical considerations

In seeking ethical clearance from the University of Queensland, the following guidelines have been observed4. In designing this study including sampling, recruitment and interview schedule, the extent to which talking about sensitive issues might constitute harm for the participants was considered. Participation in the project has been on the basis of voluntary participation and informed consent (see Appendices 2 and 3). The participants were informed as to design, risks and benefits of participating in the research including likely outcomes of data analysis and topics to be covered in the interviews. If during the interview a participant exhibited distress the option to take a break was offered. On one occasion, the interviewee (Jim) requested to terminate the interview after one hour. He chose not to continue with further interviews. His material is included in the study on the basis of his consent obtained at the beginning of the study. His wishes were respected and no further attempts were made to include him in the study. On two occasions, interviewing Dan and Jack, I noted a degree of distress. On each occasion, I checked with the interviewee and a decision was made to continue. Three of the participants, Jack, Dan and Bill were accessing psychological support at the time of the interviews. I discussed with Jim the benefit of counselling support following our interview.

Pseudonyms are used in this thesis and all data is de-identified and stored on a password- protected file. Records and written notes have been stored in a locked drawer in the researcher’s home and will be destroyed upon completion of the thesis. Participants were advised at the outset that my advisors and I would have access to the research material for the duration of the study. 2.10. Summary

This chapter described a qualitative phenomenological study utilising a repeat interview design to explore the lived transition experience of combat veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars in exiting the military. Challenges to recruitment were identified. It was noted that the vulnerabilities of the more ‘wounded’ participants influenced their ongoing engagement with the research. The approach taken to data collection, management and analysis was described and ethical considerations documented. The following chapter will

4 The research protocol was approved by the University of Queensland School of Social Science Ethical Review Panel (SSERP). Approval was granted under clearance number (RHD1/2015)

30 discuss the findings of the analysis on the militarisation of identity. The men’s lived experience of socialisation into the military, the medium of training for shaping identity and agency to function in the military collective and the duality of military socialisation are explored.

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CHAPTER 3: MILITARISATION

3.1. Introduction

This chapter explores the process of shaping the ‘soldier’. In Uncommon Soldier Masters (2013: xviii) writes about “the fascinating transformation from civilian to soldier”. The shaping of a military identity through intensive, ongoing training is the cornerstone of military culture. It is through this medium that the core of military identity and collective agency is so intensely formed, which has meaningful impact on self-identification and the development of each trainee soldier. Training and the values and skills that are the core elements of training are connected to building military identity and the sense of collective agency. The exercise of such agency emerged as an important consideration in this study.

‘Identity’ and ‘agency’ arose as primary themes in the analysis of participants’ accounts of their military experience. A notion of a ‘military agency’ as evolving through training is explored as well as the implications for individual agency in fulfilling roles in combat. The concept of duty, requirements of the role trained for, and the expressions of masculinity embedded in these are considered in understanding the construction of the combat warrior trained in the defence of his country. The role of combat exposure in further embedding this ‘soldier identity’ is identified. The implications for these ‘combat warriors’ of their training and combat experience in shaping a military identity and foregoing individual agency was found to be of significance for their transition post-discharge. 3.2. The Shaping of a Military Identity

Analysis of the participants’ stories identifies a military identity that is shaped by gradual adaptation over time in the context of specific and intense training. Training is central. It begins on day one. It is a concerted inculcation of values and skills based on duty and loyalty to shape identity and reframe individual agency to build effective combat soldiers as team members. Kirke (2010) identifies military training as the significant factor shaping identity, worldview and meaning making of soldiers. General McChrystal (2015:35) has noted the necessity of military discipline, which he described as “an arbitrary exercise in crushing individuality to achieve efficiency and predictability”. The participants’ stories attest that these young veterans of our Australian Middle East campaigns are intensely trained, highly skilled individuals. Their descriptions affirm a process of de-individuation, which is characterised by “breaking down and building up”, of being immersed in long hours of training activities where the focus is on the importance of the unit or team, of 32 learning new skills and hard challenging physical tasks until it becomes a way of life. Rob spoke to the purposeful re-shaping of identity:

The Army’s way is that they’d knock you down and build you back up in their way that they want you to be … that starts at basic training. You go there and you have no idea what it’s going to be about. Like, it was really an aggressive environment to learn. I can remember, geez, you were doing 18-hour days and sleeping for six hours and it was like that for seven weeks straight. They were just feeding you or teaching you what you needed to know.

The men observed that such ‘reprogramming’ of identity is not for everyone. Jack described an immersion in the training and the culture that would be challenging for some:

It is a way of life. You live it, breathe it, everything is the army at the time. So, if you’re not ready for that you won’t last long I don’t think.

Bullying and exposure to bastardisation was recounted by a number of participants. The physical and mental challenge is apparent in this dropout rate reported by Jim:

[There was] one suicide attempt in my training platoon – 12 out of 48 did not make it.

Paul recalled an abusive style of training during his induction and ongoing training when he joined in 2001 and thereafter:

Kapooka (basic training) was easier. Just a lot of yelling and shouting. It changed a lot after I went through so – when I went through, verbal abuse was sort of the thing was how you got treated. Yeah, that was the norm. Singo (Singleton)5 was verbal abuse and physical abuse at times [which he experienced]. Then in the battalion, I don’t know if there’s really an intent to shape you into a mould.

Paul stated that “It changed after 2003 following the death of one of the kids”, which resulted in a review of training methods. Paul referred to the importance of bonding with your mates as a means of coping with the emotional, psychological and physical challenges described. However, he expressed ambivalence about the ‘toughness’ of training needed for the infantry:

5 Kapooka and Singleton are the names of Australian army Bases in New South Wales 33

I guess that’s where the ideal of mateship and stuff sort of comes in. When you go through a shitty time in arduous conditions, that’s where the bonding comes I guess, whereas – so that’s the way I see it, and that’s why I don’t mind. Like, people say the bastardisation shouldn’t happen, but I think in the infantry you sort of need it.

These accounts speak to the multi-layered adaptations, socially, psychologically and physically, made by soldiers on induction to the army through the activities of basic training. In addition to a requirement for peak physical fitness, socialisation into the values of military culture (loyalty, self-sacrifice, personal expendability), subsequent skill development in relation to specific working corps (cavalry, artillery, engineers, signals, infantry, aviation, transport) and the challenging and building of mental toughness embedded in the notion of military masculinity shape the formation of military identity and military agency.

The shaping of identity in preparation for combat involves a separation from their former worlds, which is achieved through ongoing re-socialisation into their adopted military world. Dan identified a ‘non-conscious’ re-shaping of his identity and worldview over time:

You know, the best way to shape someone is without them even knowing it, realistically and that’s what I feel like they did with me. But the whole training process is intended to pretty much break you down to – break you down completely so you don’t really know anything, and then try to absorb as much information in such a short amount of time before you get to the unit to actually absorb more information from the senior digs throughout your training and throughout your exercises.

Self-identity as a soldier is built gradually over years by internalising the meanings and expectations of their military roles. In this military context, personal identity is formed by the internalisation of role expectations. The part one plays in the social structure of the military becomes part of self-definition (Ebaugh 1988:22). The strength of soldier self- identity and a sense of difference results from a deeply shared experience within the military (Simons 1999). For these participants, a strong sense of identification with the military culture and values was voiced, which deepened as their training and service progressed as expressed by Jack when talking about his motivation for joining:

It [joining up] sort of came to the forefront when I needed some income and then I really started thinking about what I could do and then sort of 34

serving my country sort of came in from there and grew and grew and grew until I joined and it went on from there.

Shared values and shared sense of purpose, expectations of self and the military of them, create a sense of difference from civilian world counterparts. Military personnel live in a world that is separate in a number of ways from the rest of society. The younger unmarried men live on barracks and married couples live in suburbs populated by other military families. They are posted every 3 years, which impacts on building social networks outside the military. They seek connection within the military because of shared experience, values and lifestyle, thus maintaining a separateness from the civilian world. 3.3. Military Training – Rite of Passage

Analysis of participants’ stories reveals a military identity that is shaped by gradual adaptation and is embodied over time. Jim speaks to the initial challenge and gradual ‘becoming’ and internalisation of his ‘soldier-self’:

It [basic training] was mentally and physically difficult. Then after that obviously going to Infantry School it got even cooler. And tougher as well …and developing your skills and getting sent off to courses… but after a while it becomes what you do. You don’t think it’s a challenge or it’s a commitment. It’s your job.

Jack described the ongoing skill development:

It was daunting and quite stressful to start with, the training [for aviation] because my particular course took about 10 to 11 months and being under assessment up until the last day was rather stressful …and the skills just keep coming and coming. Even once you’re qualified that (training and assessment) doesn’t stop. It continues on until basically you leave.

The culture of the military is distinguished by its communal character with emphasis on the value of the team and safety of ‘other’ (team members). Values of duty, honour in personal relationships, teamwork, unit cohesion, and self-sacrifice underlie and set high standards and high expectations in the interpersonal structures of the military. These values are essential to survival in combat, but also go deeply to the collective nature of the military (Flynn, Hassan et. Al. 2013). General McChrystal observes: “Standardisation and uniformity have enabled military leaders to bring predictability and order to the otherwise crazy environment that is war” to achieve: 35

efficiency and predictability, armies dress, drill and discipline men into becoming interchangeable parts of a military machine. The soldiers are groomed and outfitted to look as much alike as possible. Uniforms, besides allowing easy identification on the battlefield, also impact behaviour. They enforce erect posture and bearing. More subtly, they help instil loyalty, pride and inclusion – all part of ‘soldierisation’ (McChrystal et.al. 2015:35).

Paul reflected on the means of achieving standardisation and order in the training of infantrymen:

Infantry culture compared to other corps would look different I imagine – yeah macho sort of attitudes – yeah macho probably encapsulates it … so for the shaping of the person you got the controlled aggression element. Controlled aggression is what would make you say, “yes Sir”, “no Sir” do this, do that. It creates an intense environment and what they are teaching you is not difficult so – but you can do it without thinking, is what really, I guess, what they’re after.

A deep willingness to commit was characteristic among the research participants who described a positive, though emotionally and physically challenging training experience, which enhanced their existing direction and mindsets. Dan spoke of the gradual inculcation of skills and values:

You go down to Kapooka for your initial training… that’s an All Corps training facility in which case you learn the basics of being a soldier and what it’s about and you start having a feeling of what the values are and all that stuff is.

The participants as young men were each physically fit and the training was experienced as an extension of this physically strong, competent, active focus. The training on entering the military and associated experience of belonging (to the military family) provided a sense of purpose and heightened sense of commitment which was reported by all participants to be experienced as positive and personally strengthening. Their positive reports suggest a successful ‘rite of passage’ preparing them for ‘military manhood’ (R. McCrae pers. comm. 2015). Jim reflected his sense of achievement remarking: “The training was awesome – I loved it. It was exactly what I expected.”

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Rob spoke of the ‘restlessness’ of that age. The training for him provided a constructive outlet at a developmentally critical age:

Motivation and a sense of adventure as well. Like, I didn’t know what to expect. I think that has a lot to do with it. I think when you’re 20 and young you’re a little bit restless as well, bit of an adrenalin junkie and all that I think. You’ve got to have it.

3.3.1. Value Identification

In the majority of the men’s stories the structure, focus and sense of purpose in military life resonated and deepened as the training progressed. Among combat veterans, shared values stem from service to one’s country, shared training experiences and a shared mission (preparation for war and national defence). This common understanding generates a set of basic cultural beliefs and norms that distinguish combat veterans from civilians (Strom, Gavian et. Al. 2012). Appreciation that the opportunity military life provided for contribution, commitment, belonging and a sense of purpose was characteristic in this group, though may not be characteristic of the whole of the military population. Jack described positive ‘value’ fit and opportunity for contribution:

From the day I joined basically. From the day I turned up it was – I got a feeling well, you know, I could do something for the country which is a lot better than what I thought I could do in a small country town.

Jim was also inspired by the opportunity to serve:

I was interested in the service and serving, you know. I just wanted to be one of the good guys, you know. The Australian Army has – it’s got a great reputation globally.

Rob described recognition of a sense of purpose when he was on deployment:

I think I learnt it on deployment, that I was contributing and there is purpose in what I was doing.

The military values of service, commitment, teamwork, loyalty and mateship had meaning as described by Dan:

The biggest value for the Australian Army is mateship. No matter what, you’re always with your mates. You’re always – you train with them, you sleep with them, you’re constantly with them, so mateship is the biggest

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value. Loyalty as well. Loyalty to your mate. If something happens to him, you make sure you’re there. Then you’re also got teamwork, working together to achieve a common goal.

The participants’ identification with their training experience reflects a personal resonance with military culture and the military identity unlike, according to the participants, those less successful in the training induction, and as such a predisposition for adapting to the identity and agency required for combat soldiering. As Jim stated:

Not everyone makes it through ‘basic’. It’s a bit of a ‘survival of the fittest’ environment… (shaping the warrior) able to fight and represent your country and defend your country.

3.3.2. Skill development

The training is specialised and specific. The specific roles and tasks that combine to create the ‘combat team’ can include armoured corps, artillery, combat engineers, signals, infantry, aviation and logistics. In this study three of the participants were trained in infantry, one of whom with his unit was assisting the SAS with communications in Afghanistan, one a combat engineer who searched for IED’s, one in armoured corps skilled in driving a range of vehicles including tanks, one was ex-SAS and one was an air crewman responsible for transporting men and goods across the war zones. Pride and confidence in their roles and the effort to achieve and maintain their skills was identified in their telling of their stories. The infantry required high levels of physical fitness and physical resilience. For the others, quite specific skill development reflected the task and purpose of the role. This quote from Jack, an air crewman describes the specific micro- requirements, exacting skill and focus required:

Basically, I worked on Black Hawk helicopters, Chinook helicopters. So, in the back I control all the loading and unloading of the aircraft. I control – I calculate all the performance data for the aircraft to see how much we can actually lift, at different altitudes, different temperatures, so I work out all that for the pilot. I assist the pilot in flight planning, flight management, flight route calculations as well as aircraft security, so operating aircraft weapons systems, as well as assisting with minor maintenance and bits and pieces on the aircraft.

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He described the repetitive, ongoing training that underpins the army purpose of preparing men for combat and intensifies the formation of the military identity and agency:

Yeah. So, there is constant training and an expectation that you’re being trained to eventually be doing a particular challenging task.

Jim described the constant training:

Constantly training - developing your skills and getting more skills – the maintenance of every skill you’ve learnt throughout a career in the Defence Force is really quite a complex thing because there are so many diverse things that you will learn over a career in the Defence Force – so it’s a constant requirement for a soldier to train.

There was respect for and recognition of the contribution of each other’s roles and function within the combat corps heightened by their combat experience, which reflected the team focus and collective agency of the military mindset, as articulated by Rob:

We (Infantry) think we’re the best kind of thing, out of the regular forces. We’re not better than the commandos, but I think I learnt … that you can’t survive out there just as infantry. You need your quartermasters, your transport, you need your clerks to do the paperwork and all that. Everyone helps. Everyone chips in, in their own way. I think my eyes opened up when I went on my first trip. The engineers, the guys I worked with, they were combat engineers so they’re just the plain ones, but they’re also searchers for IEDs. I wouldn’t do that. I used to have great respect for what they did.

The descriptions of participants pointed to the building of team identity comprised of highly skilled individuals who have initiative, self-confidence and the ability to express themselves or assert solutions to problems to maintain the safety of all. The recognition of the strengths and means to achieve team strength is expressed by Dan (combat engineer):

You’re using your weaknesses and pushing them aside to put someone else’s strengths in and that’s the thing about sections because everybody’s got different strengths and weaknesses and you can kind of mould, and you know where you are within that to actually build…a good team.

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3.4. Mental Toughness, Military Masculinity and Mateship

As one infantry participant, Rob, stated when describing the ‘masculine’ nature of the soldier role: “Yeah, it’s a tough appearance.”

Hockey (2003: 24) posits:

Masculinity in the infantry is a variation of the near hegemonic masculinity prevalent in western industrialised societies (Connell 1995). Within the military, combat units, in particular the infantry, are assigned the highest status and face what is considered to be the most difficult test, that of battle.

Paul described his experience of rigorous and ‘intimidating’ methods of training in the infantry aimed at achieving ‘obedience’ to meet the challenges of combat:

You don’t want someone questioning an order, so if you’re told to do something you’re going to take it at face value that one, it’s a legitimate thing to do and you go and do it. I think that’s what they want to try to eradicate, the questioning of authority. There’s no room for questioning and that’s probably a good aspect.

He identified the specific need in the army in training soldiers for combat, “aggressive and controlling”, as different from the training requirements for the police force:

I think the army methodology and training, and this is just the training aspect, (this isn’t the personalities and ideals that come in which is what derails a lot of it), is the better way to achieve what they need to achieve, and the product that they produce at the end is what is required for the army.

Reflections on male exclusivity of the ‘infantry soldier’ experience, and the role of humour are encapsulated by Rob in the following:

The people I worked with and the roles I did in the Army was purely masculine. There were no females in any of the roles that I did and it was just by-and-by – the black humour is what passes for both jobs. It’s what keeps you going. The humour is such a huge thing. I think we’re the biggest country for it. The humour is just how we deal with things. I think

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it’s a way of dealing with it. It’s not an easy job and I think you just act that way and you put a spin on it and that’s just how you deal with it.

Military masculinity emerges through their training as an element of identity and agency. Litz (2016) described the constricted masculinised identity of the combat soldier as a “goal directed, agent of harm predation associated with an appreciative rewards system”. 6 Inherent is a coming together of military identity and agency around notions of masculinity characterised by the values of honour and service that shape the ‘warrior hero’. The notion of ‘warrior’ is not a concept commonly associated with Australian ‘soldier’ culture. The term ‘warrior’ constitutes an appropriation from external sources and these young men have reinterpreted it in the Australian cultural context. Brown (2014) notes aspiration to ‘warrior’ heroism in the Anzac tradition is a recurring ideological theme expressed by veterans who join the Australian Defence Forces specifically seeking to be trained for combat.

Higate (2001:448) describes the social construction of the military masculinity “pride in one’s team or battalion, together with a mix of self-reliance, stoicism in the face of hardship, and recognition that one is part of a greater number of interdependent individuals” as a crucial component of the infantry socialisation process. This particular construction of masculinity is used by the military organisation for recruiting young men into combat units at an age when they are in a transitional stage between adolescence and adulthood. “Once these men are socialised into the occupational culture of the military this form of masculinity must repeatedly be reaffirmed in the face of arduous and hazardous activities” (Hockey: 2003:24). The inculcation over time of these values of pride, self-reliance and stoicism are symbolised in the depth of commitment to one’s mates and the ‘greater good’ reflected by Dan in these words:

My role was to be there for my mates and to do my job at the best of my ability to help my mates out. I think it definitely develops within the time you’re in the Army and through your training and what have you. But it is also something – you’ve always got to have that sense of that notion. But yeah, it is developed more – not letting your mates down and the consequences of not letting your mates down.

The significance of mateship, ‘instilling loyalty to one’s mates’, and valuing the safety of others over self is inculcated during training to achieve the ideal of military masculinity (Litz

6 Litz, B. ‘Moral Injury: Assessment, Conceptualisation and Treatment Strategies’ ACOTS Conference, Gold Coast, September 2016 41 et.al. 2015:36). Acceptance of the expendability of one’s life, being willing to sacrifice oneself for one’s mates was a deeply valued symbol of their combat soldier identity as expressed here by Rob:

Letting your mates down was probably the biggest thing. You’re always looking after your mates. It’s never about you. It’s always about the person next to you. And the worst feeling that you can ever have is if you get your mate killed. That starts right at the start --- that’s how they train you. Like, in the first day, if someone makes a mistake it won’t be them that gets in trouble, it’ll be his whole section and they teach you that way; that you need to look out for each other. That kind of mentality. The biggest thing I took away from the Army is that you just have – it’s like an innate protection of the people around you. It was them you worry about first and you’re an afterthought.

The notion of mateship would seem to encapsulate an identification of masculine identity for these participants. Mateship in this military context signifies a masculine ideal of friendship and the medium through which patriotism is expressed. Leahy (in Masters 2013: xvii) comments “unlike the Americans, young Australians rarely invoke patriotism as a motivation for risking their lives”. Their voiced focus on mateship during training and on operations has emerged in the participants’ stories as the significant unifying and meaningful factor that underpins their willingness to ‘sacrifice self’ in combat.

Ideals of emotional control, stoicism in the face of violence, the feminising of trauma and shame, and humiliation that are associated with failure to maintain the ‘warrior image’ (Braswell and Kushner 2012) underpinned the ‘warrior’ ideals and post-combat identity challenges for individual participants. Notions of duty, mental toughness and expendability, aspects of masculinity that characterise the military training required to prepare men to engage in combat are identified in these stories as core to the building of a military combat identity. Embedded in this identity is an ‘uber-masculinity’ underpinned by ideals of physical strength, emotional control, mental toughness, honour, sacrifice of the individual and acceptance of expendability summed up in these quotes:

Jim explained:

(It was) push and see if you break and if you break you don’t get through – if you can’t cope with someone wearing the same uniform as you

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screaming in your face how are you going to cope with someone wearing a different uniform shooting at you?

Rob spoke to the pressure:

It’s just the intense –the pressure that you’re under. There are days that you just felt like, “Oh, I can’t do this anymore”, but you don’t want to quit either. You don’t want to be ‘that guy’ kind of thing. People drop out all the time.

He expressed a sense of achievement:

I think the biggest thing I learnt was probably mental toughness. Just because something’s shit at the time doesn’t mean it’s always going to be like that. There’s always a mental state. And I think that’s another Army value too, that you just focus on what you’re doing.

Being in conflict heightens the hegemonic masculine expression of dominance, toughness and the exclusivity of their capacity and capability to ‘stay on top’ in combat and underpins the mental toughness required, the need to function like a machine and set emotions to one side. This behavioural link to dominant masculinity, the most honoured way of being a man in military terms, suggests the setting of individual agency to one side. Agency in this context is expressed through dedication to the skilled performance of assigned roles in the combat team. In Connell’s work (2005) on hegemonic masculinity, power and the ability to exercise control is central to her understanding. However, forging combat identities effectively requires people to give up power and control, to function in highly regulated, non-autonomous ways, at the same time feeling powerful and self-directed, an almost contradictory element in these military roles. There is also hierarchy, however this analysis found that within their roles, participants found value, honour, individual competence, and a sense of achievement. Operating in a self-disciplined way, having the capacity and the stamina to fulfil their responsibilities without question in highly risky situations was affirming. 3.5. Duality of Military Socialisation

The purposeful socialisation identified in training recruits to become and belong to the military, a separate entity within society, has relevance in understanding and recognising the challenges to identity, the sense of difference, in separating from the military to re- enter civilian society. Analysis of participants’ stories suggests a culture-specific duality 43 inherent in the military organisation. The training specifically shapes the identity and reframes the agency of individual recruits to meet the organisational requirements of the military collective to train soldiers for combat. The formalised, highly disciplined structure of the military lends itself in analysis to consideration of the extent to which military socialisation limits individual autonomy and how military actors experience and view their agency. Higate (2003: xiii) identifies the context and dimensions of masculine expression required in soldier socialisation, which further constrain individual expression:

Military organisations provide social and psychological resources for the reproduction and changing of individual psychologies, often around violence. These include the processes of rationalisation, distancing, following an organisation role, obeying orders and trivialisation through humour. Connections between militarism and masculinism have been persistent historically.

The military is a structured hierarchical institution. It is a totalitarian institution. Characteristic of other totalitarian institutions such as prisons, the loss of agency is punitive and negative, but in the military context this refocusing of agency from individual to ‘team member’ is a core part of those central values of contribution, honour and service to the military ‘collective’. From this would seem to evolve a concept of ‘military agency’ where the subsuming of individual agency to the collective is central to the values of service, duty and commitment, which these men as soldiers aspire to. In this highly- constrained structure of the military, the actors are required to fulfil specific roles to meet the organisational goal of producing soldiers for combat. Dan spoke of the importance of agency and role enactment in the ‘machinery’ of the combat team:

You’re only as strong as the worst person. So, I think within a combat role you actually do see and weed out more the people that aren’t really striving and don’t really want to do it in which case then you find a different role for them within the team.

Military roles and their associated functions are defined to create a comprehensive whole with the specific goal to achieve high-level operational effectiveness (Kirke 2010). It therefore requires a collective identity, a military identity that is shaped by gradual adaptation over time in the context of specific and intense training. In this military context, structural constraint regulates social action (Reed 1997: 21) whereby individual agency is subsumed to maximise ‘collective’ force and efficacy. The participants speak of being 44

“knocked down and built up in the way they want you to be”. They describe an experience of being reshaped and re-formed to become the combat soldiers they enlisted to become, to become something different to what they were. They express pride and a sense of agency in their achievement of ‘changed self’ to ‘soldier self’. As Rob attested: “All the hard stuff contributed to my mental toughness and being able to do your job well, that kind of stuff.” These are complex and sequentially engendered shifts in identity and agency, embodied and internalised as the soldier identity is progressively embedded, which ultimately create challenge in transition from military world to civilian world.

The military training to build the combat soldier experience redefines agency in such a way that is intensely focused on highly specified roles and tasks in the context of the team. Their agency is directed at striving to do their best and is focussed around their capacity to fulfil the exact nature of their role. In consequence, it is not only the structure of authority that limits their individual authority, but the highly specialised, specified role that also limits who they are. Their daily performance of who they are is tied up in a highly regulated, micro-level of performance, which both constrains and enables agency. The stories of these men show that daily practice of tasks is very precise and days on operation are mapped out intricately so that everything counts. If a job is not done well the risk is high and carries significant implications for operational success. Life and death outcomes are inherent. The high level of risk requires a strong identification with the details of performance in their role so that ‘every action counts’. This precision, considered as an aspect of agency, emerges as a key element of military identity as described by Dan.

Well, it’s a very taxing role (searching for IED’s) in the fact that if something happens it’s always your fault – well, nobody does blame you in any sense, but that’s always in the back of your mind. If you miss something, you know - a massive responsibility. I mean, when you’re searching on a road, for example, or even on dismounted patrols and you think you’ve found something and you dig and you can’t find anything, to make sure we’re – 99% of combat engineers, if you speak to them, they’ll say they get up and stomp on the ground that they’ve just been searching just to verify that there’s nothing there, and at the end of the day, putting their life in a stupid position.

Participants’ strong identification with the details in the performance of their tasks reflected self-belief and confidence in their command of their roles. By their reports this sense of

45 efficacy enabled initiative, confidence and assertion in their on-the-ground combat experience, which at times transcended rank. Their stories report a willingness to challenge ‘less combat experienced’ higher rank and risk censure in situations where they considered ill-informed decisions could cause threat to life, a reflection in their belief in their agency and capacity ‘to do things’ as required to meet the challenge of their combat roles in critical instances. They assumed authority in their specialised roles as these participants explained. Dan spoke of his confidence to, and recounted occasions of challenging senior Infantry rank in his role as combat engineer:

We’re a specialised – overseas remember, we’re a specialised unit, but we’re a section specialised in search. Regardless of any rank on our patrol, the infantry personnel, no matter what rank they are, they don’t come in. Their job is to get us from the patrol base to the search site and back safely. Anything along the way comes under us, because we are the specialists in that field.

Jack expressed confidence and self-belief in his role, knowledge and skill as an air crewman:

But yeah, you had to be of a certain attitude I guess … have confidence because you need to be able to speak up as well. Speaking to officers, you know, you could be the most junior rank but you could be telling an officer how to do something.

All of this shapes the formation of military identity and the military collective agency. The skills are the vehicle for agency and their development creates a professional identity. To maximise ‘collective’ force and efficacy, individual agency is subsumed to the collective of the military in recognition of the ‘greater good’, in a context where moral principles are identified to be above the interests of the individual and assumptions of trust, loyalty and sacrifice are infused into the agency relationship (Shankman 1999). 3.6. Training for Combat

There was an absence of conceptualisation about training specifically for combat in the men’s stories. For each of them preparing for a role in combat was the intrinsic purpose of their ‘becoming a soldier’ as expressed by Jack, who had experienced multiple peace keeping deployments prior to deploying to Afghanistan:

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I wanted to go to a war zone. I wanted to serve the army and go to a war zone. I thought that I couldn’t – not live with myself, but I couldn’t – I would hate to have spent 14 years in the army and not gone to a warzone. It was the pinnacle of the job, doing your job.

Bill who had wanted to be a soldier since the age of seven had many years in the peacetime army, which involved numerous international exchange tours, but he had never deployed on operations. He described the opportunity to deploy to Iraq as a “fulfilment of what he had joined for” and differentiated the combat experience: “I think the fundamentals of your war experience are somewhat different to the peacetime experience.”

The training for combat is centrally concerned with proficiency in homicidal techniques, toughness, ruthlessness and aggression. These masculine attributes are deepened and strengthened by the intensive, repeated exposure to simulated combat in routine battalion life (Hockey 2003:20). These proficiencies enacted in training for combat further imprint the soldier identity and are representative of a level of commitment that finds little match in the civilian world. On deployment willingness, striving to do one’s best, operating effectively as a team member, skill and confidence in one’s ability are qualities identified by the participants as pre-requisite for proficiency in combat. Dan spoke to his confidence in his ability and willingness:

Yeah, I had a belief in my ability and it is what it is. I mean, I was pretty much going out on – I went out on pretty much 90 percent of patrols.

The men’s reports suggest that these capacities were not universally achieved to the standard required for combat duty. These participants speak to pre-deployment selection and the qualities sought on operational duties as Dan explained:

I think it’s more – it’s probably more of a combat mentality (striving). It’s probably more so on the combat side, but it’s still in the army mentality in general as it is in the Defence, within Navy and Air Force I’m sure. I haven’t had much dealings to say, but as an army as a whole, I think it does, it is a very high standard and high characteristics and that also comes out within your pre-enlistment training and your pre-enlistment interviewing and them interviews and them testing is all about to try and find them characteristics within a person who is going to strive.

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Rob echoed these sentiments and described the process of attrition in selection for deployment:

You had to be good at what you were doing (to be deployed). Because there’s so many of us, if you weren’t carrying your weight you didn’t go because there were times there where units were oversized and they’d only take people that they wanted to go and – yeah, I know a lot of people that never went overseas and there were probably pretty good reasons for it (their skill and attitude).

Jack emphasised the ‘life and death’ realities of operational duty and the importance of ‘selection’:

My point of view is that if there is deployment, you pick your best people that you can because that’s the reason. You need to. People will die if you don’t.

The rigours, skill development, character and strength building, the process of ‘soldierisation’ inherent in the training of men for combat are embodied and implicit in the soldier identity. As Higate (2001: 450) writes:

The emotional and embodied characteristics of life in the armed forces are appropriated by and ‘work through’ servicemen, providing them with an ontologically secure sense of military masculine identity.

The masculinised ideals that characterise the military masculine identity are necessary to survival in training and in combat. Training young soldiers to fight, to win and if needed to kill, necessitates inculcation of values of mental toughness, sacrifice of self to the collective, and expendability. Dan described the dedication, physical hardship and constant risk to life as a combat engineer. He recounted the challenge of gruelling days on patrol:

Yeah, it's a gruelling, very gruelling job. You’re constantly on the go. You’re always pushing yourself to the edge – like say doing 10, 15, 20 k patrols a day. Constantly leaving at 5.00 in the morning and coming home at 5 at night or even 9 or 10.00. That constant, constant demand – as an engineer we don’t stop – search, pick up move to another search site – if we find weaponry you chuck it in your bags and continue on – with UXO’s (land mines) leave them in place.

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There was comment from the participants about the amount of time preparing for deployment. Jim spoke to the stress of excessive training:

Perhaps the rest you get at the end of the operation isn’t enough and the ramp up period – the COs just love to ‘Oh we’ve got to make sure we’re all prepared’… you know ...’so let’s do a ramp up before the ramp up, before the final mission rehearsal exercise’ and so it effectively ends up the six months before the deployment and the deployment you spend away from your family and the stress that puts on your family when you go home so you’re walking out of stress back into stress.

Masters (2013: 206) observed “the families of soldiers say that a tour is as much as doubled by the amount of time away training before they actually say goodbye”.

Notions of duty, mental toughness and expendability, aspects of masculinity that characterise the military training required to prepare men to engage in combat are identified in participant stories as core to the building of a military combat identity. Hockey (2003:15) affirms the purposeful socialisation to achieve the military objective of preparing men for combat:

The prime objective of the military organisation is to engage in conflict and the resources it deploys are essentially human. … The brutal business of taking and holding ground remains the province of the infantry. It is the infantry alone that normally destroys the enemy at much closer range. Ensuring that the troops accomplish this organisational objective effectively requires an ongoing socialisation process. 3.7. Summary

The militarisation of identity is evidenced in the men’s stories to involve multi-layered adaptation to military culture, impacting core meaning and value identification. Training is the vehicle for shaping the ‘soldier’ identity and is focussed on the development of functional skills needed to survive in combat. Intense socialisation rituals shape the formation of military identity and the military collective agency. Inherent in this is the acceptance of the order of things, the reframing of the agency of individual recruits to meet the organisational requirements of the military collective, which characterises the culture specific duality of the military organisation. The men express pride and a sense of agency in their achievement of ‘changed self’ to ‘soldier self’. Their stories reflect a valuing of their 49 skill development, pride in belonging to the military collective underpinned by the primacy of connection with their mates. The notion of expendability, of sacrificing one’s life for one’s mates and the military mission underlies the training for combat. The following chapter will explore the impact of engagement in combat in more deeply embedding the soldier identity.

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CHAPTER 4: COMBAT EXPOSURE

4.1. Introduction

This chapter focuses on deployment experience and the impact of combat exposure in more deeply embedding the soldier identity. The men’s stories identify contradictions of the ‘lived experience’ of combat, which is described as the ‘pinnacle’ of their career, but which also can come at the high cost of disruption to identity and agency. The chapter will explore the legacy of combat exposure in shaping the resultant challenge to re-forming identity on discharge in a civilian world. For the participants in this study the lived experience of deployment was crucial not only in shaping and consolidating participants’ military identity and agency, but was central, for a number of them, to the struggle to make meaning in their post-military world. The analysis has found that this complexity of unresolved ‘lived experience’ identified around a dissonance between expectation and actual life in a war zone can compound disjuncture between military life and post-military life for these men. For clarity of understanding I will refer to the experiential dimension of combat and deployment as ‘the lived experience’ as voiced in the stories of these participants. The themes that emerge assist to expand understanding and recognition of the subjective experience of veterans exposed to the multi-faceted demands that characterise operational duty and which impact identity and meaning making post-military. 4.2. Deployment and Combat Experience

The participants’ stories corroborate research studies (Pflanz and Sonnek 2002; Hoge, Castro et al. 2004; Greenberg, Langston et al. 2007; MacLean and Elder 2007; Pietrzak et al. 2012) demonstrating that the soldier identity is impacted by deployment, and combat engagement in particular, which involves intense, high stakes attachments, exposure to loss of life and human suffering, and danger and threat as occupational hazards in combat (Litz et.al. 2015). The stories and post-discharge challenges recounted support that the lived combat experience has had challenging outcomes for them, in particular, traumatic exposure in combat with moral injury resulting. For some this has been an ongoing challenge. The role played, well or poorly-orchestrated operations, direct exposure to small arms fire (machine guns, rifles), direct exposure to loss of life, to wounding of self or mates were significant determinants identified in the men’s stories.

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What has been a training exercise, often over years, of building and maintaining physical strength, developing skills and knowledge, aspirational inculcation of beliefs and values in preparing soldiers for combat is put to the test. The ‘soldier’ identity becomes more deeply embedded and embodied when combat soldiers experience the ‘life threats’ and the challenges of surviving in a war zone. The shift to ‘reality’ imbued in the transition from training to deployment is exemplified in David Finkel’s report on a briefing on stress management and suicide prevention prior to deployment where young American soldiers were asked “Are you ready? If you are not ready to die, you need to be. If you are not ready to die, you need to get there. If you are not ready to see your friends die you need to be.” Finkel asks the question “What 19-year-old could be ready?” (Finkel 2009:12). He referred to boys as young as 17 on that deployment.

In this study six of the participants joined the army between the ages of 17 – 20 years and one at 23 years. Five of the participants in this study were in their 20’s when first deployed to a warzone, one was in his 30’s and one deployed to Iraq in 2005 at age 48 years. The deployment roles and tasks of the seven participants varied. Age, combat exposure, wounding in combat, sense of efficacy, leadership and team cohesiveness were relevant factors in their experience of deployment. 4.3. Commonalities of deployment experience

The participants variously reported on the challenge of being confronted with the realities of operations in a war zone, acknowledging the shift from ‘playing at war’ in training exercises to ‘the real thing’. The realisation that this is now ‘for real’ is summed up in the words of Bill, then aged 48 years, when discussing the impact of two weeks of ‘pre- training’ in Kuwait in preparation for deploying to Iraq in 2005: “That sort of sank the nail into the coffin that this isn’t a fairy-tale anymore. This is the real thing.”

Bill described confronting training preparation:

We did about three days of medical training. We had to learn how to do tracheotomies - what happens was, for example, when you have a femoral artery bleed - so, we had ‘crush’ injuries, we had compound fractures and I’m thinking this is for real. That’s when the penny dropped and the light came on and said well, you’re finally doing what you lived for most of your life.

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Jack, who had a number of peacekeeping deployments, spoke of the different stressors and challenges of the Afghanistan deployment:

… but within aviation I did the one to PNG and two to Timor. They weren’t as highly – they weren’t as stressful or the threat wasn’t there, so basically it was just doing your job but you’re away from home … whereas Afghanistan it was completely different. There was the high threat, high security, you were at times locked in your camp, your compound, living in rocket proof or rocket resistant, to an extent, buildings, and having that threat there basically from day one, it was huge. It was a huge difference.

Rob experienced shock and a changed perspective when a mate was killed: “It’s a massive shock …when the reality sinks in, I think your perspective changes and you kind of weigh up – you ask so many questions.” Hockey (2003:21) has observed: “Nothing brings the stark realisation home that exposure on operations constitute the ‘real environment’ than the first casualty suffered within their peer group.”

The challenge of the multi-role engagement of training, construction and combat was described by those deployed in RTFs and the MRTFs (Iraq and Afghanistan 2005 - 2010). From the men’s stories there was significant learning, cultural understanding and adaptation that must occur when deployed. The challenges of fighting this war, the complex rules of engagement are described by Bill who was part of Operation Catalyst (Iraq 2005-09). The role of Australian combat troops in this operation was to support Iraqi security forces. However, the complexity of the challenge in understanding cultural factors, recognition and discernment of danger in the face of contradictory indicators and risk inherent in the role is apparent in this quote from Bill:

So, there’s a fair bit of cultural stuff to learn. Okay, look. You’ve got to give them a go because you don’t know whether it’s a guy that’s got a pregnant woman going to hospital to give birth or you don’t know whether someone’s had a drug overdose, or a prescription. … And the signs that you look for then are - is a car weighed down and you sort of look at the suspension of the car. If the tyre’s touching the wheel arch like that, well, the car could be full of LPG gas cylinders. Now, superphosphate mixed with diesel makes a thing called ANFO, which is an explosive mixture. So, they put bags of ANFO in the back of the car, they put brake fluid, chlorine, 20 litre and 40 litre LPG cylinders, so when the car comes down the road 53

like that, a pound or pence of pelican shit, that car’s bombed up. So, you had to make – you’re continually – so you’re hypervigilant all the time.

His words also speak to the vigilance and heightened state of awareness that must be maintained in ‘life and death circumstances’ throughout their deployment. The participants have reported significant challenge post-deployment of adapting from the body and mind internalisation, of being alert and “on call 24/7” in a context of ongoing risk and lack of certainty. Those men deployed in the MTFs from 2010 described the unknown, unanticipated risks of combat and mentoring. Dealing with threats and unknowns that could not be anticipated in their training is a theme in their stories. As Jim stated:

Being in a gun fight doesn’t really worry you because you’re trained to do it time and again. The greatest threat to us was improvised explosive devices. The size and explosive force … they got hit by a Russian anti- tank mine sitting on top of 20 kg of home-made explosive ... that was disturbing.

Three of Jim’s mates were severely wounded in this explosion. He shared “…seeing your mates hurt is definitely the biggest challenge”. One mate whom he had specifically recruited because of his relevant operational skills was wounded, now suffers PTSD and had made two suicide attempts post-discharge. He spoke of the sense of responsibility he felt, the ongoing concern over the five years since, which has in his story contributed to a deployment legacy of PTSD.

Jim spoke also of the constant threat and uncertainty of rocket fire, the maintaining of vigilance and hyperarousal if one was to keep safe:

Rockets were a little bit scarier because every now and then a 107-mm rocket would come screaming over your head or hit the building next to you ... and knowing that one guy in the Australian Forces had been killed by one already.

When asked if in preparing for deployment soldiers anticipated the risks to them personally Jim replied: “I don’t know. Everyone thinks ‘no’, it’s not going to happen to me”. He related how this sense of invincibility does not prepare the soldier for ‘failure’, to be one of the ‘broken ones’.

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Bill, who was trained in armoured vehicles, described a range of responsibilities: training, community service and combat related roles required during his Iraq deployment. His words express the complexity and contradictory nature of the roles and tasks:

We also had to train, for example, part of our tasking was to train… a standard Iraqi Army Unit. So, we did that. We also then had counter IED patrols, so that means we were going out by day or by night looking for either bomb layers, bomb construction, reacting to intelligence reports etc., etc. We also did a bit of a hearts and minds thing, where we participated, by using Iraqi companies, to build community projects. For example, we did a big soccer pitch and it had water fountain and it had swings and a kids’ playground. So, there was a lot going on at the same time.

Bill demonstrated a depth of knowledge, skill and compassion in his telling of this deployment experience. It was apparent that he has continued to ‘live’ the experience of a decade ago as he spoke of the multi-role responsibilities, the cultural tensions and politics of working in a training and mentoring capacity with the Iraqi army. He suffers from PTSD.

The risks involved in the training tasks and support programs added to uncertainty as in the training of the Afghan National Army (ANA), which resulted in deaths of Australian soldiers by ANA soldiers they were training. These killings, a transgression of the rules of engagement and violation of the trust essential to work in the ‘life and death’ context of training fellow troops in the skills of combat, challenged belief and confidence in the rationale and purpose of this mentoring role. Dan spoke to the confusion, the questioning and the impact on morale:

It sucked really - because you don’t know any reasons behind it. Nothing makes it understandable. Nothing makes it forgivable, but it’s more just having an idea of the reasons for what could happen and it’s more so just to try and make it not happen again. That would definitely, definitely destroy confidence. I mean the one out at (base) in Oruzgan province (2012) that killed B and D and a third person. That was shattering for them over there. That was on, I think it was Mentoring Task Force 3.

His report on the sense of betrayal in the ‘failure to protect’, the questioning of the validity of their mentoring role and loss of faith in leadership, the uncertainty and lack of trust of the ANA among the Australian soldiers typify the potentially morally injurious ethical and moral challenges confronting military personnel in these Middle East wars. 55

Such incidents and operational environments identify the moral dilemmas, challenges, the complex, atypical roles, and the ‘hidden face’ of the enemy confronting the combat troops in Iraq and Afghanistan. McChrystal et.al. (2015: 2) speak of these complexities in describing the war in Iraq and more generally “the war against a succession of terrorist groups that had simmered since the 1970’s”. General McChrystal described “a convergence of twenty-first-century factors and more timeless human interactions which required a dynamic constantly adapting approach”, which was the challenge to the tried and proven conventional training and approaches to campaigns each of the militaries had brought to these Middle East engagements. 4.4. Differential experience of deployment and combat

The men’s stories report a commonality of experience in confronting and integrating the challenges of the ‘this is for real’ lived experience of combat, the cultural factors and multi- faceted roles for these deployed soldiers. However, the particular phase of deployment can determine combat experience, which by their reports is impacted by a range of factors: phase and task of deployment, leadership, the challenges of specific duties in the war zone, combat exposure in direct contact with enemy forces, team efficacy, mateship and operational success. Rob spoke to a positive, supported experience on deployment: “Yeah. I think I was lucky in that aspect. I always had great people around me, great people that I worked with and so forth”.

Paul, who deployed to Afghanistan in 2008 during the reconstruction phase as part of an RTF expressed frustration at the leadership, which he observed to be a “competition of egos and one-upmanship”. He believed this competitiveness resulted in his unit being on patrol for 78 days straight, unnecessarily: “A horrible experience”. One of the roles of the RTF was the building of Forward Operating Bases (FOB), often in conjunction with a reconstruction task. He talked of building a bridge over a river the Afghans had been crossing for thousands of years, which was washed away in the rains the following season: “…just pointless activities – I think the trip was mismanaged a lot”. Paul expressed frustration and lack of respect for Army leadership and organisation. The lack of a sense of purpose and an accountable rationale for these activities, and his disillusionment with the hierarchy contributed to his decision to discharge after seven years of service.

Mateship is apparent in the participants’ stories as a significant and cohesive factor determining team and operational effectiveness. In the context of demoralising relations with authority, lack of legitimacy of purpose, associated disillusionment and the 56 demonstration of questionable morality in some leadership, the securing of self in comradery is logical. The building of profound attachments was characteristic in these men’s stories identifying the importance of mates in forging a collective strength, sense of purpose and shared experience under the duress of being present and fighting in a war zone. As described by Nadelson (2005: 127):

The bonding that develops early in training becomes stronger in combat and is closer for many soldiers than any relationship they can remember before or since. Combat can arouse a tenderness and concern for trusted comrades and often combat veterans are surprised by the intensity of the friendship and shared feelings.

Following his account of the initial, morally challenging phase in the RTF Paul described a positive team experience working with the “electronic warfare section, the people who do radio intercepts”, the critical work of intercepting the Taliban on radios using an American born interpreter. He found the work interesting and purposeful. His deployment was experienced positively: “…like holidaying in another country with your mates – like the guys I worked with, a core of them were my best mates anyway”.

Australian troops had sporadic contact with the Taliban and suffered few casualties during the RTF phase of engagement in Afghanistan (R. McCrae pers. comm. 2016). By Paul’s account direct exposure in combat during this deployment was limited. The on-the-ground troops experienced the constant threat of a “lot of indirect fire - they were shooting rockets and stuff at the base”. The team was ambushed on the way to Kandahar, but appeared to avoid serious harm. This was reported as “a bit surreal – realising ‘oh shit someone’s shooting at me’ – and ‘then you start shooting back obviously’, but it was exciting, like a thrill”. The descriptions reflected the excitement and the thrill of the risk of putting oneself and one’s skill to the test and surviving. The combat experience in this instance reflected a skilled and comparatively damage free operational response to an assault. It was experienced as an extension of putting into practice successfully the training that these infantry men had been undergoing in many instances for a number of years. As Paul described:

When you get deployed it feels like you’re just on another training exercise, but knowing it’s not a training exercise makes it – more excitement, I guess. Everyone who goes into Infantry wants to do it [deploy]. I enjoyed it. 57

The lack of harm to himself or mates in combat contact, the sense of efficacy resulting from successful operational experience, and working effectively with a team where a sense of meaning and purpose was reported, contributed to a ‘positive’ lived experience of deployment. For other participants, their lived experience held more challenges.

Jack reported experiencing two very different deployment experiences. His first deployment in 2010 was recounted as a positive, self and team-efficacy building experience characterised by team unity and achievement of operational tasks, although the work was challenging and dangerous. He described good support in a shared environment where people have belief and confidence in each other:

The achievement is that particular trip in 2010 was the pinnacle of my career. Without a doubt… we worked with some really, really good people. (Good planning and management) … heavily time managed, heavily. Oh, a massive amount of planning when it goes to a flight.

His second deployment in 2012 was by his account characterised by poor leadership, lack of team unity and flying aircraft that were “not up to it”. Jack spoke of his increasing lack of confidence in the army organisation in selecting and preparing teams for deployment and the lack of competence of some team members, which placed lives and the operational outcome at risk:

Distrust within the system. I believe it was commitment, definitely. Like, people’s heads weren’t in the game. Like, I’ve got to get in the aircraft with that guy and I need to trust my life within his hands.

This deployment resulted in an air crash and physical wounding for Jack. He was medically discharged with chronic physical disability, depression and PTSD, and symptomology of moral injury.

Dan was wounded seven months into his eight-month deployment to Afghanistan. Dan described active combat exposure heightened by the pressures felt by combat engineers to make the route safe for the infantry soldiers following. He spoke of compromised operations and loss of Australian life due to poor leadership. His experience of being ‘shipped’ back to Australia for medical care was demoralising and experienced as discounting and insulting.

Jim described the complex state of excitement to be part of the ‘war effort’ and living the challenges of life in a war zone. He described the sense of participation in interesting and

58 successful operations, which were compromised by the wounding of mates and the resultant physical, emotional and spiritual challenges. The positive and dedicated contribution as a combat soldier tasked to fulfil one’s designated role in the team, the successful achievement, can be at odds with the fallout of war, the loss of life, wounding, cultural dissonance, and the moral, emotional and psychological trauma of combat exposure. 4.5. Dissonance of ‘lived experience’ in combat

The men’s stories speak to the complexity of lived experience and resultant dissonance that soldiers fighting these Middle East wars confront. Positive achievement contradicts disillusionment with leadership, questionable purpose, traumatic loss and moral challenge. Participants’ stories identify their lack of resolution of the dissonance in deployment experience as a key element impacting veteran lived experience of combat and subsequent adaptation. On the one hand a confident, positive sense of their agency and identity as combat soldiers is reflected in their stories. The achievement, the adventure, the risk and successes associated with fighting in a warzone had significant meaning for these veterans. Profound and meaningful experience was described. As one participant said, “this is what we are trained for”. Expressions of pride, service and achievement were described by Jack: “I wanted to go into a war zone. I wanted to go to serve the army… (service in a war zone) was the pinnacle of the job, doing your job”.

Pride and positive identification as a veteran who has served in a warzone is apparent in Rob’s words: “I think the general consensus with people that are in the military and that serve in warzones and that, you’re part of a group, in a way a special group”.

Jack described the challenges of the role, but more so the satisfaction in the performance and the fulfilling of demanding tasks he was trained for: “It [working as an air crewman] is very intensive mentally and at times very physical, but very, very rewarding”.

Strong positive identification with their combat experience conflicts in a number of participant stories with significant disillusionment with the organisation during and post- deployment. The analysis finds that these men talk also about and struggle with contradiction and inconsistency of experience. Lack of consistency between pre- deployment training expectations and ‘on the ground’ experience compounded by reported incompetent leadership and poor organisation in certain instances, characterised the sense of dissonance. The life-world stories related by participants included experiences of

59 being broken or disillusioned by a range of defeating factors: organisational, poor leadership and non-recognition. Dan, who was seriously wounded when blown up by an IED observed:

The hard thing was – I think the hardest thing is just dealing with a lot of the – a lot of the hierarchy were very stupid to put it bluntly. It wasn’t so much uninformed, they weren’t listening to the information of the people on the ground, so they were making decisions without actually taking everything into account.

Each of the participants reported challenged relations with authority on operations. As Dan explained: “It was an occasional thing, but then it was a big part of it depending where you were”. Their reported loss of belief in the hierarchy and others heightened the securing of self in the safety and certainty of their team and their mates. He said: “You only trust someone as much as you have to, other than obviously, your mates. They’re not so much your mates, they’re your family, your brothers”. The depth of bonding, the filiality identified goes to the emotional cost and loss of this depth of relationship in life post-deployment.

Participants demonstrated also a recognition and acceptance of the chance experiences that have life and death outcomes in combat. Frustration, wisdom, and philosophical acceptance are apparent in the following quote describing the decision, going against ‘on the ground wisdom’, to send out a patrol that resulted in the death of a soldier. This experience identifies also the impact of traumatic exposure and potential moral injury where one’s survival comes at the cost of another’s life. The lifelong impact of internalised self-questioning is aptly described by Dan following the death of a soldier on operations:

It’s very frustrating and very confronting in the same respect. I mean, the person that advised them to go on patrol, he’ll be living with it for the rest of his life. The other rank that were telling him, “No, we’re not going on patrol”, they’ll be living with it for the rest of their life as well because they didn’t push hard enough to stop the patrol. Everyone carries it, the boys on the ground, the CFAs, the first aiders that was the first on site for X. They’re living with it for the rest of their life going, ‘Is there something else I could have done?’ One of the other boys, N, he got – he was probably about a metre away from X when it went off and he got thrown just as far as X. He was just a bit rattled, he was fine, where X was lights out. So, he’ll be living with that going, ‘Shit, I was right there. How did I survive?’ 60

You know, you’ve got cases like that all the time. I mean, a couple of other guys that was standing on top of an IED when it went off, they just got thrown and no injuries. Things like that. Dumb luck. That’s what it comes down to. It’s exactly dumb luck whether you get out of that shithole alive or not.

Dan attributed three deaths during his deployment to incompetent command describing one incident as “another fuck up” and spoke of other instances of incompetent command.

Jack described a committed and motivated nine years dedicated to progressing his career in Army aviation by maximising training opportunities and developing skills culminating in deployment to Afghanistan in 2010. This deployment for him was a positive experience, a “successful” trip working with a small group of 12 who “worked well together and were really close”. He described constructive time management, efficient planning, cohesive teamwork with collaboration, and respect for each other’s roles. Although working under fire transporting cargo (food, water, ammunition) or personnel (up to 30) in Chinooks for missions ranging from 3 – 10 hours across the war zone they avoided serious mishap. He spoke of a deployment experience enhanced by constructive working relations with an American ‘battle group’ they were attached to during this tour.

By his account his second deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 was characterised by poor management, lack of cohesive teamwork, lack of respect for his role, and discounting of his experience.

There were times in the aircraft when I thought ‘I don’t want to fly with this so and so. He doesn’t respect me. He won’t listen (a), (b) he shouldn’t even be here. He’s not even competent enough in the aircraft let alone in a war zone’.

When asked how he would describe this second deployment to Afghanistan in 2012 the dissonance between his commitment, his love of the job and desire to continue to contribute is at odds with his lived experience. He said: “It would be bad. Like, I loved being there doing the job, but definitely an overall bad experience.”

He spoke of poor morale and building disillusionment in a context of “a huge, huge burden that the army, the government, the General was putting on us – the deployment intensity”, with fatigued staff, over-stretched under-resourced troops and pressure to have

61 serviceable aircraft available, which resulted for him personally in physical, mental and moral injury. During this deployment in June 2012 he was involved in a helicopter accident:

So, we crashed an aircraft over there – it was pure luck it happened when it did – or we’d all be dead”. The accident was caused by mechanical failure: “Basically the aircraft didn’t want to fly anymore”. The resultant neck, lower back and knee injury will be for Jack, a legacy for life. He recognised however that internal and situational pressures had been building for some time in saying, “It [the accident] was only the catalyst. That was just the point that tipped me over the edge effectively.

Jack, who joined at 19, experienced multiple deployments commencing with East Timor in 2002, and including the Solomon Islands, PNG, and East Timor again, before his first trip to Afghanistan in 2010. He was a single man at that time and described “living out of a suitcase” for much of the time. In 2010 - 2012 when not deployed he was on training exercises and courses: “I probably spent six months at home. That in itself would break most people – that’s not counting the stresses and all that’s got to go with that”. His words describe the intensity of the demands on these young men in preparing to deploy to a war zone and the ongoing training demands in the time spent between deployments, which add to the internalised, embedded dissonance of the ‘lived experience’ carried into their post-military world.

The stories of these young men report on deployment as a deeply rewarding lived experience, a source of pride. It is a lived experience supported by deep bonding with mates, positive attachments to the team and the military mission in achieving operational success to be proud of. However, despair, confusion, disillusionment and betrayal by leadership and the organisation are also themes in their stories. The lived experience of deployment differs for each participant. The reported experience of contradiction in espoused principles and expectations in training, and the confronting and at times inconsistently principled realities of participating in action in a war zone, can create a dissonance that challenges belief, values and moral integrity for the individual soldier, which when unresolved impedes repair post-deployment and post-discharge. 4.6. Disrupted combat identities

Combat exposure was disruptive for all. Rob, Paul and Dave who discharged voluntarily were exposed to combat trauma, but were not personally significantly traumatised or

62 physically incapacitated, although two have described transitional post-deployment challenges, which required one to seek counselling. The other has separated from his partner and their son since leaving the military.

A phase of adjustment was needed in these cases, as Rob explained:

When I first came back, one of my first ones, I didn’t even want to talk about it. And there’s a transition part that as soon as you get back you don’t want to talk about it - it’s a huge adjustment from – when you’re not deployed you’re 7.30 to 3.00 or 7.30 to 4.00 each day, it’s just a normal existence. Go to work, go home. When you’re going over into a warzone, you’re working – it’s like you’re working 24/7. And your body changes as your mindset changes and you’re in a whole different – it’s a whole different setup and when you come back your body’s got to adjust to going back to normal in a way and it just doesn’t happen like that. I think that’s what I took from going overseas. That was massive. I actually went to VVCS after my last one, just to have a chat really. I wasn’t feeling depressed or suicidal or anything. I just noticed I was a bit more anti, a bit different in the way that I reacted to people, especially my partner.

Rob and Paul are employed in the police force, which enables them to utilise their military training, mindset and skill. This ‘emergency service’ style of occupation allows for channelling the intensity and focus required in combat and for meaningful utilisation of skills in their new role of protection and defence of society. As Rob stated, “We are better trained and more able to meet some of the [heightened] life-threatening challenges now confronting the police [as in domestic terror activities]”. In these roles transition to civilian life is positively enabled. Their identity is affirmed as agents of service and defence, and utilisation of army-trained skills affirms their efficacy and agency in their roles as members of the police team.

However, overwhelming traumatic exposure, loss, wounding and moral stressors resulted in a significant shift in identity for four of the seven participants, a disruption that goes right to the core of identity that has coloured their worldview, meaning making and their sense of themselves. Their combat experiences include the death of a mate, significant physical injury, constant exposure to life-threatening combat, poor leadership resulting in ethically unacceptable decision-making, and moral stressors such as being witness to collateral deaths and exposure to divergent cultural values that challenge understanding and 63 worldview. Of these, all four suffer PTSD and three have significant physical injury. These men have compromised capacity to function interpersonally and in the workforce. They have no viability or option in the civilian world currently for utilisation of their military trained skills or for channelling the intense, heightened arousal resulting from the constant on-call, ‘every action counts’ world that they have lived in for extensive periods while deployed and in combat.

The experience of these men in being deployed was not just movement to a place. They talk about the micro aspect, the precision required by their roles. These participants reflected an immersion in their combat roles, which continues in their internal world post- discharge. They are still living their former roles, with associated hyper-alertness and vigilance and the related symptoms of post-traumatic stress. Their attachment to their military agency, their efficacy in their combat role, the focus on the exact details of their job requirement, the importance of making sure they did ‘their bit’ well for the safety of others and the success of the operation is interpreted here as their way of hanging onto a sense of meaning and purpose. Those participants whose identity is fractured and sense of agency disrupted by their combat experience are left in their post-military world bereft of meaning, purpose and function in what can seem an alien (civilian) world. As Jack explained: “And because I’m injured and I can’t fly, it makes it even harder because no- one wants me within the aviation stream”.

Traumatic exposure and physical injury for these four influenced their discharge status and has shaped their post-military experience. Their post-military perspective is absorbed in trying to make sense of their combat and military experience by reference to who they were in the military. My analysis of their accounts of their experience suggests that maintaining a military mindset with attendant values of duty, commitment, belief in the military purpose of defence and sacrifice is a way of holding onto meaning. They continue to live in the emotional environment of the traumatic lived experience with “enduring vigilance for and sensitivity to environmental threat” (van de Kolk: 2003: 2). These men cannot make sense or meaning in a civilian context while their lived experience is overwhelmingly locked in the world where their identity and agency were shaped and shaken by the challenges of combat. Their experience has broken them and is at odds with the military values, identity and agency in which they were so invested. Jim described this challenge:

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Well yeah, it sort of reshapes the way you see yourself. From warrior and someone who’s completely and utterly capable, and in fact probably one of the most capable human beings that Australia has to offer, to being completely devastated and some days not even being able to get out of bed. Having a family destroyed, having your career taken away from you. It’s shit.

Jim’s words provide insight into the extent of the loss of personhood, purpose, place, and self-belief. They highlight the distance some of these men have travelled from civilian society and the challenge to reintegrate, to ‘make it home’. 4.7. Trauma and moral injury

A simple kind of interpretation of the lived experience of deployment is that traumatic exposure in combat is so devastating that it ‘breaks’ the soldier. These men’s accounts provide a more complex layering and internalising of experience. In interview, Bill spoke of managing his fear and of the bravery of his team mates in the face of danger. Belief in his role and the confidence to fulfil his combat task as trained enabled successful operational outcomes in this instance:

The risk is high, but you just put it to the back of your mind and you focus on – you keep your hands busy and then your training clicks and it goes, alright, where are the likely positions for the baddies.

Bill sought to record a photographic history “including the good and the bad”, wanting to share his experience, his exposure to the challenging realities of his deployment experience through the photographs. Gaining recognition and understanding of these ‘realities’ was a means for him to assist the resolution of this traumatic exposure, and the moral injury and moral dilemmas resulting, which haunt him to this day:

The photo of the kid that’s blown there. There’s other photos of – I’ve got my weapon next to a blast hole where a rocket landed, not too far away. So, you think, phew. And there are other photos there of burnt, charred pieces of almost like pork flesh that’s just been burnt to a crisp.

Litz et.al. (2015: 11) posit military culture and ethos foster an intensely moral and ethical code. In times of war being violent and killing is normal and being witness to violence and killing is prepared for and expected. Maguen and Litz (2012) qualify that the challenges of combat can be successfully negotiated with “effective rules of engagement, training and 65 leadership, in a context of purposeful, cohesive units” as supported by the combat accounts of these participants. However, when transgressions occur, where the experience is at odds with core ethical and moral beliefs, moral injury and the shame, guilt and self-handicapping behaviours that often accompany moral injury can result.

Suicidal ideation personally and among one’s mates is one outcome reported in these men’s stories. The daily battling with despair was expressed by Dan:

Oh, just, you know like doing bloody swan dives off balconies, jump – when you’re driving on a highway and you see an overpass and you go ‘Yeah that could be pretty easy jumping into that car’. Things like that – constantly in your mind – daily.

Litz et.al. (2015: 3) distinguish three principal war zone harms: life threat, loss, and moral injury. Compromised moral and ethical code, poor leadership and traumatic exposure has challenged meaning making and self-belief for a number of these participants. Ford (1999: 5) identified that warzone trauma can vary from single or infrequent instances of rocket, mortar or "sapper" attacks, to many consecutive months of being under threat of intense fire from the enemy, to observing or participating in grotesque or abusive violence. Factors that determine the severity of traumatic exposure include: hazardous duty, being subject to enemy fire, being surrounded by the enemy, seeing others wounded, and being in danger of being severely injured or killed. In combat however, trauma exposure comes not only through being the direct or indirect victim of violence and witnessing the aftermath of and human toll of violence, but also through perpetrating violence and the destruction of others (with societal sanction) causing moral injury, a “betrayal of what is right by self, someone who holds authority, or in a high stakes situation” (Shay 2014: 182).

When confronted with practices alien to the Australian value system, intolerable circumstances of human behaviour such as facilitating child suicide bombers or apparently unnecessary loss of Australian life, a questioning and seeking to understand was apparent. Their stories revealed thinking, feeling, caring, questioning young men, who wanted to understand the complexities for all parties involved. Hearing of the death of a mate caused Rob to question the purpose of his army role and the moral basis for Australia’s participation in Afghanistan. He describes a personally expanding outcome of recognition and respect:

After X died I was like looking at the job and going ‘What am I doing?’ I was actually tearing everything apart. Yeah, what are we doing? Yeah, 66

what’s Australia doing in Afghanistan? Yeah, that whole thing. The whole plausible aspect. Actually, learnt a lot and I was actually really inquisitive. I was reading up the Koran and everything. Just to get any sort of understanding. It’s a beautiful culture. If it wasn’t such - so war torn.

He openly describes the internal struggle to achieve resolution to his pain and outrage at the circumstances, practices and mentality that were alien to him:

I’ve never hated anybody or any person or any people or anything, but I was starting to feel anger then. It was kind of enough against their mentality, but I don’t believe – even to this day I don’t believe it’s one faith or it’s one branch of people or it’s one ethnic group that’s doing it. There’s some people out there that just can – they can shape people’s minds and kind of coerce them into thinking in their way of life and they put the Muslim faith behind it and stamped it with all these other things. I think it’s a fight we’re not winning right now either, I don’t think.

However, after the disturbing and disruptive soul searching described, this young man would appear to have made meaning of his experience following the death (not in his combat unit) of one of his mates.

Dan, who described an internal struggle to make meaning of the contradictory elements of practices, the people and the culture made the following observations in interview:

See, I don’t think they’ve got a lack of respect of life. I think they’ve got a massive respect for life but in the same way, with the fact with using children for IEDs and blowing themselves up and bits and pieces, that’s not their culture.

Researcher: So, from what you’re saying, you were left with a sense of respect and admiration for them and are you saying that using the children and so forth is more the corruption of the Taliban and the war?

Yeah, it did. It definitely did, in the way that they just kind of adapt to different situations and living in such a hostile environment, both for what the ground is and the topography, to also being in a war zone, in a constant war zone. Really how blasé they are about the war zone, living and growing up … in that war zone. Yeah. I mean, you’ve got to remember it’s a war-torn country. I mean, they’ve been at war for

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centuries. They’ve been at war from the start from one group to another. So now the group are fighting, they’re the fighters, and also the reason they fight is for life. If they didn’t have the respect for life, they’d just die but they don’t. They fight because they have that respect for life and they want to live on that land and basically supply food for their family.

Though philosophical, he struggles daily with trying to make meaning of his ‘lived experience’ in a context of living with PTSD, physical injury and the moral injury resulting from his sense of being betrayed by leadership and the ADF that compromise his capacity to re-integrate in the civilian world. The stories of these two participants reflect soldiers grappling with ethical and moral challenges confronting military personnel in war. Their expressed dilemmas underline the internalised reactions to moral challenge and moral stressors that are characteristic of the war experience of many of these young men. Frame (2014: 6) refers to “the descent into barbarism that has drawn into its wake mainly young men and women from stable prosperous Western democracies who have been tasked with preventing anarchy, restoring order and offering hope” as the significant underpinning of moral injury and PTSD confronting our veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan. 4.8. Disjuncture of Identity and Meaning

It is evident from this study that there are a number of elements to and forms of injury that contribute to disjuncture of identity and meaning for participants. As evidenced in their stories, traumatic exposure in combat is compounded by a range of factors: harm to self, body and other, betrayal by leadership, team dynamics and circumstances of combat contact in each specific deployment experience. For some, the disruption to identity and self-belief resulting from traumatic exposure in combat and harm done (physical, mental, emotional and moral) causes a value and meaning disjuncture that impedes being able to step into or commence the transition from their military world. A number of these participants struggle with the complexity of their experience, the legacy of their physical wounding, traumatic exposure and moral injury. One of the challenges is to make sense of and find meaning and peace within themselves. The participants described differential ‘lived experience’ as evidenced by the stories of Dan and Rob.

The struggle for Dan, five years’ post-deployment and two and a half years post medical discharge is apparent:

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Well, I think looking back on it, it’s a lot different being there now than what it was then. It’s a lot different because there, there was no real room for remorse, there was no real room for anything else other than doing my job. Every day doing it and being shot at, explosions going off around us. It’s just the day-to-day life. But over time, having been back home and looking back at it and looking back at people and what I thought about it at the time to what I think now and as you say, being questioned about it and being asked different questions through over time, it’s actually brought me into a different style of thinking, looking at it from different angles. And it’s very easy to stay, keep that anger up and stay angry and bang, angry the whole time, but that’s not doing anything about the situation. That’s just keeping me angry. That’s – they don’t care about me being angry because – they don’t even know. So, in which case, over a few years I’m still trying to work on it a bit, trying to actually step back from it and actually try and look at it at different angles and try and get real positives out of it. And try and get little snap pictures of it that yeah, cool, I did have a bit of fun over there instead of just seeing the bad.

Though a ‘work in progress’ the disjuncture between identity and meaning for him is prominent and continues to be a barrier to his moving on.

Some have achieved a degree of resolution of their combat experience and have been able to ‘put it in the background’. Rationalising and psychically managing the intolerable is described by Rob in commenting on means of dealing with traumatic and overwhelming exposure on deployment and in the police force:

It purely depends on the occasion. When you see the worst – when a kid blows himself up, it’s kind of in an Army way just to joke about it. With police and when there are dead bodies and that you don’t personalise it. You just joke it and rise it. And I don’t know if that’s masking something or if that’s just making – you’re not personalising it and you’re not thinking about it. You’re not trying to pull it apart there and then because you just wouldn’t be able to function if you thought about every little thing every little way all the time.

Though apparently functioning ‘normally’ the legacy of exposure intrudes:

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Every once in a while, I might think of it. I might even dream of it and I’ll just wake up and go “Oh shit”. And just shit, I just dreamt about it and I mightn’t be able to sleep for a bit and what not. And there was a period there when it was really hard to get to sleep. I can’t even remember why.

Rob is employed and reports being relatively ‘harm free’. However, he describes occasional intrusion as a result of traumatic exposure. The lack of ‘intrusion’ in his conscious world indicated by his “can’t remember why” comment suggests a degree of resolution that allows him to ‘background’ the experience and associated challenge to identity and meaning.

Morally injurious lived experience is characterised in these participants’ accounts by loss of trust in self or other, undermining of belief and confidence in the collective and the efficiency and purpose of the army mission. These soldiers cannot go forward on operations or in life without strength of purpose and unquestioning confidence and belief, which is necessary to their sense of identity and personhood as ‘combat soldiers’. The sense of being broken, no longer viable as a soldier is captured in the following quote attributed to LCPL Craig Hancock, a key personality in the stage production The Long Way Home (anon)7:

Broken. It is a slogan that no soldier wants next to their name. It comes with the stigma of weakness, failure and not being a good operator. It is something that can become the description for a soldier in a heartbeat but takes years to shake. As a soldier, you are part of a machine, a system, a purpose. But once “broken” the soldier feels like they slow the machine, don’t fit into the system and can lose purpose. The feeling of failure and going “jack on your mates” weighs heavily on a soldier’s mind. Once they see themselves as “broken” the soldier becomes lost.

When that capacity is compromised by harm sustained in combat, be it physical wounding, psychological trauma or moral injury the soldiers’ identity as a ‘combat warrior’, their values, their sense of their capabilities and their agency in the context of what is going on around them is challenged. Being locked in a ‘damaged’ soldier identity as a result of battle trauma is a significant challenge for these young men impacting their capacity for re- integration to the civilian world. The journey ‘home’ is a long one. As Dan described:

7 Provided by key informant reputedly written in Army newspaper source unknown 70

It leaves you completely lost and the only thing you want to do is get back in a similar environment to consistently stay with in line with your anxiety I think. Like, most people, when they get home, the first thing they want to do is get back over there, and that’s probably contributed to that feeling. Get back over to channel a bit of anxiety and a bit of angst kind of scenario and have a filtration system for that, whether it is – because you’ve got to remember, there’s no middle ground, there’s no actual middle ground that’s basically from – you’re in a patrol base, rockets coming at you and trials, getting what have you, and then two days later you’re in Brisbane. There’s no --- release.

He explained the debriefing practice at that time: “Yeah, you’ve got your Dubai thing, but you’re only there for a couple of days”, but questioned:

And that’s the big thing is how do you find that release? How do you come down? What they – what most people do is get on the grog and go partying and use that as a bit of a release and a bit of a come down but then you’ve got a lot of drunken AJs in town that less than 72 hours ago was shooting at people.

The lack of transition time post-deployment, between being in and fighting in the war zone and return to the ‘everyday’ non-combat world was identified as problematic for these combat veterans and contributed to post-deployment adjustment challenge. Tick (1995: 6) writes of post-war rituals of return and re-integration characteristic in societies historically. He recommends a time and spatial separation for returning soldiers to enable a period of integration and some form of decompression and relaxation with soldier mates, post- combat. 4.9. Summary

Combat exposure in their Afghanistan and Iraq deployments is evidenced in the men’s stories as a core and compounding factor in their military experience impacting identity, their personhood as soldiers, and is central to their post-military identity. The sequentially engendered shifts in identity incorporated through the enculturation process of militarisation of the soldier through intense, specific training to create military identity and agency, are more deeply embodied through combat exposure. The internalising of the realities of combat and the uncertain, ‘at risk’ lifeworld of a war zone, the danger, the

71 threat, the profound sharing of experience, more deeply embeds the ‘soldier’ identity. This post-combat soldier identity can be both strengthened and challenged.

The ‘lived experience’ of combat and deployment as voiced by the men can be complex and contradictory. Pride and a sense of achievement are evident in the utilisation of skills in successful operations, fulfilment of commitment to serve (one’s country), demonstration of willingness to risk one’s life (to ensure team efficacy and the safety of one’s mates), and the commitment, love, intense bonding of the mateship characteristic essential to survival in the ‘life and death’ world of combat. These experiences are above and beyond normal (civilian) life and offer opportunity to the soldier for a profound and self-affirming depth of experience, further embedding their soldier identity. Deployment and combat exposure also come at a cost. This chapter considered the differential ‘lived experiences’ of the participants, the dissonance and contradictions, traumatic and moral stressors, that can cause disjuncture to meaning and identity, a disruption that goes right to the core of identity, impacting sense of self, worldview, belief and meaning. This combat experience can leave the veteran locked in a ‘broken’ soldier identity, also deeply embedded. The implications for post-military life are significant and require recognition, understanding and valuing from society at large.

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CHAPTER 5: TRANSITION AND THE LIMINAL SPACE

5.1. Introduction

This chapter will examine the individual lived experience of participants and the circumstances as shared in their stories, that influence the ease or difficulty in making the transition from soldier to civilian, including where identity has been shaped and shaken by the challenges and legacy of combat exposure. It has become apparent that, as well as understanding of the personal, the ‘identity shift’ challenges of exiting their soldier role and re-entering the civilian world, the role of the army on discharge, and lack of recognition and response in the civilian world, are critical factors impacting these veterans’ post-military adjustment. Lack of transitional support, cultural dissonance, absence of ‘place’, unwitting stigma and marginalisation, and societal disavowal have been voiced in the men’s stories as characteristic of their experience as veterans on re-entry into the civilian world. While there is much interest in and knowledge about the process of socialisation into the military, there is not the same level of knowledge or focus on the process of socialisation out of the military (Higate 2001, Bulmer and Eichler 2017). In consequence, the challenge to re- forming identity on discharge to the civilian world is less acknowledged or understood. The challenges these veterans personally face, and the role of the various social institutions in assisting their exit from the military world is not well studied. The analysis in this thesis suggests that re-entry into the civilian world is not simply moving into civilian society, but moving out of the military into a civilian world.

Post-traumatic reaction, physical wounding, moral injury and resultant disability has influenced discharge status and impeded the post-military transition of four of the participants of this study. However, what has become apparent is that the challenges to identity, place and self-conception, and the dislocation from civilian world values as a result of their militarisation and deployment experience is a shared veteran experience. The participants who experienced significant disruption to their self-identity were less able, in telling their stories, to connect outside their military experience. The contribution of Jim, Jack and Dan has provided invaluable insight into the combat lived experience, however the challenges experienced in transition are not reflected as comprehensively in their stories. This reflects the inability of these men to engage consciously in transition as their identity at the time of these interviews was unresolved and enmeshed with their combat experience. This chapter reports predominantly on the lived experience of transition challenges post-discharge as reflected in the accounts of four participants, three of whom 73 discharged voluntarily: Rob, Paul, Dave, and Bill. Partner relationship and paternal roles emerged as significant backgrounding in the transitioning process, though did not feature predominantly in the men’s stories. The focus of the study was on their personal experience of military training and combat as impacting their post-military lives. 5.2. Re-forming identity

The challenge for these former combat soldiers in the post-military world is to repair, make sense of their experience, re-form identity and find meaning and agency in a non-military world. The militarisation of army recruits is a specific and purposeful socialisation into the highly structured and constrained culture of the military. This process of militarisation involves complex and sequentially engendered shifts in identity and agency, embodied and internalised over time. The process of re-socialisation out of the military to enable reintegration and active engagement with civilian society is largely unidentified in the literature and in common understanding. Yet Ebaugh (1988 :20) has shown a person’s social roles are a major determinant of the conception of self and self-identity. Self-identity in the military is built up gradually over years by internalising the meanings and expectations of the roles proscribed within the military collective. Berger and Luckman’s (1991: 89) thesis on roles, that “the origins of institutional order lie in the typification of one’s own and others’ performance” highlights the challenge to self-identity and agency of moving from the collective and constrained structure of the military. Personal identity formed by the internalisation of role expectations and reactions of others to one’s position in that social structure becomes part of one’s self-definition (Jenkins 2014: 40). In this context, the combat veteran’s intensely formed identification with the military culture, military values and military agency, more deeply embedded by combat exposure, presents challenges for reconnection with the civilian world and the need to re-form identity.

Analysis of the post-military experience, the lived experience of these participants, identifies challenges inherent in leaving the tightly structured, exacting demands of a ‘purposeful’ existence in the military to re-integration with contrasting social identity and values that characterise civilian life. In their analysis of the identity struggle of discharged veterans, psychologists Smith and True (2014: 147) have identified the difference between veterans’ identities as soldiers and their identities as civilians. They term these identity conflicts as ‘warring identities’ and explain that post-war transition causes adverse mental health effects that stem from contrasts between the military’s demands for de-

74 individuation, obedience, chain-of-command, and dissociation, and the civilian identity expectations of autonomy, self-advocacy, and being relational.

Met post-discharge with the ‘alien’ requirements for individual functioning in the civilian world, the mismatch between civilian values and beliefs and those they hold as former soldiers can pose a seemingly insurmountable challenge on discharge. The impact of the loss of the closely bonded interactional context characterising military life, the loss of structure and goal directed participation in the military collective, is recounted by Jack:

A lot of people that I have seen that have got out of the military, whether they be friends or not, seem to lose their way a little bit when they leave because they don’t have the structure of support as well, either from their mates or whatever …

The men’s stories identify personal, social and organisational factors contributing to more ‘effortless’ transition. These include a less ‘wounded’ combat and post-deployment experience, a decision to discharge on a voluntary basis and finding a sympathetic employment fit, in particular if they move from the military to employment of their choice. Those men who have experienced less disruption demonstrated a greater ability to engage and connect with the civilian world. Those who go through a period of damage, of identity disjuncture, identify greater difficulty in connecting with transitional pathways to a civilian lifeworld.

Challenges to self-identity are reflected in the men’s stories and indicate elements of social estrangement confronted in transitioning from a military world to a civilian world. Contextual and organisational factors are also relevant. The role played by the Army, the experience of these men of the conduct of military society on discharge, is identified as impacting their discharge experience. The move from Army to civilian society occurs in the context of a significant separation between these two worlds, the liminal space described by Turner (1987) as ‘betwixt and between’, which must be negotiated. These men who on discharge lack a clear definition of ‘what is desirable’, can experience anomic uncertainty, a lack of certainty of expectations (Seeman 1983: 173) in a civilian world, which can appear to have no place for their ‘soldier selves’. In discussing the militarisation of identity previously (Chapter 3, p. 37) I referred to the ‘rite of passage’ into ‘military manhood’, but it is important to note that the challenge on exiting the Army involves a corresponding passage from military world to civilian world.

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5.3. Self-identity

Exiting the military provides very specific challenges to renegotiating and re-establishment of identity. The process of transition for veterans is not straightforward (MacLeish 2015, Bulmer and Eichler 2017). The challenge of the post-military transition, the movement from the military identity, involves ‘becoming’ something else. Negotiating such role and identity change is a significant psychological and social task (Ebaugh 1988: xiii). By the participants’ accounts this transition can be a very constricted state. For all participants, the process of transition held challenge. The participants report a mismatch between who they know themselves to be and what they find on discharge, a mismatch between civilian values and beliefs and those they hold as former soldiers. The military identity of confidence, self-belief and expectation of acknowledgement of capacity, described by Bill, clashed on discharge with perceived civilian world values and lack of societal recognition:

I think when you’re discharged, you’re at a level of competence, confidence and position that you’re looked upon as being trusted, your opinion counts, your experience counts. When you’re going to civvy street, not a lot of that matters. People don’t care what you’ve done while you wear the uniform. People don’t really understand what you’ve done when you’re in uniform.

The self-identity of soldiers is closely connected to their agency in the roles they perform. Their ‘soldier identity’ is threatened in the process of post-military disengagement by the requirement to shift from a role that is central to their self-identity to the re-establishment of another identity in a new role generally unknown at the point of discharge, as described by Paul: “Where a lot of people struggle, they’re discharging to nothing or they’re discharging to menial jobs that they don’t like and then they’re like ‘this is shit’”.

The soldier is a member of the ‘military collective’ with a clearly defined role and the corresponding responsibility. Individuality is subsumed to the good of the whole in the military world (Kirke 2010; McChrystal et.al. 2015). There is a necessary reliance on the competence of each soldier and an expectation that they will fulfil their role as part of the whole in the team mission. As Dan stated, “So it’s all about not letting the team down”, a sentiment and expectation that is contrary to the civilian expectations of autonomy and self-advocacy. These core value differences can cause confusion, anger and a sense of alienation. The loyalty and deep relationship bonding that is reported by participants to give purpose and meaning to their function in the military is not similarly relevant in civilian 76 world values. Paul expressed a sense of alienation and isolation when initially encountering police force culture:

Yeah. There’s similarities there [in the police force]. Like yeah, I wear a pistol. But I don’t know. Companion – if you want to call it companionship, isn’t there. No, and you’re very much on your own and you know that if you stuff up you’ll be hung out to dry. Everyone sticks together every day working in a unit in the army.

The mismatch in values and role expectations, the sense of being discounted, resultant confusion and feelings of disenchantment with civilian world values are apparent in Bill’s statement:

And I think what I found was I tried to move some of those things from the military into private industry or work, call it what you will --- and some of these things have no value, so as a result, you go, well I’ve tried that, what other leadership experience can I use to help build your team, bond a team and all that. And what I found, generally people weren’t interested in that. They’re the ‘me’, they’re the ‘self’, they’re in the ‘how can I get more out of what I’m doing’ and it’s almost like a self-central or self-centred.

Jenkins (2014: 73) describes self-identification as influenced by a range of factors. The individual, an intrinsically interactional self, is maintained within the internal-external dialectic of identification and depends for its ongoing security on the validation of others. Power and authority are critical in determining whose definition counts. In the continuing dialectic of identification selfhood is complex and multifaceted. The loss of the security of ‘knowing your place’ is characteristic in the transition from military to civilian world. The resultant sense of alienation in confronting the ambiguities is apparent in these words from Bill:

The ethos, the training even. Just the common goals and the common ethics. Look, in the military everyone’s got different ethics and all that but everyone works to a set of ethics and standards and if you don’t meet those ethics and standards you get an arse kicking.

The participants’ comments demonstrate an experience of compromised internal-external dialectic of identification. The lack of the ongoing security of the validation of ‘known’ others is epitomised by the expressed sense of ‘non-fit’ post-deployment and post-

77 discharge. In finding little ‘fit’ in their discharged world the challenge to reversing or moderating the internalised, embodied social, meaning and value factors that shape military identity is complex and raises the question, “Is it an impossible task to come out of such a highly-regulated environment into one where there is little understood or known structure?” Bill, in speaking of the ‘unknowns’ and lack of trust, describes an anomic uncertainty in this ‘new’ world:

And the thing that I found also is, in the military, in your position, the trust from your higher echelons automatically comes with that rank. In civvy street, sly cunning dogs that they are, people in a lot of supervisory positions give you no trust or faith. So therefore, then you’re working in a bit of void. You’re saying well, my heart, my training and everything like that wants me to do it this way, then you start to think of, what would he want me to do? So, then you’re starting to turn into a yes man, not necessarily a company man but a yes man, worrying about your own arse. So, you’re being torn. Two sides of the coin, fairly regularly.

The lived experience on discharge as recounted by these participants is indicative of social estrangement and a loss of place, of alienation and anomie when confronted with civilian world values and expectations (Seeman, cited in Robinson et.al. 1991: 291). 5.4. Displacement

This population of young men who ‘become soldiers’ is demographically significant. Six of the participants of this study joined the army between the ages of 17 – 20 years and one at 23 years, the developmental ‘seeking to prove their manhood’ phase of young males. As Dan explained:

I think most people join for the fact that it’s a challenge, it’s a career and it’s a secure career and the challenge to be the best, and you want to push yourself.

Commenting on the ‘boys’ who become soldiers, American journalist David Finkel who toured with soldiers of the US 2-16 battalion for 8 months in Iraq during 2007 observed, “We would never have wars if we didn’t have 19-year-old young males” (ABC 2016). These sentiments were reflected in observations made by Paul:

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Humans will always have an instinct to fight one another. Males particularly. Young males particularly, which is why you’d find the (age) range between 17 and 25 on enlistment and deployment.

Hockey (2003: 24) comments on the targeted recruitment of this age group:

A particular construction of masculinity is used by military organisations as a device for recruiting young men into combat units at an age when they are in the transitional stage between adolescence and adulthood.

What of these young recruits who joined the army with a sense of purpose fired by male developmental aspiration to ‘warrior-hood’, who have been intensely socialised and specifically trained to become combat soldiers and who have fought for their country, a significant contribution and a significant personal achievement at a young age? Paul stated:

I think those blokes – the ones that idolised the army and that’s what they’ve wanted to do. They’ve gone and done it, they’ve gone on operations and come back, but where do they go from there? They’ve peaked at what? 22, 23.

These ‘boys’ who, through deployment have achieved the ‘pinnacle’ of their career, and on return from deployment are confronted with lack of opportunity for future achievement of that equivalent, and a social world that does not acknowledge their contribution nor would seem to have a place for them can be left with a legacy of loss and despair, as some of the stories of the participants in this study show. Powerlessness, social isolation, lack of intrinsic engagement in work, lack of shared values and distrust are characteristic of their stories. The process of transition out of the military for them involves a complex task of re- socialisation from ‘soldier self’ to becoming ‘other’. 5.5. Separation from the Army

The process of transition out of the military, reflecting the ‘continuing dialectic of identification’ (Jenkins 2014:100), has been an evolving process in the stories of the participants who were variously discharged between one and seven years at the time of their initial interviews in 2015. The accounts of the four participants who re-engaged with a follow up interview in 2016 some nine months after their initial interviews, reflected a gradual re-acculturation with the civilian world. Their stories identify a transition commencing in the Army, a detachment signifying the beginning of the transition process 79

(Turner 1987:4). Ambivalence and hostility toward the Army can be characteristic (Bulmer and Eichler 2017:2). They report disillusionment, a disjuncture in their experience of the Army on discharge. The lack of assistance by the Army organisation in preparing soldiers for transition is at odds with their experience of the Army’s purposeful and supported transition into the army as recruits, and as fully trained soldiers.

The men’s stories have identified differing discharge experiences dependent on choice, whether voluntary or involuntary, and opportunity on discharge. Within these categories different experiences are reported.

Rob had determined a future career in the police and proactively sought a smooth transition, which resulted in being inducted into the Police Academy the day after he discharged:

I made a decision to leave on my last deployment in 2012, so I worked – whenever I came home, I don’t know, I think it was October or it might have been later in that year, it might have even been earlier, I’m not sure, 2012, I started the process of getting into the police.

Those men who were less damaged, whose personal identity was not so disrupted were able to transition to occupational roles that have elements of military culture and character such as the police force. As Bill explained:

… those guys going into the police force. That would be an easy transition. There’s a rank structure, there’s a career structure, there’s education, there’s everything that you can do there.

The participants who experienced greater traumatic exposure resulting in highly disrupted identity were less able to connect vocationally and socially outside their military experience. Involuntary, medical discharge, indicative of a much deeper dislocation, as evidenced by their stories, further removes the soldier from the civilian world. Jim recounted a less empowered experience. He was medically discharged:

Oh, by the time that I’d been put through the wringer by the Defence Force once they found out that I was mentally ill compared to the way I was treated prior to that, I didn’t feel I had a place there any longer, so yeah, it was time to go.

He expressed cynicism about the military organisation’s role in the care of ex-servicemen:

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They like to carry on that they’re helping the soldiers but in reality, I don’t think it’s a really great concern of theirs and it’s left to the Department of Veterans Affairs to mop it up. Other charities, as I’ve started to notice, like the Returned Services League (RSL) and Mates4Mates and groups like that.

The stories, the recounted experience of those men physically and psychically handicapped by their combat experience reflect disillusionment and a sense of being ‘let down’ by the organisation, as Jack experienced post-deployment prior to being medically discharged two years after his second tour of Afghanistan: “No-one cared – and that’s not the way I feel, that’s the way it was, because you couldn’t do that to someone and not care – and care, should I say”.

He spoke to the need to be able to advocate for oneself at a time when least able to do so:

No support. Without a doubt. There’s this big thing about you need to speak up. If you’ve got a problem, go and speak up. But I was in a position I didn’t know which way was up let alone go and see someone about help. You know. I tried to see someone about injuries that were starting to cause a problem for me and I was basically pushed away.

Five years’ post-discharge, Dan who was blown up by an IED lives a life compromised by constant pain, physical disability and hearing loss. He has been diagnosed with PTSD and major depression. His comments reflect lack of support and constant challenge with systems, military and post-military, as well as with selfhood:

Yeah, I got pretty much discharged because I got a broken tib-fib both legs, ankles, feet, toes, back. So yeah. Hearing … I walk with a limp and pretty much yeah, pain through the feet and shins and ... the hard thing is as well, because there’s so much fighting that’s gone in, that you’ve fought DVA, you’ve fought ComSuper, you’ve fought the Defence, it’s constant long drawn out fights from one thing to another, you just get to the point where you’ve just got nothing left.

Jim expressed concern about the number of infantrymen who are discharged and struggling unsupported with disturbed identities and vulnerable mental health:

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And here an ever-growing number of mates that had been medically discharged with PTSD is – I think if the community knew they’d be astounded, especially the rate of PTSD amongst infantry soldiers.

Paul reflected on the lack of assistance and lack of pathways out of the military:

But for a lot of guys, they do the trip and then they want to get out, and then there is no management or guidance in that respect. They’ll just say, “Yeah, thanks for your service, see you later”.

The participants described a lack of realisation of their human capital expressed in the skills and the capacities they have acquired in their military roles by those in the civilian workplace, and point to a lack of educational pathways that would assist to formalise their capabilities. As Paul stated:

So, they (the military) do fail … They do fail in that aspect. Not reintegration. They don’t have to reintegrate but they’re taking young – so I joined when I was 17, got out when I was – can’t remember now, 25, 26. I did chef certificates prior to going in. I still haven’t finished the apprenticeship so it’s not like – and I didn’t want to work as a chef. You come out with no qualification, no trade and then they – yeah, they don’t – I reckon – I don’t know if it’s their job to do so, but they don’t educate you in the ways of the world post-army I guess, and then I think – see, you had this short career in the army, you’ve done an overseas tour, you get out and you come back and that’s it and you’re expected to go about your own business.

Jack described a dedicated, career pathway over 12 years in the army prior to being wounded on his second tour of Afghanistan: “I was trying to build a something, I was trying to build a career … a skillset and credit, yeah, effectively”.

He talked about the handicap of lack of relevant ‘civilian world’ experience, a lack of the social and economic capital required to succeed:

It’s a funny one. Like all my diplomas and my Cert IVs and whatever, do translate. I do have pretty certificates that say I’ve got all these qualifications, but to get a job, I need to have the experience in that particular background.

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Compared to WWII veterans, many of whom volunteered or were conscripted (1942), these men joined the army seeking a career, which is lost on discharge. These veterans of our Middle East Wars lack the public recognition of protecting the homeland in a more immediate theatre of war, which probably impacted on the more positive social responses to the returned WWII soldiers.

Those participants who transitioned into a similar type of employment recount transitional disruption of personhood and in their lifeworld on exiting the military. Paul, who experienced a difficult transition prior to progressing to a career in the police force, had given some thought to the disruption of a civilian life course in joining the army:

I’m struggling to find the right word. Maybe direction. I was going to say guidance but – so you had direction when you were younger. I want to join the army, I want to do this, you’ve done that, that’s all done now and then you’re like alright, I’m done with the army for whatever reason, you discharge – nothing.

He spoke somewhat cynically about his post-army skills: “…how to shoot people” and described challenged employment experience:

I did some odd jobs. I worked as a crime scene cleaner… So as to how I felt doing that, I don’t know. But the biggest one was working in security. That’s just soul destroying.

In speaking of the age of recruitment and the developmental tasks associated with that age (early adulthood age 19 - 29) such as continuing emotional maturation, socially progressing from age-related peer groups to people with similar interests and focussing on career development, Paul spoke of the interruption to his career trajectory and associated lack of (civilian world) skills: “Yep. A big nothingness with no skills really to… to help you get through”. He had given thought to how the Army could facilitate more options for personnel that would be beneficial to the Defence Force in capitalising on their investment in training, and provide improved career outcomes for the soldier:

Yeah, well, reintegration then for lack of a better word, back in the civvy life. See, I think if they had a scheme where you do your time in a combat corp and then if they had some sort of scheme where you said, ‘Alright, now I’m looking at doing something different’, because they’re very rigid. If you want a corp transfer it’s very hard to do, but say you’ve done your four

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years in infantry and then you turn to your commander and say, ‘Alright, I want to try something different’, they then have a unit organisation that can direct you and say, ‘Well, how about you consider these things within the defence force even, not just the army’. One, you’re keeping the skillset that you already have, you get all that experience, the person gets more training if they want it and you’d get longevity out of a person that way.

The centrality of service in the military goes far beyond the boundaries of work. In training for and engaging in combat these young men are required to ‘give all’ in the move from individual self to soldier self, to become a part of the military collective. Alpass et.al. (1997: 228) observe, “The military environment is unique because employment within such an environment is more than occupational choice.”

These organisational demands for commitment, dedication and the subsuming of the interests of the individual to the whole, the assumptions of trust, loyalty and sacrifice that characterise the military lifeworld lead to questions about the military organisation’s responsibility to its members, post-deployment and on discharge. The stories of these men reflect an experience of feeling discarded and abandoned by their military family, which has compounded their transitional challenges post-military. There is a disjunction, an inconsistency between the belief systems of loyalty, dedication and the importance of team inculcated in the army, and the organisation’s actions on discharge. Recognition for their service, acknowledgement of the challenges and supported pathways to transition are absent and by these men’s accounts compound the sense of social estrangement and anomie experienced by a number of participants on discharge. 5.6. ‘The place between’

What has become apparent from these men’s stories is that their transition involves a journey between two worlds, a journey from military world to civilian world. It is in this ‘space between’ that the challenges of re-socialisation are encountered. In considering the nature of ‘rites of passage’ van Gennup posited three phases - separation, limen, and reassimilation (Turner 1987:4). The first phase, separation, comprises symbolic behaviour signifying the detachment of the individual or group either from an earlier fixed point in the social structure or a set of cultural conditions. By the participants’ accounts a growing dissonance with army life experience can occur, precipitating a contextual shift represented by discharging, as Bill identified: “I know of two who were contemplating discharge because they were disgruntled with the system overall”. 84

They discharge, not yet to civilian society, but frequently to a place not yet found. As Turner explains (1987:4) during the intervening liminal period of the process of transition, the state of the ritual subject (the passenger) is ambiguous. He passes through a realm that has few or none of the attributes of the past or coming state. This is apparent in the men’s stories of their experience of the move from army world to civilian world. Paul experienced this as being discharged “to nothing”. The challenge to identity and ‘fit’ is heightened, as the shift to ‘other place’, not yet civilian society, is not matched with a shift from embedded soldier identity.

The realisation, the cognisance of ‘non-fit’, which begins in their army world precipitating the decision or requirement (on medical grounds) to discharge, is heightened and is necessarily confronted in the interstitial place between their army world and civilian world where they are neither soldier nor civilian (Fourny 2013). The non-fit, belonging to neither world, this not having a sense of who they are or how they fit or how they could become something else is recounted in the challenges they describe on discharge in trying to find a ‘place’ in the civilian world. Kupers (2011:45) refers to high levels of insecurity, uncertainty and disorder that exist and the precarious position of members as they move through transitional states. He stated that the liminal space, characterised by an inherent ambiguity, is a transient moment, but is required to actually take place for the phase of reassimilation to occur.

5.6.1. Marginalisation

Marginalisation and cultural dissonance encountered and reported in these men’s stories characterise their experience of the ‘liminal space’ of their transition process. Reflecting the ‘insecurity, uncertainty and disorder’ described, some participants recount an experience of a deeply alienating world on discharge. Factors reported of their discharge experience in common include “not fitting”, “not being given a chance”, “not being recognised” as expressed in this account by Paul: “When you are applying for jobs you realise fast your military service means not much”. Marginalisation is experienced where in the ‘in between’ space they fail to connect in a completely different kind of social and cultural world. These are the challenges of re-integration, of changing societies and differing values and expectations. An experience of clash of values and discounting of management ‘knowhow’ is described by Bill:

My lessons learnt through the Army are process and procedure driven, you know, safety checks, safety audits, accountability, working out your 85

forward budget planning, the whole myriad of business acumen. Then I’m asked [by business partner] ‘What are you doing that shit for? They’re [civilian workforce] all trustworthy’.

The lack of ‘fit’ reflects a challenge to re-acculturation, a culture shock. What they have internalised so deeply for their own survival as well as the survival of the collective in their military worlds creates real difficulty in functioning in the social structure of civilian society characterised by different norms and different values. Although these values may be expressed in similar ways, the way they are linked to norms of behaviour and the cultural and social context is quite different to what they have internalised in their military world. This internalisation of military world values can be so ingrained it overtakes other forms of socialisation to the extent they can have difficulty moving beyond it.

The difference in values, identity, agency and expectations recounted in their stories, indicates that they cannot yet avail themselves of those tools that do not have meaning or resonance for them. The challenge to personhood and meaning-making is in the adjustment and accommodation required to take into their own sense of identity and agency those elements that seem to be contradictory. When they are not able to make those kinds of accommodations, the contradiction is so great, these men can experience a profound sense of alienation characterised by powerlessness, self-estrangement, social isolation and distrust (Seeman, cited in Robinson 1991:292) as described by Bill, who experienced a series of ‘failed’ workplace experiences post-discharge:

You question yourself and, you know, am I just a moron. I mean, so you start to lose confidence in yourself and you start to lose confidence, you start to get fearful of losing your job, which I eventually did. The underhandedness of people. In the military, everything’s there for everyone to see.

Many struggle with a risk of marginalised identity, of not wholly belonging to either world (Poston 1990:2). Their training has empowered them with specific skills. Those who can transition to a social, cultural, or employment context can find an ‘identity fit’, which is recognised and legitimate, for example the move from being a soldier to like uniformed civilian professions. The alternative is to move from ‘a soldier’ to ‘not a soldier’. Some of these participants spoke of themselves as soldiers rather than their ‘being’ now. Their stories reflect the state of in-between, who they feel or perceive themselves to be rather than who they are now and what they have yet to become. 86

5.6.2. Non-recognition of economic, social and cultural capital

Finding work and an employment fit that enabled a sense of purpose, recognition and value has been identified as critical to their post-military adaptation by these participants. Five struggled on discharge to achieve the sense of place and ‘fit’ enabled by relevant employment. Jack spoke of the handicap of medical discharge:

A lot of people go out and work within the civilian community as the air crewman within the rescue helicopters and what not. But getting medically discharged basically throws you under the bus in reference to those sorts of jobs because you’ll never get them again because you can’t fly.

Three of the participants, Jim, Jack and Dan, who were significantly handicapped by their physical and mental wounding, which compounded their re-integration problems, found little support from the military or social systems in the process of discharge. Jack related the challenges and lack of pathways for soldiers who are impaired:

A lot of people get to a point where they can’t handle the system and they discharge, and they’ve got nothing – none of their paperwork. They’ve got nothing, so DVA just – they effectively wipe their hands of them.8

These men would be reliant on government financial support in the interim or longer term. Income, while underpinning the need for employment, was not the focus in the telling of their stories for these men. However, financial security is a critical factor contributing a sense of stability in one’s social world as identified in an American study by Ebolgen et. al. (2012) who found:

Veterans who reported having money to cover basic needs were significantly less likely to have post-deployment adjustment problems such as criminal arrest, homelessness, substance abuse, suicidal behaviour, and aggression.

Bill, 59 years of age, who had described a series of demoralising and confusing post- military workplace experiences over a number of years, due to value and cultural expectation mismatch compounded by his PTSD, expressed a more confident sense of

8 Government services and supports are co-ordinated through the Department of Veterans Affairs. Relevant legislation includes the Military Rehabilitation and Compensation Act 2004 most recently amended 2017 – link https://www.legislation.gov.au/Series/C2004A01285

87 place when meeting again some nine months after our initial meetings. This was due in part to the financial security afforded by being assessed as meeting the criterion for a Totally and Permanently Incapacitated pension (TPI). The success of his application some years post-discharge not only afforded a degree of financial security, it also acknowledged the ‘wounding’ and loss of life opportunities he experienced in his service of his country, thus affirming a valuing of his contribution to the war effort. The renewed sense of confidence and self-belief was reflected in his account of his lifeworld when we subsequently met. He recounted a car salesman saying to him when he had queried a ‘special price’ as he was TPI: “…and he goes, ‘I want to thank you for your service’. That meant a lot”.

Re-acculturation involves a shift in cultural standards, from a collective military agency underpinned by values of mateship where the collective identity is central in contrast to a civilian world where they are expected to exercise a highly individualised ‘entrepreneurial’ form of agency and, if they have difficulties in making this shift, experience the stigma resulting. Paul spoke to the differential, individualised experience and sense of marginalisation in the police force:

Like, very much, if you make a mistake it doesn’t matter how good friends you are with whoever, you’re on your own - you just know don’t stuff up because if you do, no-one’s going to help you.

In the civilian world there is assumption, an expectation of an individual function of exercising choice. The context of transition involves looking for work, seeking health services, engaging with or broadly seeking welfare services. All presume a degree of self- advocacy, which is in marked contrast to the military agency where their job is to fulfil their assigned roles and ‘the rest’ will be taken care of by the organisation. The notion of military agency and the depth of training around that kind of agency that is constrained within very limited boundaries is almost in complete contrast to the individualised ‘entrepreneurial’ agency that essentially has become a cultural benchmark in civilian life, and highlights the contrast and the journey to be made between the military collective and a highly individualised social person.

The challenge for ‘broken’ individuals in this context of the liminal state is heightened by physical disability, mental and emotional vulnerability and disjuncture of identity and meaning. Jack expressed the struggle:

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I won’t – I’ll never be as good as I was physically, but I’m hoping to get to a point where I can work. That’s all I care about, just going back to work to be honest, because that would assist with mental stability as well. Sitting at home all day is not a great thing.

Kupers (2011:46) interpreted liminality as a relational construct and dynamic milieu of in- between-ness. As Turner (1987) describes it, the process of transition involves the relinquishing of former structural ties. For those participants who can find no place or application for their highly-specialised skills and deeply assimilated value sets when they exit the military the period of liminality can be prolonged. They can experience a more challenged functioning, in itself disempowering. For these men, whose soldier identity is so embedded (and disturbed), the difficulty is in finding the means and context for becoming a legitimate, recognised, respected social being, in order to achieve transformation. They are constrained in their capacity to transition to a ‘replacement’ identity. The move from those deeply embedded elements of identity, of personhood and selfhood, necessarily involves a period of destabilisation, which can compromise their capacity to function in the civilian world. Concepts of liminality suggest they must give up those previous elements of identity, and it is this that is so destabilising, but necessary, before the individual can emerge with a new identity, in this case as a civilian not a soldier (Kupers 2001:45).

5.6.3. Cultural Dissonance

Veterans’ reintegration to civilian society is further hindered by a culture that is perceived (by veterans) as having limited understanding of the soldier/veteran experience itself (Smith and True 2014:147). It is evident from the stories of these men that it is the context of their life that is problematic for them as much as the personal, that there is adjustment to be made, not just by them but also in the social context they discharge into from the military. Fourny (2013:2) describes these transitional places and moves in contextual realities as very basic constituents of liminality. Notions of commitment, dedication, loyalty, contribution to the whole, so much part of the soldier’s way of being and agency are not recognised or understood in the world they are transitioning to. Paul, seven years’ post- discharge speaks of the non-recognition, non-acknowledgement and sense of hopelessness he experienced in his first year ‘out’, reflecting the lack of congruence between his contribution in the military world and its relevance in the civilian world:

What you never realise and this is coming back to my year out doing menial jobs is that no-one cares. No-one cares if you have gone to 89

Afghanistan once, twice, 300 times. It means nothing in the real world. It only means something in the service and in that small circle you occupy.

The implications of their contribution and ‘sacrifice of the individual’ are not recognised or understood. They report a disconnection of expectation and lack of recognition of their particular values and commitment in civilian world employment. Dan speaks to the lack of opportunity afforded: “You don’t want pity. You just want, more to the point, to be recognised, I guess, more to the point given a chance [by employers]”.

The military collective identity and agency does not serve them well in this social world where the entrepreneurial agency of choice and the highly individualised social person is expected to advocate and relate on completely different terms. Loyalty, team and ‘being in there for the long haul’ are qualities that do not have similar relevance in the civilian world workplace. In this context of non-recognition of these values, of their capacity, experience and skill they describe inconsistent and confusing responses, as reflected by Paul:

When I got out and started applying for jobs you certainly do get job interviews based on your resume because it says you’re Army, but once they realise you’ve got nothing other than your Army experience, then that’s it. ‘Interesting story, nice to meet you, but you’re not qualified’.

As Bill described: “The private industry doesn’t recognise our dedication – we become dedicated – willing to go the long haul”. The challenge for Bill and for his fellow soldiers is how to translate this quality of dedication into the private sector. The task in establishing a new identity is to incorporate past social status. These participants do not report an experience of respect, recognition and inclusion in the civilian world. The intervening space, the lived experience of distance and lack of connection encountered in traversing this gulf ‘between’, the difficulty in making sense of who they are, neither soldier or civilian, is a liminal space akin to anomie.

5.6.4. Lack of shared language

Current terminology refers to ‘veterans’, but unlike the ‘Returned Soldiers’ of World Wars I & II, their experience is that we do not appear to have a recognised way of speaking about them, a language or cultural consciousness of these veterans of the Middle Eastern wars, the nature of their service and their contribution. Their post-military challenge is heightened if veterans do not have the medium, a language to articulate their experience,

90 their worldview, their identity as soldiers. Australian author David Malouf elucidates this in his story War Baby about a soldier who served in Vietnam:

What affronted him most was not the opinions he heard but the gap between their glib abstractions and what he himself had come across in the way of fact … he had only his experience – combustive actualities - to offer. The wall of silence between himself and others, which he refused to breach, was a noise of a kind they could not even begin to conceive. (Malouf 2007:127)

Bill spoke of his years of social isolation, of his inability to speak of his experiences. He expressed an inability to share, to feel understood, to connect with others, ex-military and civilian: “Look, I’m only just starting to get back into socialising after years and getting back in touch with a lot of guys”.

The participants’ stories suggest there is an absence of social and cultural scripts to enable shared understanding. This absence of language is an indication that ‘their world’ is not ‘our world’ and by implication as a society, we civilians are not able to be there for them.

5.6.5. Disavowal

On discharge, they report an experience in the civilian world of disavowal, a sense of repudiation of what they stand for, and non-recognition of their contribution and willingness to commit for the ‘good of all’. A perception of civilian ignorance and apparent lack of interest in the military and the work of the military is reflected in veterans’ stories. Bill spoke of the lack of recognition:

You go to get a job and you know, you go to all these recruitment agencies. ‘Oh yeah, what have you been doing the last five years?’ ‘I was in the military’. ‘Oh well, we won’t go there. Let’s try another…’ It’s the public’s [non] acceptance of who we are and what we’ve done and I think that’s breeding a bit of resentment.

Participants report vicarious curiosity, insult and ignorance reflected in civilian comment and questions of them such as: “What is it like to kill someone?” A sense of curiosity, while being dismissed and discounted is summed up by Dan: “They want to know about your fighting experience, but they don’t want to employ you”. It would appear there is not a way of understanding the relevance of that military experience in a civilian world. 91

In Anzac’s Long Shadow James Brown (2014:8) questions our ‘superficial understanding of the military and war’. Brown questions why there is so much ignorance of the military in Australian society. His own experience two years’ post-discharge after ‘the best part of a decade’ of preparing for, deploying to and returning from military operations in places like Afghanistan, Iraq and the Solomon Islands (Brown 2014:7) was to experience how little people know about soldiers, particularly as at that time Australia had been fighting in Afghanistan for more than a decade. His observation that ‘Australian veterans are barely seen at all’ (2014:109) fits with the descriptions expressed by some of the participants in this study. One of their comments “no one gets it” suggests a failure of recognition, a failure to achieve or lack of a legitimate social identity. One cannot have a legitimate social identity if ‘no-one recognises it’. Dan spoke of the challenge of finding a fit, finding a place that can be overwhelming:

A lot of the time it’s just easier going, just staying still and not moving and just accepting things and pretty much giving up and not moving on with your life. That’s what, unfortunately, a lot of guys do.

The sense of ‘not being seen, recognised or understood’ has also been reported as the sentiment expressed by serving military personnel when fulfilling their role in action on behalf of the nation. Journalist Chris Masters (2013), interviewing soldiers and officers in Afghanistan, found himself surprised by the trace of anger he heard when soldiers spoke of failure back home to understand what they are doing. Masters suggests:

We should try to know them better. They join for the sake of the rest of us; they go to Afghanistan at the behest of the rest of us. The pressure to re- form is a load they should not bear on their own. (Masters 2013:343)

In Australia, social awareness of the war is shaped by reporting of the media who in turn are informed by government and Defence Force media releases influenced by concern that government policy supporting our participation in the Middle East has little voter support (Brown 2014; Masters 2013). A cultural ambivalence about war that has emerged post-World War II, strengthened by the Vietnam War and over the decades of peace since, would it could be suggested, impact the nation’s capacity to see and engage with these veterans. This cultural phenomenon is shaped by a range of factors. As a nation, we have been removed from theatres of war and from direct threat; our perceptions and positions on war and the military are formed in this context. We do not see ourselves as a military

92 power. The war when it occurs is a long way away. It involves only a small percentage of our population.

Brown (2014) argues that not only did we neglect the Afghan War until 2010, but also when it caught our attention as a nation we dwelt almost entirely on deaths (12 in 2010). He considers the costs and dangers to a culture in which “looking back has become the major way that Australians interact with their military”. He challenges the government and national ‘overinvestment’, financial ($200 million) and emotional, in celebrating the centenary of the Anzacs (2014 - 2018):

The sheer effort we are expending on the Anzac centenary is irreconcilable with the parlous state of our defence forces, our ignorance of the war in Afghanistan and the marginal status of the serving military in our society (Brown 2014: 14).

His challenge - “commemorating soldiers is not connecting with them” (2014: 3) - reflects participant stated experience in this study and is a consideration if we, the nation, wish to recognise and acknowledge the contribution of combat veterans. 5.7. Becoming

A transformation possibly begins when these veteran soldiers find a way of being civilians. Turner (1987:4) posits that in the third phase of transition (post-liminal) ‘the passage is consummated’. The transformation, the ‘becoming’ is effected in the achievement of social position, of finding a place in the civilian world, a state of being where new values, behaviours, social dynamics and functions are emerging and coordinated (Kupers 2011: 48). The individual is in a stable state once more and by virtue of this has rights and obligations of a clearly defined and structural type, and is expected to behave in accordance with certain customary norms and ethical standards. Turner (1987:4) proposes that if our basic model of society is a ‘structure of positions’ the period of margin or liminality is an inter-structural situation.

The critical factors facilitating reintegration identified in talking with these participants include finding meaningful work, recognition and valuing of their contribution to society as deployed soldiers, realisation of their social and economic capital in the skills and capacities they have acquired in their military roles, and education pathways that are within their capabilities. A supportive stable relationship was characteristic for six of the

93 participants, one of whom had separated post-deployment and has subsequently re- partnered.

The two participants, Rob and Dave, who transitioned to ‘identity fit’ professions directly on leaving the army, where their military skills, training and values resonated, experienced least transitional disruption. They were able to achieve a credible social position in a like structure where customary norms and ethical standards were to a degree replicated. Paul, who after a year of dislocation gained employment in the police force recounts a more challenged process of re-integration. He has ‘successfully’ transitioned, is working and studying and expressed ease and confidence in his place in the world seven years on. He also speaks with insight on his non-fit resulting from cultural behaviours and attitudes he brought with him from the military:

Yeah – when I left the army and came to the police I did notice, because I was used to speaking to people like I would in the army and I think, ‘oh geez, I need to change the way I talk’, it was a bit colourful. Yeah, like people would see what I said was outrageously abusive whereas to me it’s … its normal. And I changed that, probably for the better.

He spoke of the use of abusive language toward mates in the army, almost as a term of affection. Our discussion identified the aggressive methods used in training the infantry, which influenced the tone and expression in army relationship behaviour.

Yeah, in your actions and in what you say. I always found – probably in the first year in the police I always reverted back to how I was in the army (more aggressive). It’s only through getting into some situations enough it’s going to maybe I can do it a bit differently.

His reflections were insightful and pointed to a gradual re-acculturation and appreciation of different approaches. His capacity to reflect on alternative means of expressing similar values and achieving similar outcomes is indicative of a ‘consummated passage’ of transition.

Bill reported a sense of societal acknowledgement and associated financial security when successful in obtaining a disability pension (TPI) nine years’ post-discharge and after more than 40 years of Army service. The acknowledgement afforded, along with facilitative therapy and finding a role in assisting other veterans where he can contribute his

94 experience and wisdom, has assisted his process of transition in finding a place of meaning in a non-military world.

At the time of their interviews in 2015 three of the participants, Jim, Jack and Dan, continued to struggle with their vulnerability in the liminal space one, two and three years’ post-discharge and five, two and five years’ post-deployment. Involuntary, medical discharge, the reality for these men is indicative of a much deeper dislocation which further removes the soldier from the civilian world. Where the links and ties to the civilian world are not present, the task can seem impossible. For these men bearing the legacy of ‘wounding’, the values of achievement, strength, excellence, of going to fight in war, being willing to put your life at risk for the greater good, which imbue the combat soldier with strength of purpose and self-belief found little recognition or outlet for expression in their post-deployment lifeworld. 5.8. Summary

The analysis of these men’s stories would suggest there is lack of recognition of the challenges of reconnection with their former lives experienced by many ex-military personnel, and point to a deeply internalised, embodied military identity challenged on discharge. The internal journey to be negotiated from ‘soldier self’ on leaving the army to establishing ‘other self’ in the civilian world is a significant psychological and sociological task. Van Gennup’s concept of ‘rites of passage’ provides a conceptual framework to understand the process of transition and “the journey between”, the liminal space characterised by uncertainty and ambiguity (Turner 1987; Fourny 2103). Fractured by disconnection with the civilian world, the ‘soldier self’ can experience marginalisation resulting from an expectation of a different kind of agency and way of being in the civilian world. Each of the participants report finding little place for their ‘combat soldier’ strengths and values when confronted on discharge with a civilian world ethos.

The experience of disavowal articulated by the men in their stories identifies a need for greater social recognition of the contribution of their military service and lifeworld challenges of these combat soldiers on discharge. The men spoke of the unacknowledged need for re-induction to the civilian world to assist the re-forming of identity and the providing of training pathways to enable a supported transition from military world to civilian world. Consideration of the forces of ‘soldierisation’ and militarisation as reflected in the men’s stories would suggest thought be given to incorporating a system of repatriation

95 and re-training these ‘soldier’ men to assist their re-socialisation into the civilian world as a precursor to re-entry into civilian life.

The challenge for those of us who benefit from their contribution in defence of our values and our country is one of recognition, understanding and finding ‘place’ in society for veteran soldiers on discharge. The words of American Admiral Mike Mullen speak to the lack of recognition of contribution, or of cost to the individual soldier (Shanker, 2011: A21 in Litz 2016): “But I fear they do not know us. I fear they do not comprehend the full burden we carry or the price we pay when we return from battle.”

If we are not aware of their experience, the nature of their service, their challenges, we cannot be aware of how we are not meeting them. These findings raise questions about the responsibility the broader society has to these young men and warrant further exploration and study.

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CHAPTER 6: CONCLUSION

There is a boot camp to prepare us for war, but there is no boot camp to reintegrate us to civilian life (Kelle 2014: 205).

The unacknowledged costs of deployment experience impacting post-discharge adaptation for veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan were explored in this study. The findings demonstrated the process of militarisation of the soldier to be a phenomenon characterised by a depth of commitment and dedication. Militarisation of the individual, the shift from ‘civilian self’ to ‘soldier self’ was achieved by gradual adaptation over time in the context of specific and intense training. It involved the subsuming of individual agency to the military collective and embracing a willingness to sacrifice oneself to the greater good. The achievement and depth of this identity shift, the ‘rite of passage’ to military manhood was a source of pride. The study identified that the aspiration and enactment of this military ideal sets soldiers apart from their civilian counterparts in a way that is little recognised as a point of difference even by the soldiers themselves.

Serving in a war zone, which represented the fulfilment of their ‘warrior’ aspiration was a profound lived experience, more deeply embedding the soldier identity. Intense high stake attachments, the depth of bonding formed, confrontation with danger and threat, exposure to loss of life and human suffering both strengthened and challenged the soldier identity. A combat soldier identity, which involves specific responsibilities as an actor within the military collective, exists essentially within the structure of the military. The analysis found that there was little place on discharge for the professional soldier identity. The challenge to re-shape identity was common to all; disjuncture of meaning and identity resulting from combat exposure further inhibited post-military adaptation.

Negotiating the role and identity change required in re-forming identity, an internal world challenge post-discharge, is a significant psychological and social task (Ebaugh 1988). The relationship between the agency of the individual and prevailing social structures is core to understanding the challenge. The soldier identity more deeply embedded by internalising the realities of combat, the uncertain, ‘at risk’ lifeworld of a war zone, the danger, the threat and the profound sharing of experience, compounds the challenge of reintegration.

There are pathways of socialisation into the military via intensive training which transforms individual agency in becoming a member of the military collective. In the liminal space

97 once exiting the military, veterans are tasked with negotiating and re-forming identity to re- engage with a different structural reality, where primacy of individual autonomy and self- represent the civilian world. There is little support or structure enabling this process, and those with more compromised identity have greater difficulty. Those who transition to like civilian jobs, or who have discharged on a voluntary basis are able to connect to a structural environment that more closely replicates the military structure, norms and values.

Identity and meaning disjuncture challenged capacity for reintegration for the war veterans in this study, where the links out of their military world have not been readily accessible. The evidence of this study identifies a link between the forms of injury that contribute to disjuncture of identity and meaning and the liminal experience. Physical wounding, traumatic exposure and moral injury experienced when confronted with practices alien to the Australian value system, intolerable circumstances of human behaviour or perceived unnecessary loss of Australian life can cause a disruption that goes right to the core of identity. For a number, this disjuncture is a barrier to moving on. Being locked in soldier identity, but being unable to make meaning of their war experience compounds and extends the period of liminality.

The study suggests that the implications for veterans’ reintegration into the civilian world post-discharge are significant and require recognition, understanding and attention from society at large. The findings suggest that responsibility lies not just with the individual soldier. The tasks of re-socialisation, the navigation of the liminal space, the space between the Army and the civilian world are for the individual soldier, multi-layered. The analysis of the participants’ stories establishes that a range of factors contribute to impeding soldier reintegration into broader society. Lack of transitional support, cultural dissonance, absence of social fit, unwitting stigma and marginalisation, and social disavowal are the recounted experience of these veteran participants. The Army as a former employer and the civilian world as recipient of the contribution these men make, potentially with their lives, which in their experience is largely unacknowledged, have a role to play.

The findings of the analysis highlight that interpretations of PTSD as causal may be limited (MacLeish 2013; Tick 2014; Litz et.al. 2015). PTSD is subsumed within a social failure to recognise the liminality of veterans lives post military, and the lack of structural support for their post-military transition. The impact of traumatic exposure in combat, which can

98 include injury caused by compromise of moral and ethical codes, challenge self-belief and meaning making for these men. This study has found that this moral injury can be compounded by experiences of non-recognition and disavowal in the post-military space. Clearer articulation of social expectations and impediments in veterans’ broader experience of becoming post-military citizens would assist to ensure their achievement of full citizenship.

This phenomenological inquiry provided opportunity for the participants to tell their story, to voice their experience of life in the military and fighting in a war zone, and the consequences for them in a way that evinces “how [militaries] are inhabited by people” (Bulmer and Hyde 2015). MacLeish (2015:11) emphasises the value of “critical accounts of war as an embodied experience”, which challenge common assumptions about war and provide a “generative concrete anchor to the urgent questions about it”. In these respects, the findings of the study highlight the value of systematic, qualitative enquiry to complement and extend what is known from extensive, large-scale quantitative analyses. 6.1. Knowing them better

The analysis of the men’s stories identified that non-recognition and lack of valuing of their contribution by the civilian world has impacted their self-belief and capacity to find a place. This non-recognition in effect drives an enduring primary identification with their military identity. Isolation and a sense of difference is too often the experience of veterans who are alone with the memories and traumas from their combat experience. Their skills and courage are well demonstrated, but not acknowledged (Tick 2014).

Masters (2013) exhorts us to “know them better”. Brown (2014: 70) echoes this sentiment in identifying disavowal of our military in the Australian culture: “the gap between our soldiers and the society they serve is a chasm”. They speak of the disconnection between civilians and those who have served in the military. Anecdotally, when writing the conclusion to this thesis an associate spoke of his son, a veteran of the Iraq War who had lost two mates to suicide, bringing home the presence of the harm that results from the wounds of war. The incidence of suicide among men (and women) who have served their nation with dedication and courage who take their own lives as a result of the moral, psychic and physical wounds experienced in war zones is a testament to the nation’s failure to meet their needs (Brock and Lettini 2012). MacLeish (2013:5) however cautions, “suicide can furnish not only a blind that conceals the broader challenges confronting

99 service-members, but an alibi that allows us, the public, to distance ourselves from their travails”.

In speaking of the American experience Brock and Lettini (2012: 93) assert “the ‘hidden wounds of war’ are apparent for all to see: suicide, homelessness, unemployment, divorce, depression, poverty, imprisonment”. As this study has found there are a number of elements to and forms of injury that contribute to disjuncture of identity and meaning for participants. MacLeish (2013:4) affirms the many complex burdens confronting service personnel. Such concerns point to the dangers of the liminal space and support the significance of further qualitative research within military studies.

Militarisation presents a clear pathway into the institution of the military through intense training and socialisation rituals. There are no comparable pathways mapped out for exiting the military. The cultural scripts are not in place. Soldiers on discharge are left to navigate the liminal space unsupported between two structures, the military and the civilian world (Turner 1987; Fourny 2013). Some find their own place. For a number, there is no place to go. In the words of one of the participants, they discharge to “nothing”. For those who are troubled, who have compromised physical and mental health, and associated social difficulty, the liminal space can be a truly dangerous place (Kupers 2011:45). Those who don’t have the capacity to negotiate this ‘place between’ in consequence are not able to attain the rights and benefits of full citizenship.

Major General John Cantwell AO (ABC 2010) urges us to be cognisant of the contribution and commitment, and the continuous challenges for these men who serve our country. He identifies how war intersects with the lived experience of veterans and their families:

We ask an inordinate amount from our people and Australia needs to understand that. We are placing young men and women in some of the most dangerous and life-changing situations you can imagine. And those who are wounded, those who are killed, their families face equal challenges. We cannot underestimate the damage that we might be doing to our people through constant stress. We must do everything we can to help them out psychologically, with medical care, with everything. These people are putting their lives on the line, they do this without question. They don’t flinch and when they’re hurting as they will down the years, we’ve got to keep stepping up as a society and look after them.

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6.2. Implications for future study and research

The study suggests that the challenges to re-forming identity, the navigation and the lived experience of the “in-between” in transitioning between roles are little recognised or acknowledged (Basham et.al. 2015). The experience of liminality is a necessary phase of transition (Turner 1987), however where the actor does not have reference points or measures to understand their experience and few aids to facilitate the move from one identity to a new unknown identity, the liminal journey can be an uncertain and alienating place (MacLeish 2015; Bulmer and Jackson 2016).

Possible areas for future research and study that arise from this research include, firstly, the identified lack of research focus on the challenges of resocialisation on exiting the military. Further qualitative study would enable policy makers within the military and broader society, clinical practitioners, civilians and the soldiers themselves to be better informed and therefore better facilitate the transition process for these combat soldiers.

Second, greater focus is required upon veteran’s ‘return’ to civilian life. The need for supported transition pre-discharge out of the Army and into the civilian world is indicated, and also warrants focused research. Repatriation, a system of reintegration into civilian life, and the achievement of full citizenship must be recognised as a human right for these veterans who have contributed on many levels of ‘self’ to the ongoing defence and future of the nation. The analysis identified lack of realisation of the human capital in the skills and the capacities the soldiers have acquired in their military roles. Research and development of educational and training pathways that would assist to formalise soldiers’ capabilities and enable recognition in the civilian workplace of the human capital acquired in their military roles is recommended.

Third, one of the findings of the discharge experience for participants in this study is the sense of difference, lack of shared experience and lack of familiar role and value expectations in seeking to re-engage in the civilian world. Unknowns and uncertainties characterise the liminal space in transition. Finding links and connections to achieve social position, to find a place as citizens in the civilian world was a challenge for them. The role of veteran support groups in the non-government sector in providing the bridging required to traverse this gap is not well understood. Further research could focus on the factors that facilitate effective and sympathetic pathways which best enable soldiers to engage in a supported transition.

101

Finally, the analysis in this study has identified the significance of the liminal space, the ‘no-man’s land’ that must be negotiated on role exit as it relates to discharge from the military. In focus at the moment in Australia (ABC 2017), are the challenges for elite sports people in reshaping agency and identity required to determine new pathways and life direction post-competitive life, challenges which are not dissimilar to the post-discharge experience of the men in this study. Conceptualisations of the liminal space would have relevance to a range of areas involving transition and warrants further research. The framework applied in this thesis could be applicable to the challenges of life transitions such as retirement, redundancy due to accelerating changes in technology, or those whose lives and livelihoods are compromised by natural disasters. As with the participants in this study there is relevance also for those recovering from and moving through traumatic experience such as terrorist attacks, personal traumatic exposure such as domestic violence, and the vicarious traumatisation of personnel such as police, emergency workers and Border Force.

This study suggests that as a nation Australia must do more to accept responsibility for these citizens by knowing, acknowledging and respecting the personal sacrifices of these men, whom the nation currently fails through lack of systemic processes and structures, to ensure their more successful transition and re-integration into the society and polity of the nation. The findings also raise questions as to why host societies may be unwilling to learn more about the armed forces. These questions could reasonably form the basis of a larger study with greater focus on social responses to the military.

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APPENDIX 1

SEMI-STRUCTURED INTERVIEW GUIDE

The interviews will be focussed on participants telling their stories of their life in the military, specifically first- person accounts of their operational experience. Relevant themes to be explored include military culture and training, operational experience, traumatic exposure, pre-determining risk factors, support (unit, army, family, friendships) during and post-deployment.

Phase 1: The initial recruitment and consent process will involve written and verbal information about the project and the consent to participate

Phase 2: Semi-structured interview: Rapport will be established by informal discussion around current personal life circumstances and eliciting demographic information. Questions about family, relationships, work and friendship networks

Introduction:

I would like to thank you for taking the time to have this interview with me. In the interview, we will be talking about your experience in the army and what it was like to be deployed to a war zone. I would like to hear your thoughts and insights coming from your experience in Afghanistan/ Iraq and generally what life was like in the military:

1. To begin with I would like to know a little more about your life currently.

Prompts: work, family, friendships, where you are living

2. You have been discharged for some months now. Can you tell me about your life since your discharge?

Prompts: work, family, connection with army friends

3. I would like to talk a bit about how and why you joined the army.

Prompts: age enlisted, reason for enlisting, personal circumstances at that time – work, family experience, hopes and dreams, feelings about representing and defending your country in combat

4. Can you tell what it was like when you joined?

Prompts: the training experience, the rules and regulations, the best things, the most difficult things

5. Can you tell me about your deployment history?

Prompts: how many times deployed, where, how long

6. How would you describe life on deployment?

Prompts: work role, activities, support for your work, life in camp, living conditions, living in a warzone

7. Can we talk about the situations and experiences that were most challenging?

Prompts: combat, traumatic exposure, unit support, officer support, wounding 103

8. Can we talk about the circumstances that led to your discharge?

9. On reflection, what would say you have gained and/or lost as a result of your military experience?

Prompts: positive and negatives experiences

10. What now is your perception of war and the military as a veteran who is discharged?

11. How does that differ from when you first enlisted?

12. Could you describe what has assisted you most in your experiences in the military and on deployment?

Prompts: mates, family, the military hierarchy, civilian life

Phase 3 Termination: Thank you for participating in this project and sharing your experience and perceptions. Before we end is there anything further that you would like to add?

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APPENDIX 2

PARTICIPANT INFORMATION SHEET

INFORMATION FOR PARTICIPANTS

A Phenomenological Study of Australian Army Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq Post-Military

What is this study about?

The study aims to give voice to individual servicemen and explore how they make sense of this service with the aim of gaining a better understanding of their perceptions and experience of their military life post- discharge to further understand the impact of contemporary military combat in male lives. In particular, it aims to explore veterans’ experience and reflection on the impact of living and being trained in the military and how this affects your personal identity and how you interpret your experience.

Who is doing the study?

Robin Purvis is a student at the University of Queensland undertaking this research as part of a Research Master’s degree. Robin is interested to talk with discharged army veterans about their operational experience in Afghanistan and Iraq as a way of providing better understanding of the personal, ‘lived’ experience of veterans of war zones.

What will I be asked to do?

The study involves talking to the researcher once or twice. The interviews will take about an hour and a half. You are able to stop at any time. At your first interview, you will be asked if you are willing to do a follow-up interview. You will only be contacted if you agree.

What are my rights if I decide to participate?

You won’t be identified and any information that may identify you will not be disclosed. Some of the things you say may be reported in published articles to illustrate important points. The full details of the information you provide will only be accessible to the researcher involved in the study. The information will be stored on a computer protected by a password and in a locked filing cabinet. Your participation is entirely voluntary and you are free to withdraw at any time.

This study adheres to the Guidelines of the ethical review process of The University of Queensland. Whilst you are free to discuss your participation in this study with project staff (contactable on 0414 379 145), if you would like to speak to an officer of the University not involved in the study you may contact the Ethics Officer on 3365 2287.

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APPENDIX 3

CONSENT TO PARTICIPATE

“A Phenomenological Study of Australian Army Veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq Post-Military”

RESEARCH PROJECT

NAME OF INVESTIGATOR: MS ROBIN PURVIS: Principal Investigator, Research Masters, University of Queensland

Counsellor, Trainer and Mediator

Phone 0414 379 145/ 07 3839 8887 – email: [email protected]

I, consent to participate in the above project

I understand that my participation in this project involves:

• Participation in interviews and this has been explained to me • I authorise the investigator to conduct the interviews and collect information referred to above • I authorise the researcher to audiotape the interview – yes / no • I agree to participate, but choose not to have the interview recorded - yes / no As a participant in the project:

• I understand that the project is related to the study of the experience of army veterans of the Afghanistan and Iraq wars on discharge from the military; • The risks, inconvenience and discomfort of participating in the study have been explained to me; • I understand the attached information sheet and the general purpose, methods and demands of the study; • I have been informed that I am free to withdraw from the project at any time and to withdraw any information supplied; • I am satisfied that the information given in relation to the project in so far as it affects me and my consent is freely given; • I am aware that I can obtain overall results from the study; • I have been informed that my privacy will be maintained and any research information obtained from me will be de-identified; • I agree that the data gathered during the course of this project may be published providing that identifying information is not used; • I have been informed that this project has been approved by the University of Queensland Research Ethics Committee

Participant Signature:

Date: / /

Witness Signature:

Date: / /

Witness Name:

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APPENDIX 4

DVA – The Department of Veterans Affairs oversees funding for a broad range of services and is the government body responsible for eligibility assessment and payment of benefits and pensions https://www.dva.gov.au/

VVCS – Veteran’s and Veteran’s Counselling Service provides counselling for veterans and their families under the auspices of DVA http://www.vvcs.gov.au/

NJF Wellness Centres – veterans exercise program under the auspices of DVA http://njfwellness.com.au/veterans-exercise- program/?gclid=EAIaIQobChMI4M2a2oeh1gIV14hoCh1W7wVcEAAYASAAEgKQIvD_BwE

There are a range of ex-service organisations partially funded and self-funded: https://www.dva.gov.au/contact/ex-service-organisations

More commonly known in the community include: RSL – Returned and Services League of Australia http://www.rsl.org.au/

Legacy – a charity providing services for families of ex-servicemen and women http://www.legacy.com.au/

Mates4Mates – provides a range of rehabilitation services for veterans http://mates4mates.org/

Soldier On – provides employment, mental health and reintegration support https://www.soldieron.org.au/

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