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What kind of car are you?

What kind of car would you be?  Imagine that you were a luxury brand like a Rolls-Royce, a high-end sports car or something else? What kind of fuel would put in it? The high-end sports models like our athletes are fuelled with quality foods and drinks (and supplements), luxury cars like your Rolls-Royces, Bentlys, Aston Martins and all, "drink" premium. You wouldn't want to spend hundreds of thousands of dollars on such a nice ride and give it lower quality petrol.  Stop treating your ...

Bad News

When we keep seeing or hearing negative stories about the world we tend to think more negatively about the world in which we are living.  There are estimates that each person has approximately 60000 thoughts each day, and with the massive influx of negative news about COVID, lockdowns and the “end” to the Afghanistan war, a vast majority of those thoughts are negative.  These negative thoughts, resentments, and grudges against certain people or terrorist organisations being named a...

Going home

How would you react/ respond if you had been given a task with a 4% chance of success?  Would you forsake all other tasks to focus solely on achieving a good outcome?  That is what @r3nee, my mum, and my whole family (both blood and Defence) did 10 years ago After barely surviving a horrific Helicopter smash in which four service personnel were killed, it was briefed to the PM and other politicians that one of the survivors had a 4% chance of survival. They were told to prepare for a 5...

Battle of Shah Wali Kot

It was on this day 10 years ago, ACCG (Alph Commando Company Group) deployed for another mission as we were heading toward the end of our time in Afghanistan with the Special Operations Task Group Rotation XII .  We knew it was going to be a pretty heavy job ahead of us and as we inserted onto the edge of the “green belt” and covered by some larger hills from the villages we were to be focusing on.  To a village area known to be harbouring Taliban fighters and commanders about a li...

Get moving

Humans are meant to move. The benefits of movement are that it is good for the body, brain and mind. Exercise burns energy, and the fat we have on our bodies is stored energy. Currently, we’re all storing a lot of energy in this directed isolation phase which is amplified by the massive amounts of highly processed foods most of us have purchased and stored at home. Things like pastas and rice as well as pop- tarts, lollies, soft-drink and alcohol. This is also made worse by food delivery ser...

Brain Care

Have you been looking after your brain during this pandemic? The best way to look after your brain while "stuck" in isolation is through things like; Exercise, by getting your body and heart moving keeps your brain stimulated. Cardio exercises stimulate your brain by helping to grow your hippocampus which is the part of the brain that is in charge of verbal learning and memory.Resistance training can help with age related memory loss (amongst other benefits). It has been posited that up to 150 ...

Tucker Time

Lunch Time at Camp Russell SOTG ROT XII...

Study Time

Given this current pandemic and potentially being stuck at home perhaps we should consider how we can use this time at wisely. Perhaps we could become students of our own lives and the issues that affect it? Genghis Kahn was the first emperor of the Mongolian empire and one of the worlds’ greatest military minds – why? because he was always learning. Every culture his empire came in contact with he would study it, and learn from it and the previous bat...

S.M.E.A.C.

I recently met up with a veteran who has been separated from the ADF for a short while and has started to miss some of their old Defence community.     The usual daily banter with like-minded individuals has made them think about their loss of identity, because in the Army/ Navy/ Airforce you have an identity.  You are someone, and in the ADF, your mates have your back. On deployment, you know you can trust your life with your oppo, and they can with theirs.  In the �...

Laws of Human Nature

Laws of Human Nature We often call it our nondeclarative memory - the things we already intrinsically know but don’t know how to explain it, where we learnt it or why . Thankfully Robert Greene has gone out of his way and spent an awful lot of time to uncover the “laws” behind our human nature. It is a fantastic read, that provides valuable insights into ourselves and other.  According to Greene, there are 18 Laws which cover everything from how and why we ALL are irrational, compulsi...

AAR

With the end of the year fast approaching, is it time to have an After-Action Review of the years wins and losses to prepare for them occurring again. An AAR is is any form of retrospective analysis after an exercise, event or mission.  You can run an AAR for your whole organisation, your branch, team, cohort or even for yourself.  You can have a rehash or your mission focus to see if your mission focus is still in the front of your and your teams’ minds and you haven't los...

Fire Extinguisher

Is it your lack of energy, weight or motivation?  You can't just have another coffee or energy drink, go on the latest diet for a week, and work break your body down in the gym.  To quell this fire, you need to aim at the base of the fire, not just at the flames.  let's look at the whole package, will your diet help you to achieve your goals?  Are you getting outside and moving, not just the time between getting from your house to work or school.  Look back at the bare b...

Ask Dr. Google.

We recently went through a neuropsych assessment to discover the amount of recovery that I have made over the last 9 years since I was given just a 4% chance of survival. After seeing a functional neurologist and sharing the ‘readers digest’ version of our story, it was suggested that I undertake another neuropsych test to have my limitations and what we can expect to encounter in the future. As part of this, I underwent another MRI screen and then was given a copy of the report to pas...