Episodes:

• Episode One: Choosing a life in uniform
  What draws someone to a life in the Defence Force? The answer to this question is as varied as the people that enlist.
   
• Episode Two: Finding a new family as training begins
  Investigates the training stage of veteran’s careers. 
   
• Episode Three: Australia goes to war
  The nature of the job changes as Australia goes to war, and veterans put their training into action.
   
• Episode Four: Support in a time of need
  Having felt the physical and psychological impacts of a life in uniform, the veterans discuss the support they received during their deployments and when they came home.
   
• Episode Five: Returning home – life after service
  After experiences that were far from normal, the veterans discuss their return to a life that was supposed to be. 
   
• Episode Six: Always a veteran
  Reflecting on what it meant to serve, each of the veterans speak honestly about their time in uniform and how it impacts them today.

About the host.

Adam Shand

A journalist with 40 years’ experience across newspaper, television and podcasts, Adam has covered high finance and gangland wars in a varied career that took him to Africa as a freelance correspondent for historic events in South Africa, Rwanda and Zimbabwe. More recently, Adam has investigated criminal organisations and law enforcement for national media, winning a Walkley Award for his reporting on police corruption in Victoria in 2007. Over the past decade he has focused on radio and investigative podcasting.

About the interviewees.

Fred Campbell OAM (Male, Royal Australian Navy, Warrant Officer, NSW)

A strong veteran advocate, Fred and his wife followed long careers as non-commissioned officers (NCOs) with the Royal Australian Navy. Fred led crews in aircraft maintenance and had multiple postings as ship’s warrant officer. He speaks frankly about mental health issues occasioned by the suicide attack on USS Firebolt in April 2004.

Aunty Lorraine Hatton OAM (Female, Army, Warrant Officer, QLD)

A 21-year veteran of the Australian Army, Aunty Lorraine is the first Indigenous woman to be promoted to Warrant Officer Class Two (WO2). Following deployments to Irian Jaya for humanitarian and famine relief and the Multinational Force and Observers in Sinai, she left the service in 2007. Aunty Lorraine is the second Indigenous Elder for the Australian Army and serves on the Memorial’s Indigenous Advisory Group. She has appeared in the Australian War Memorial’s For Country, For Nation exhibition.  

David Nicolson (Male, Royal Australian Navy and Army, Trooper-Cavalry, ACT)

Mr Nicolson was included in the Australian War Memorial’s Ink In The Lines exhibition. He initially joined the Royal Australian Navy before moving to the Australian Army. While serving in Afghanistan as a Bushmaster driver, he was blown up by IEDs four times. He works in disaster recovery operations alongside other veterans.

Dr Kim Morgan-Short (Female, Royal Australian Air Force Reserve, Officer-Doctor, QLD)

Dr Morgan-Short’s late husband Squadron Leader Anthony Short was killed in an F-111 crash in 1999, after which she battled an air crash official inquiry that sought to blame pilot error for the crash. Her second husband, also a pilot, lost his battle with a terminal illness. Kim’s children have gone on to become pilots. After leaving the RAAF Reserve, she became a Director at the War Widows Guild, Queensland.