CARING FOR VETERANS:

The town helping our Diggers heal

The grinding crunch of metal sounded like a bomb. the table Chatting the but RAAF where, car he sergeant reacted that until at a sped a coffee second instantly hit across the shop, earlier, ground a to loose David the he’d noise. and grating Gillard been took The behind quietly cover didn’t former under him, see celebrating catapulted back his son’s to September 21st birthday. 6, 2004, Suddenly, and a David bloody was event in Baghdad that changed his life forever. That’s when seven US Marines were ripped apart in front of him as their HumVee struck an Improvised Explosive Device (IED). David, in the same convoy, was caught up in the resulting fire fight that killed three enemy, one of them in a woman’s burqa.

“Those 15 minutes were the worst time in my life, but for years I never told anyone about it,” the Adelaide father of five recalls, battling his emotions. “You just lock things away, try to bury them. I had compartmentalised everything, but hearing that sound at the cafe brought it all rushing back.

“A psychiatrist later told me it was like I’d been living in a mental cell, but the door was blasted open six years later →

... but hope can appear in surprising places. Jenny Brown visits the tiny South Australian town of Robe, where fresh air and gratitude make miracles happen.

when that car hit a piece of steel. That’s when the nightmares started, and the waking flashbacks.”

The deserts of Iraq still loom large in 55-year-old David’s subconscious. He never knows when the terrible memories will resurface, or what will trigger them. It might be a smell, a glimpse of Arab dress at a shopping centre or a burst of loud laughter at the pub. His senses are hyper-vigilant, constantly on the lookout for perceived threats or danger. He struggles with suicidal impulses, depression and anxiety as a result of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), and has been hospitalised for psychiatric treatment “between 15 and 20 times” since being medically discharged from the RAAF in 2014.

“I was a broken man,” he volunteers. “I put a good face on it. Us blokes with PTSD are very good at putting on masks. I’ve contemplated suicide, but never planned it, primarily because of the kids. I couldn’t leave them with that burden. I try to project calmness, but it’s not really there.”

Today, however, David and wife Deborah, 61, are savouring five days of peace at a sleepy South Australian fishing village courtesy of Robe to Recovery, a community initiative offering free respite to military veterans in thanks for their service and sacrifice. Strolling on the windswept cliffs, David is relaxing in the town he hopes to call home one day. Contemplating a sea change, the Gillards count themselves truly lucky to be here on a second sponsored visit.

“We’ve fallen in love with the place,” smiles David, who notched up 24 years in the RAAF before being invalided out. He remains bitterly disappointed that he was not allowed to stay another six months to earn the 25-year clasp for his Defence Long Service Medal.

“At home, when I have bad dreams, I get up, have a glass of water, check the locks and try to get back to sleep,” he says. “But in Robe I can throw on my clothes and go outside. All you hear is the waves, and the salty air is extraordinary … It’s a healing place.”

Robe to Recovery is the brainwave of local photographer, former farmer’s wife and mother-of-two Jacqui Bateman, a dynamo disguised in jeans, sleeveless fleece vest, colourful scarf and well-worn cowboy boots.

“I’ve lived in the area all my life, but only moved into town a couple of years ago, so I won’t be a local until oooh …” she chuckles infectiously, greeting everyone by name – staff and customers alike – at one of Robe’s thriving gourmet cafes. “I won’t be a real local for about another 20 years!”

A few years back, Jacqui decided the family beach house should be used to help someone in need. She wanted to do something constructive, something she could see making a difference, not simply make a $50 donation to a charity. “I thought I’d like to do something more – not just giving money – actually doing something.”

By chance, she went to a fundraiser for support organisation Soldier On and learned about the shockingly high rates of suicide and PTSD among our ex-servicemen and women. Those statistics struck a poignant chord with Jacqui, 54, who had always dreamed of joining the police or army.

“I never did, at first because I was too young,” she explains regretfully. “I took a job with a local solicitor until I was old enough to enlist. Then I started going out with my husbandto-be when I was 16, so that was as far as my career went. But the military always fascinated me, so I guess it grew from there.”

In a lightbulb moment, Jacqui hatched a scheme to offer her beach house for veteran respite breaks a couple of times a year, and gained enthusiastic backing from Robe to Recovery co-founder Justin Brown, 51, a former army combat engineer then working as SA State Manager of Soldier On.

“It’s all grown from there,” he grins, slightly aghast at the group’s phenomenal success. Robe to Recovery has welcomed around 26 veterans and families since its launch in 2015. “The whole town

just galvanised behind this project.

It’s such a brilliant, generous, giving community. The extent of the support did take us by surprise.”

Fired up, Jacqui first went to the Robe Tourism Association, which got behind her 100 per cent. Soon local B’n’Bs, holiday parks and motels started coming forward with offers of free accommodation. Cafes dished out free meals, while local recreation companies contributed vouchers for surf lessons, 4X4 driving tours, golf and fishing boat cruises. Dr Brendan Nelson, director of the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, agreed to become patron of Robe to Recovery within five minutes of receiving Jacqui’s emailed invitation.

In Victoria, Cobden and Phillip Island rapidly took up the idea. South Australia’s Port Lincoln is ready to receive its first veteran family, and Mittagong in the NSW southern highlands is interested in following suit.

“We’ve let the program grow organically,” explains father-oftwo Justin, now working for Veterans SA.

“We wanted communities to adopt it and become passionate about it, and that’s what’s happening.

“Jacqui does so much, not only in Robe, but also the way she’s taken this project and run with it. I’ve just been fortunate enough to be along for the ride. Seeing the impact this has on veterans and their families is amazing, especially the letters. They are probably the most profound thing.”

Each ex-serviceman or woman hosted by Robe to Recovery receives a gift hamper with handwritten donor cards expressing thanks for their dedication to keeping Australia safe.

“So it’s like a big group hug,” smiles Jacqui, justifiably proud of this ground-breaking approach. “When the first veteran came with his wife and two kids, they were in tears reading the notes and seeing the basket. I thought, ‘We are onto something now!’ It just seems to make them feel valued and appreciated.”

Sitting in a clifftop holiday cabin, former RAN Petty Officer Darrell Colliver and his wife, Kristine, are indeed moved.

“Gratitude is something I’ve never had before,” says Darrell, 56, his eyes moist. “After I left the service I just drifted around a bit, didn’t get any acknowledgement for what I’d done, but to get that here … I’m quite in awe of the township. It’s really great.”

Since leaving the RAN in January 1990, after 12 years of distinguished service, the father-of-two has struggled physically and mentally. His first marriage ended in divorce, largely due to his difficulty adapting to civilian life, when his children were still young. He suffers from PTSD, Crohn’s Disease and irritable bowel syndrome. He also underwent a double hip replacement, aged only 48, because the steroids prescribed for digestive problems rotted his bones.

Worse still, the recurrence of a high-grade, aggressive skin cancer last year left doctors no choice but to remove Darrell’s nose following radical operations, chemotherapy and radiation treatment.

“Too many years baking in the sun on parade grounds, I guess,” shrugs the ex-shipwright, resigned to the need for yet more surgery to rebuild his mutilated face. “They have done so many skin grafts already, I’m like the spare parts man.”→

If anyone ever needed rest and recreation it’s the Collivers, who have driven seven hours to reach Robe from their home in Maitland, SA. During the past 12 months Kristine, 50, has lost her sister, cousin and best friend. Darrell’s uncle and one of his cousins have also died. Then, as a result of Darrell’s cancer diagnosis, the couple had to put their house on the market and close their small but successful renovation business. They’re still trying to sell their home, but reckon their much-loved chocolate labrador, Coco, keeps them sane.

“It’s been our year from hell,” says Kristine, a former superannuation manager who married Darrell 16 years ago. “It was amazing to see this big gift basket and the cards. It was better than a birthday. I started crying. It’s been a pretty rough time and it’s nice to feel so supported. Where we live we don’t really have any help, nothing and no-one to lean on. We’ve got no money, no income. We haven’t been able to pay our mortgage for the past year.”

Yet all that is forgotten less than 24 hours later when David and Darrell lay an Anzac Day wreath for Robe to Recovery at the town’s dawn service. It is no easy task. Marching is difficult for David, who suffers excruciating back pain as another unwelcome legacy of service, while PTSD renders both men anxious in crowds.

They conceal it well, however, as the first rays of sunshine light up the war memorial, a scratch bush band strikes up the national anthem and a vintage Tiger Moth plane stutters overhead in a ceremonial fly-past, competing with a vocal flock of corellas.

“I was pretty good that day, on a bit of a high,” Darrell reflects later, preparing to climb back on the medical merry-go-round of seeing 15 different specialists. “We had a wonderful time. It’s a shame we had to come home. Robe to Recovery is a

“The impact on veterans and their families is amazing.”

very special thing. It gives you a warm, fuzzy feeling and they’re hard to come by. Jacqui’s doing a great job.”

Deborah Gillard agrees. “David didn’t feel appreciated at the end of his service, now he does, but he’s done a lot of work to get where he is today. These guys are trained to kill, but they are never untrained. The armed forces need to do more to get them used to civilian life again. A lot of those guys who are really badly affected don’t even know where to begin to ask for help. That’s why all the suicides happen, out of frustration. They are so lost, suffering PTSD and not coping.”

Regular counselling, meditation, anger management, mindfulness and other relaxation methods help David get through. So does art therapy, which revealed his talent for painting. Nonetheless, some days he withdraws, simply staring at the floor as a welter of thoughts runs through his head.

The depression strikes in cycles, and every three to four months he’s readmitted to a psychiatric hospital until he is “back on the straight and narrow”. He says 86 Australian veterans took their own lives last year, and he understands why.

Those sobering statistics make Jacqui determined to spread Robe to Recovery’s comforting embrace. She has started a “pay it forward” system, where sympathisers can buy a voucher to provide extra goodies for visiting ex-servicemen and women. And she won’t rest until more communities take up the respite challenge.

“Never in a million years did I dream it would all take off like this,” she says, eyes sparkling. “We started small and then began to think we could take over the world! I just think there must be so many little towns out there that have something to offer like this. Robe to Recovery helps our veterans to feel valued and, God knows, we tend to take our armed forces a bit for granted. We think they will always be there to protect us, but they pay a heavy price for that.

“I suppose everyone has some connection to the military, whether it’s granddad who fought in World War II or a father who went to Vietnam. We should help them if we can. If it was my sons, I would hope they would be looked after in the same way.” For more information, visit robetorecovery.com.au or soldieron. org.au. If you or someone you know needs help, contact Lifeline: 13 1114, lifeline.org.au