After three tours of duty in the Middle East with the Australian Air Force, Jimmy Anderson returned home a different man.
He’d always loved a drink, having played NRL professionally where booze would follow a big win or a punishing loss, and after joining the Defence Force in 2006, where bonding is typically done over alcohol of some kind.
When Mr Anderson began to struggle with his mental health post-deployment, he turned to the bottle.
“The last tour to Afghanistan was pretty intense and pretty sketchy,” he recalled. “I can’t really go into why, obviously. But we were absolutely getting hammered at the time. There were a lot of Aussies and Kiwis killed.”
It wasn’t long until he was in a “pretty s**thouse way” back at home, but the level of support on offer from the military wasn’t overly extensive.
“We were given some pamphlets and that’s about it,” Mr Anderson said.
“Guys who were struggling weren’t going to pick up the phone and talk to a stranger about it. We just internalise it all. That’s what got me in a world of hurt.”
After he discharged in 2013, Mr Anderson said he felt “completely lost” and struggled to find his place in the world.
“I was a mess. I tried to take my own life. I just drank and drank and got into all sorts of trouble,” he said.
Not long after leaving the Defence Force, he wound up behind bars after being convicted of attempted armed robbery and grievous bodily harm.
‘A shell of a man’
Luke Millwood was a major in the Australian Army who was deployed to East Timor in a senior international engagement role.
“It was very challenging from an environmental perspective,” Mr Millwood recalled.
“There’s a lot of poverty, a lot of social issues. There was some pretty confronting moments over there.
“But in all, the first three years were amazing. The last two years were almost torturous.”
Typically, military personnel sent on what’s known as “hardship assignments” are only supposed to spend a few years on the ground before returning home.
“It’s recognised that they are very, very draining assignments,” Mr Millwood explained.
“They’re very tiring. There’s a lot of additional pressures and stressors that can be placed on an individual from a work perspective but also from an environmental perspective.
“I was as deep in a job as anybody can get. I went and learnt two languages to be able to operate over there and I really threw myself into the role.”
Part way through his third year in Timor, he was ready to go.
“I was pretty tired. I’d given it everything I could. Defence wasn’t able to fill the position, so they asked me to stay one more year. I did that. That’s when things got very tough, and I started to develop some pretty poor coping mechanisms,” he said.
That difficult time coincided with the outbreak of Covid in early 2020.
His wife and their young son were in Brazil visiting family just before the world shut down, leaving them trapped halfway across the world in South America.
For several months, the trio were separated, all while Mr Millwood was battling a growing number of demons.
“Because of Covid and all these new restrictions, I was also pretty isolated. I was tired and burnt out, my family were stuck in Brazil, there wasn’t much to do but work and drink.”
Over time, he became “basically non-functioning”.
“I went from being one of the most motivated individuals in the organisation, just very outcomes focused, very driven, very actions focused, to essentially at its worst point unable to get off the lounge,” he said.
“I didn’t drink during the day. It’s not like I was nudging vodkas while at work, but outside of that, absolutely. I drank all the time and in a big way.”
Massive hangovers compounded his exhaustion, worsening his mental health challenges.
“Exercise is the first thing that goes. The diet was horrific too. And so that balance that you need in life just goes straight out the window,” he said.
‘Inadequate services’
La Trobe University senior lecturer of occupational therapy Kylie Carra said half a million Australians have served with the defence forces.
“Yet, at least anecdotally, former service members describe immense difficulty accessing the rehabilitation services they need,” Dr Carra said.
A survey of 123 occupational therapists who provide services to return service members heard of systemic issues surrounding complex administration processes and inadequate funding.
“This is alarming given that former service members are twice as likely than the general population to have health conditions such as depression, anxiety, cancer, heart disease, post-traumatic stress disorder, and stroke,” Dr Carra said.
Those struggling with mental health issues either don’t reach out for help due to stigma, or find endless red tape or closed doors when they do.
That’s a finding supported by the interim report from a Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran suicides, handed down in 2022.
“Australia’s veteran compensation and rehabilitation legislative system is so complicated that it adversely affects the mental health of some veterans … and can contribute to suicidality,” it found.
A startling report released in late 2022 found 1600 defence force members who served from 1985 onwards died by suicide between 1997 and 2020.
The most common risk factors among ADF personnel who took their own lives were mood affective disorders like depression.
At the end of May 2022, the Royal Commission found the federal government’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs (DVA) had a staggering backlog of more than 41,000 claims.
“This must not continue,” its interim report declared.
Help is hard to find
But continue it has.
Around the same time that interim report was handed down, Mr Millwood was back in Australia struggling to keep himself together.
At long last, his wife and son had managed to get back to Timor from Brazil, navigating all kinds of loopholes and border closures.
“I was in such a state when she got there,” he said.
“My wife knew she had to get me out of there, so she pulled the pin for us. We came back to Australia, and I immediately went on medical leave.
“I was an anxious mess. Not socialising. Nothing. None of the normal semblance of who I was and what made up my character.”
He began seeing a psychiatrist to work through things, but Mr Millwood felt like he was trapped at the bottom of a deep pit.
“I still wasn’t taking care of myself. I was seeing a psychiatrist and a doctor to try to work through things, but I was still a mess. It got to the day before I was supposed to parade, to return to work, and I just messaged them and said that I couldn’t do it,” he said.
“The peer support officer told me that it wasn’t a choice. It was like, ‘That’s not a thing, mate. You’re in the military.’ But I had nothing left in me to give the organisation. I was burnt out massively I was unhealthy.
“I was all of those things that come with being in such a complex pressure cooker for five years.”
He began the process of discharging from the military after almost two decades of service. He also reached out to Department of Veterans Affairs about getting support for his illnesses and injuries.
In terms of the physical toll of his service, Mr Millwood has had his right shoulder completely replaced and his left knee reconstructed.
“Emotionally, I was diagnosed with complex post-traumatic stress disorder, a major depressive disorder and severe anxiety disorder.”
Having his issues recognised by DVA took the better part of a year.
“I was almost in limbo,” Mr Millwood said.
Sudden loss of normal
In some ways, winding up in jail presented a return to normality for Mr Anderson, who found many similarities with military life.
“I found much of prison life pretty easy,” he said.
“It reminded me of the military in a lot of ways. There’s a lot of discipline, you do what you’re told to do, there’s a routine.”
But he was facing a five-year stretch behind bars. Time ticked by painfully slowly and he had all but given up on life.
Mr Anderson couldn’t see a future – least of all, a future outside the military.
For his part, Mr Millwood expected that leaving the world he’d known for half of his life would be relatively straightforward.
“Like walking through a door and closing it behind you,” he said. “I couldn’t have been more wrong.”
He said when someone enters the Defence Force, they’re essentially broken down and rebuilt, with their old selves discarded and replaced with a new model of military might.
“That’s what they need to do,” Mr Millwood said. “I don’t feel any spite towards them because of that – it’s just the reality of making soldiers and personnel.
“They’re changing or amending the character traits that you have to suit the military. That builds a dependence on the military to a degree. You get, you’re in this very strong culture, you’ve got a new family, you’ve got housing, medical, you’ve got a guaranteed income, you’ve got all of those fundamental needs that are requirements to living a fairly stable life.”
To have that ripped away in the blink of an eye is devastating – and destructive.
And despite decades of experience and countless concerns raised about mental health and wellbeing, the Defence Force still continues to fail when it comes to transitioning people out of service.
“To put it into perspective, my training period – my onboarding in the Defence Force – was about four years. My transition out, the off-ramp, was essentially two-and-a-half days. That says it all,” Mr Millwood said.
Trying to survive post-military almost came at the cost of his relationship, the loss of his family, and the destruction of himself, he said.
“All those struggles, the injuries, the pain – the only thing I felt that I could do to deal with it was drink. A lot of it was subconscious. A lot of it was like, well, it hurts, how do we manage this? It doesn’t hurt when you drink, so drink.”
He hit rock bottom on the day of his young son’s birthday party, where he got rip-roaring drunk “for no reason”.
“I didn’t do anything ridiculous. It wasn’t like a scene from a movie or anything, but it was embarrassing, and it really embarrassed and upset my wife,” he said.
She and their son left and went to a hotel for a week. On their return, Mr Millwood was given an ultimatum – rehab or the marriage is over.
When he called DVA, Mr Millwood discovered there were only two approved treatment facilities to choose from – one being a hardcore detox he didn’t need, and the other a military bootcamp-style program that he would’ve found triggering and unhelpful.
His psychiatrist suggested a rehabilitation facility called Hope in Health and he applied with DVA for clearance for an inpatient stay.
“It was mid-December by that point and DVA said they were closing for Christmas and that I’d have to come back in January. It was a case of, ‘If you want help, we’ll see you next month.’
“That whole attitude sat very uncomfortably with me. I’m very lucky in that I’ve never been suicidal. I’ve been reckless and careless to the point of almost death. But I hadn’t considered harming myself.
“But so many do. I was thinking about them being at breaking point and being told to come back after Christmas because the place was shutting down. I was so sympathetic with people that had sit in those circumstances.”
Part of the indoctrination into the culture of the Defence Force is learning to “put yourself last always”, he said.
“So, imagine a guy that is by his nature selfless, who has a hard exterior, who has been taught to put himself last. Imagine he gets to breaking point and finally managed to ask for help, but it’s refused because an office is closed.
“They might only get one chance to help that person.”
The turning point
Four-and-a-half months into Mr Anderson’s prison sentence, a lawyer became aware of his case and reached out.
She felt there were extenuating circumstances that hadn’t been properly considered during his sentencing – namely, the trauma he had endured after three war zone deployments.
He was released and given a second chance at life.
It was a turning point that led him to Hope in Health and its veterans-focused programs treating addiction and PTSD in August 2022.
“That changed everything,” Mr Anderson said.
“I learnt a lot about forgiveness, about self-love. They taught me to see all the grey in the world, instead of looking at everything as black-and-white. It’s seeing the bigger picture.
“A lot of it was about just letting go. It was about being grateful for the small things.”
He enrolled in a six-week program, but at the end of it still felt uneasy about returning to the real world.
“I wound up staying for four months. It was the best thing I could’ve done,” he said.
Mr Millwood and his doctors were eventually able to successfully navigate DVA’s bureaucratic challenges and entered Hope in Health’s program at the start of last year.
“It provided a period of clarity for me,” he recalled.
“I’m in a good place now. It is like any life. It’s up and down. It’s had its moments.
“I find even now that the points where I start slipping back into bad behaviours, it’s those times that I find that I’m not watering that garden, if you know what I mean.
“You’ve got to put the work in to stay well.”
Mr Anderson is also a world away from his old self. He’s completed a carpentry apprenticeship and is working as a chippie.
“I love my work. I’m part of a great team. I’ve got my own house. My partner and I split up during this but if anything, it’s made us closer (as friends).
“There are days that are a battle … but I’ve got a solid (foundation).”
His advice for current and former members of the Defence Force who are suffering is to not suffer in silence.
“Reach out straight away. It’s the best thing you can do. Don’t be afraid to ask for help,” he said.
Mr Millwood said finding a sense of purpose was crucial in his recovery and urged any veterans who aren’t coping to find their “thing”.
“Purpose is at the foundation of what you need, whatever that looks like, whether that is. It could be a new hobby or building an empire. I think you need something that’s intrinsically linked to who you are and what makes you up as a character,” he said.
“You then have to build healthy behaviours. You need to sleep, you need to eat well, you need to limit those bad things in your life and put steps in place, routine in place, to have a structure to work off.
“Because if you’re out of balance, if you don’t have a structure, it’s going to be very, very difficult to maintain any level of consistency and happiness.”
Change is needed
After the release of the Australian Institute of Health and Welfare 2022 report on suicide rates, Minister for Veterans Affairs Matt Keogh said a single death is one too many and conceded more work needs to be done to support returned service members.
“We are committed to making every possible effort to prevent any further tragedies of this nature,” Mr Keogh said.
The Royal Commission delivered its interim report in mid-2022, making 13 initial recommendations for reform, which the government committed to adopting in full.
The Defence Force said it provided 191,000 documents, comprising 3.1 million pages of submissions, to the Royal Commission.
Mr Keogh said a range of supports are on offer for current and former military personnel who are struggling.
Anyone who has completed a single day of service in the ADF can access mental health and wellbeing services that are needs-based and uncapped.
Immediate financial assistance is also available to veterans submitting mental health claims, and veterans can access health treatment for 20 commonly claimed physical conditions while their mental health claim is being considered, he added.
Free and confidential mental health support for veterans and families is available through the Open Arms – Veterans and Families Counselling service, and can be accessed 24 hours a day, 365 days a year by calling 1800 011 046.
Defence personnel can contact their local health centre, the All-Hours Support Line on 1800 628 036, or the Defence Member and Family Helpline on 1800 624 608.