#1721 The War After The Combat - Heston Russell

Heston Russell has been through some horrible sh*t; physical, mental, emotional, personal and professional. Some of it he was highly trained for, some of it he wasn't. Some of it he chose, some of it he didn't. And while you might think his biggest challenges would have been as a Special Forces Officer in the middle of combat situations around the world, the reality is different. If you haven't watched the Channel 7 'Spotlight' doco that unpacks Heston's fascinating (and harrowing) journey to hell and back, I strongly suggest you do. I thought I’d share the channel 7 synopsis here because they did a great job. **With a proud lineage of military relatives, Heston Russell enlisted in the army at 17 and rose through the ranks to become a highly decorated officer with more than 10,000 hours of leadership in combat operations, including four combat deployments to Afghanistan and a fifth to Iraq to fight against ISIS. He proved fearless in battle, iron-willed in his personal convictions and prepared to put it all on the line. As a soldier, Russell led our troops into countless battles and when he retired, he kept fighting. He campaigned for the royal commission into veteran suicide, built charities for soldiers and even ran for a seat in the Queensland senate. But his toughest fight came several years after his discharge, when Russell became the target of a relentless attack launched by the investigations unit of the ABC alleging that he was the worst kind of soldier - leaving a trail of destruction in Afghanistan and involved in fraudulent behaviour back home. Russell's battleground this time: the Australian Federal Court, where he spent almost three years fending off the ABC's allegations of war crimes.See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.