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Australian Defence Medical Chief Says Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder: “Not About Being In The Military”

Suzanne Baker


The officer overseeing for the mental health of Australia’s defence forces has distanced the Australian Defence Force (ADF) from the crippling post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) affecting thousands of military personnel.

“What we do know is it’s not about being in the military,” Rear Admiral Robyn Walker, Commander Joint Health and Surgeon General Australian Defence Force, has told marie claire magazine. She says PTSD, which is believed to affect about 30 per cent of military personnel worldwide, usually occurs after a “lifetime exposure to traumatic events”.

Brisbane psychiatrist Dr Andrew Khoo, who treats current and former military personnel, says Rear Admiral Walker’s comments are misleading. “If you purely look at the diagnostic criteria ... you only need a one-off event,” says Dr Khoo, clinical director at Brisbane’s Toowong Private Hospital. “I’ve got innumerable patients who’ve just had a one-off, terrible trauma and they’ve got PTSD.”

PTSD is a psychiatric disorder triggered by a specific traumatic event that a person has either experienced or been exposed to. It can also occur after prolonged exposure to traumatic situations. Symptoms include intrusive memories, flashbacks, hyper vigilance, poor anger control and depression.

Three female veterans – two of whom attempted suicide – have told marie claire of their struggle to have PTSD diagnosed. Suzanne Baker (pictured above) was 19 and the only woman among “a couple of hundred army guys” when she was deployed to East Timor in 2000. Though she witnessed incidents still too raw to speak about, “one [psychiatrist] kept asking about my ex-boyfriend”, says Baker, who also served as a Navy aircraft controller in the Persian Gulf. "I didn't want to talk about this guy; I had nothing to say.”

Asked about PTSD in female veterans, Rear Admiral Walker said data compiled by the ADF showed that “many of our members have been exposed to [trauma] before they’ve joined the military … It’s exposure to car accidents, it’s exposure to domestic violence, it’s exposure to sexual assault.”

Former army truck driver Calli Morgan, who suffered depression, paranoia, panic attacks and flashbacks for 13 years before being diagnosed with PTSD, is dismayed by Rear Admiral Walker’s comments: “When I went into the military, I was assessed by a psych for an hour,” says Morgan, convenor of the Women Veteran’s Association Australia, “and I was perfectly sound to them.”


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Standing by the helipad at the Townsville army barracks on June 13, 1996, as a black dot appeared in the sky and the familiar thwack of helicopter rotor blades reached her ears, Private Calli Morgan began to shake. With every muscle tensing up, she couldn’t swallow, let alone think about moving.

“When the [helicopter] arrives, I want you to take the bodies off and put them on the back of the vehicle,” an officer gently instructed Morgan, a truck driver, and a dozen or so other soldiers. “Let’s just get this done. Look after the men who have passed away.” The soldiers made eye contact with one another. “Don’t cry, don’t cry, don’t cry,” Morgan silently willed herself.

The previous night, two Black Hawk helicopters had collided during a training exercise behind the North Queensland military base. Both caught fire, and one crashed. Eighteen personnel were killed. It was the worst accident in the history of Australia’s elite Special Air Service Regiment.

Though word of the accident had spread throughout the base, the first Morgan knew of the casualties was at the helipad, where she was handed two pairs of gloves – one surgical, the other elbow-length and heavy-duty. As the rescue helicopter shuddered to the ground, through the open rear door Morgan could see rows of body bags.

“Sadness overwhelmed me,” she recalls now, from her home in Adelaide. “It was like someone was dropping a car on me. I just kept thinking there are people at home crying over these men. Has anybody held them? Has anybody held these poor men?”

So, as the men were taken from the helicopter, “I just put my hands underneath and tried to hold them as compassionately as possible. My heart burst. There were just so many of them.” The bodies had been out in the bush overnight. “It was,” relates Morgan, “brutally confronting.”

- as told to Di Webster

Read the full version of this feature in the May issue of marie claire, on sale now.