Little Tim, Big Tim (12 page)

I walk into the office of Professor Larry Evans (Doctor of Psychiatry). The June afternoon is bitter, and so am I. This is my second visit to Brisbane from the Whitsundays, to see the ‘Shrink.’ The first visit related to an assessment of why and how I can’t grieve the loss of mates that died on 12th of June 1996.

Two Black Hawk helicopters collided, resulting in the death of eighteen men, fifteen of them from the SAS Regiment, my former troop, men I called friends.

I can no longer hide from the facts and how they affect me.

‘It didn’t happen, I wasn’t there,’ is bullshit, but what’s harder to deal with is that I’m numb and have recognised this condition since the news of their deaths filtered through to me.

I need help and Veteran affairs have arranged Dr Evans to assess me once again. However, this visit will be concerning treatment I suffered at the hands of the NSW police, and the fact that Veteran Affairs deny it happened. I don’t trust Veteran Affairs. It’s taken them three years to accept I need help, and having had to expose evidence to Dr Evans of a state police unit being accused of conspiracy, I tend to be quite paranoid about the direction into which I’m being coerced.

My file is sitting on the unattended Receptionist’s desk. Inquisitive to know its contents, I commence reading.

Patient name:
Tim Roy

Diagnoses:
Post Traumatic Stress Disorder
(
PTSD
)

Acute Delusional Disorder
(
Persecutory type
)

Veteran Affairs accepts conditions to be service related.

The sound of a door closing startles me; I quickly replace the file. No one enters the reception area. Instinctively, I sit down with my back to the wall to observe all angles of the room. My eyes start to dart around the room, so to arrest this malfunction I use a tactic that I discovered intuitively. I pull a folded, tattered piece of paper from my jeans, unfold it and read a poem; its ink letters are starting to fade. I whisper the words so I can hear them and hope that they will distract me from the distortion I’m diminishing into.

ODE TO A TROOP ONE SQUADRON SASR

Who dares wins,

Who cares who wins?

You have said it a thousand times,

Never meant it,

Just put your life on the line,

Just another job, wheres bob?

Your company vehicle is

Black Hawk,

Fly in them at night,

Light’s out,

Rehearsals done,

You never baulk, on skids again,

There is no out, go, go, go is the call,

Shit,

Everything is a fireball.

Fifteen gone, never again to be on line,

It’s our country,

We all know that death can come when you don’t think it’s your time.

We will miss you; from us you have left, good men, friends.

The times we climbed, the jobs, the exercises, these are what I’ll remember,

The Professionals.

Courage of all the operators, dangerous, arduous, Living on the edge.

We remember,

Just another job, where’s bob?

The answer is simple

Gone, fifteen gone, real men,

Family andfriends left behind,

Pick up the pieces, get on with the job

Forget what has been placed in your mind,

Inspired by fifteen souls.

As the last word leaves my lips I know I have lost the battle on this occasion; my mind moves into hyper-vigilant mode, rapidly absorbing visual images of the room: carpeted floor; one door; six chairs; table in centre of floor; magazines
(Time
and
Women’s Day).
No one else is in the room, if there had been, I would be observing bulges in clothing and the position of carry bags.

The sweats are the first indicator that the nightmare which has taunted me every night, and sometimes days, for the past three years is returning.

There is no light to my front; however I can distinguish the silhouette of the Black Hawks. Four in total and they seem to be off target to the right as I look at them. The lead helicopter is making dramatic moves to get to the drop site. Black Hawk II and Black Hawk III seem to be racing each other to the same drop site.

‘Fuck they have collided,’
I yell. No one is in the observation room with me to hear the devastation in my voice.

Night turns into day as one of the Black Hawks burst into flames. The screams from my mates are clearly audible through the plate glass window. I grab the chair I was sitting on and throw it through the window. I want to help. I feel closer to my dying mates now that the window is removed.

As the glass and the chair fall away from my view, I see the Black Hawk on fire invert and plough into the ground upside down. I grab the window squeezing hard onto the wooden frame, completely oblivious to the shards of glass that are now embedded into my hands.

‘No! Fuck no!’

The reverberating scream traverses the room.

Still squeezing the window frame, the physical pain does not register or resonate over the emotional pain that I am experiencing. The other damaged Black Hawk lands hard on its skids. The burning remains of the first Black Hawk illuminate the rescuers that have reached the upright helicopter.

Men are dragging bodies out of the wrecks. Others have more distressing tasks; as the grab their mates, they find that only bits of them can be extracted from the wrecks. I turn away; I can’t do anymore than what is already being done.

I sit down on the floor with my back against the wall. The screams slice through the dark night, overpowering the sound of the burning Black Hawk as metal crackles and buckles. Voices of the rescuers match the screams of our mates. I look down to my hands; there is still no pain, I decide that I am in shock.

(At this point in the nightmare I always end up inside the doomed helicopters watching my mates’ final moments before they hit the ground.)

All the operators are standing, kneeling and hanging onto the rope ready to drop.

A flash of light, I see five strikes of the helicopter’s steel blades, each strike hitting metal andflesh; obviously the flesh loses the battle. The first strike hits the fuel tanks andfuel is pouring in on them, it then ignites, the screams are deafening.

I’m suddenly flung back to the empty observation room where I first witnessed the disaster.

I see someone trying to rescue someone else. The light from the fire gives me a visual image. A soldier is tugging at an injured mate. He falls backwards
,
pulling out what he has been struggling with, to realise he has only a set of human legs lying across his chest. The rescuer is violently ill. I sit down numb, no pain
,
and no tears
,
totally bewildered as to why I can’t express any emotion for this graphic loss.

I’m back in the reception of Dr Evans. Beads of sweat are quickly wiped off my skin. A burp is suppressed and I swallow uncomfortably as my mouth feels full of sputum. I have to quell paranoia, another symptom within the myriad number of mental conditions ascribed to me. It has been explained that paranoia is common for people who suffer PTSD.

The words ‘Acute Delusional Disorder’ plague my mind. Another label added to my name; credibility further stripped; something else to cope with. I reach into my daypack and retrieve a pocket dictionary. I have a vague idea of what the word delusional means; I just want to be sure that I clearly understand the newly presented label.

Although informed, I am still unable to recognise and identify the signs and symptoms. That’s the delusion; I have no recognised skill to absorb any awareness of the deterioration that I’m now experiencing. Bitterness overwhelms me. They can train individuals and ensure we’re switched on to do what we are told, no matter the consequences, but back in the civilian world, we must adjust on our own. They don’t switch us off—a huge oversight of the military.

Additionally, the Government continues to deny an incident that transpired shortly after my discharge from the SAS. Those in power decide to deny certain facts and leave me grasping at fragments of truth. I plead with others to accept that my truth can be substantiated, if they would just do the research. They don’t and they won’t.

I have been trained to a level of expertise that civilians would prefer remain within military boundaries. Their attitude is: ‘we prefer to not have to know the truth, just let them do the job that none of us will do.’

The receptionist returns to her desk and picks up my file.

‘The Doctor will see you now. Please follow me.’

Today will tell me of Doctor Evans’ commitment to my mental health. I hope he has read the NSW Ombudsman’s report I left with him on my first visit; he might be of some help if he can see how blatantly the truth has been disguised and that the Government is covering up the past.

‘Please, come in, I will be with you in a moment.
’

I enter his office and take a seat in the biggest chair, sitting on the edge with my back rigidly straight. The Doctor is busy reading the Ombudsman’s report. He has two pages to finish. I am pleased that he is seems interested in my concerns. He finally looks up and says,

‘This would be a great book, better still a movie.’

I have heard it all before. Friends who have read the report would make similar comments.

‘Well Doc, what do you think? Am I deluded about what they are denying? Does it give reason to be paranoid?’
I ask.

‘No, I don’t think you are paranoid or deluded about the raidfrom the NSW police. However, I believe that the years of stress that have eventuated because you felt that no one would believe your facts have resulted in signs and symptoms that can be arrested with the proper treatment and a bit of hospital rest.

In reference to the facts contained in the Ombudsman report, it’s very easy to see where the police have doctored the documents.

It is clear they carried automatic weapons and intended them to be used on you and your family. Please, can you recall to me the details of the evening of the Raid on you, after leaving the SAS?’

I look out the window into his garden, looking through the plants, not at them.

‘Do you know that there is no one out there?’
the Doctor inquires.

I turn and glance at him, signalling that I don’t need to be relegated to a hospital bed allocated to people who look out windows waiting for the shadows to move.

‘Are you sure?
’ I ask knowing the answer. He doesn’t shame me by answering the question; my tone relieves the Doctor’s anxiety.

I withdraw a videotape from my daypack and tap it solidly— a favoured idiosyncrasy. I insert it into the video player and turn the on the TV. The tape is a recording of an interview that is an expose on incidents relating to the TRG that the government didn’t want to acknowledge. The opening scene shows me sitting at the table in my campervan, the journalist sitting opposite. Doctor Evans stares into the television, his pen poised to write in his pad. The journalist opens the presentation.

‘The Tactical Response Group of New South Wales Police Force, who once again get it wrong
.
’

‘Today we are at Mrs Roy’s house. What happened here last night was quite extraordinary. A simple household became a siege site. The Tactical Response Group raided this house with the assistance of the Military Police and the Bomb Disposal Group.

Mrs Roy’s son, an ex SAS officer, was having an open garage sale, selling off his past to collect funds to enable him and his girlfriend to travel around Australia in their campervan.’

‘Mr Roy
;
can you explain to me what happened last night?

‘I was awoken last night after midnight when I heard loud banging on my Mother’s front door As I put a pair of pants on, there was a knock on the campervan door. I opened the door to see three police officers. One had a pistol pointed at me. The other two had their pistols drawn in an extremely dangerous fashion.

‘Mr Roy what do you mean by extremely dangerous?’

‘In my training, short barrel weapons are considered dangerous, and people who use these weapons should be trained to understand their capacity. Last night the officer who banged on the door had a weapon pointed at his back from a fellow officer. The officer to the rear was pointing his gun towards the officer in front
.
’

‘If you didn’t have your training what would’ve happened if you had panicked?’

‘Two cops would have had holes in them. If I had run back into the campervan, the officers would’ve riddled the campervan with gunfire. They were that nervous. I calmed the situation before it escalated into a lethal situation, for them and me.’

‘Did you know that the police were informed that there were four to six ex-SAS officers hiding out at this address with explosives and weapons?’

‘No, but if they have been told that information, I would like to know where they get their intelligence from.
’

Tn your training, what would have you done if you were to be placed in charge of the raid?
’

‘Firstly, I would know the location of the target. I would do surveillance, and I would ensure that the civilians in the vicinity had protection—the police didn’t. A simple covert operation at the garage sale would have confirmed that their intelligence was flawed
.
’