Matt

Matt Adams, the guest on the podcast, attended high school but was not a great student. He later completed year 11 and 12 through a school program. He played rugby and was involved in the cadet corps. After school, he joined the army and went through recruit training. He was stationed in Brisbane and later moved to Canberra and the Gold Coast. He spent 25 years in the military, with highlights including being featured on the front of an American magazine while serving in Iraq and his time in Papua New Guinea as part of a training team. Okay here we go. Well hello everybody. I'm very pleased to be able to go into our next episode of School Life Memorable Moments Matter and today we're talking to our first male guest and his name is Matt and I'll speak to him, I'll introduce him in just a moment but I hope you're enjoying this series and finding it useful in your life with the wonderful stories we've had so far. So Matt let me ask you to introduce yourself to the people listening and then we'll go on with our conversation. Thanks Greg, thanks for the invite. My name is Matt Adams for those that attended high school rugby high from 1983 to 1986. Straight out I wasn't much of a student. I was more interested in the footy side and obviously the lady side of the schooling attributes. I remember those two attributes but yeah you were always very smartly dressed and your academic record wasn't as bad as you make out. I know that. Yeah, mainly level one and level two student at the time. I did pay off school a fair bit which at my own detriment at the time. It wasn't until years later in around about 2008, 2007 that I actually completed year 11 and 12 through um I think it might have been Star of the Sea or sorry through Simon Cross in Lismore University. Actually had a school program. Yeah, yeah okay. Matt, I remember you when you were at school very well and you were a smart, you always wore uniform perfectly and I can remember you were very much involved in the cadet corps and of course I know that you joined the forces, you were in the army. Could you tell us about what, did you do anything before you joined the army or? No, all I did was I attended Rosney for a year and played footy at Clarence in force. Footy was a bit of a saviour for me especially that early 90s, end of 1986 into early 87. That was a bit of a saviour time where I focused on my fitness and so I could play for Clarence. You were aiming to be in the A team. Yeah. I mean you played for the school team and I remember that and I'd just test this, see if I'm right on this. You were a ruck rover weren't you? Yeah, yeah and played on the back line. Yeah, that's right and we had quite a good team and I can't remember how successful they were but you know what you might know is that I always had great respect for the coaches and periodically when people got you know a bit off the rails I used to go to the coach rather than go to the individual student and have the school intervene. I'd say could you talk to them in a particular way. Like did football, what did it do for you playing football and sport in general? You were quite a good runner too I remember. Yeah, sport gave you that focus on actually, for me it was feeling worthy for accolades. My home life wasn't all that crashed up with my dad in and out and my mum was a, God bless her soul, was a social deterrent. So football and school was a place to go to hide from mum and footy was the saviour that it became due to just the circumstances and your age and so on as a young man that's a critical time or any for any of our lesson that's a critical time for them isn't it? Yeah and to hang on to something. I have something like that to hang around your goals in life. So what happened after you finished at Rosney? I did actually complete Rosney. I went into army recruiting end of mid-July, got a testing date for, I fell on my birthday, 11th of August. 11th of August. Yeah and tested that same day, the day I turned 17 and then just waited, just did the testing throughout the day, got told basically at the end of the day it was now just a waiting game to see when I was actually leaving because I'd passed. Oh you'd passed the recruiting test. Yeah and the medical and everything was all in one day. Yeah. So that was like just sitting there waiting. I was offered a job at Repco through family friends as a huge offer but then they were pulling that job open for me. Until you got it required. I would have been waiting up to 12 months. Yeah, oh really, okay. Yeah and then mid-October I got the letter to say that I was leaving in the November. Your decision to go and do that test the day you did and be successful, did your work or membership of the School Cadet Corps have any bearing on it or not? It gave me a little bit of insight into recruit training but we were told that don't tell the instructors that you were an ex-cadet because they'll pretty much write you off. Good advice I think. Yeah, I kept that one quiet but I could already march, I could do turns so the initial training for me was reasonably easy. Could I just go back to the school cadets though? I can remember that we were lucky enough to have a staff member and he was a social worker. Our social worker was the commander of the cadets if you like or the main officer. Did you know him very well or did he have any influence on you? Yeah, I'd had sessions with him in his professional role. I was recommended to see the naughty kid's doctor by Don Killing, as I would call it, for behavioural issues. Don had already done I think 23 years in the Regular Army and he was a fair influence into actually what I wanted to do within Army because I didn't really know. To me it was just join and you just did whatever you were told, whereas you're actually allocated to a corps, whether it be armoured corps to drive tanks or infantry and I spent my time in infantry. How did that evolve or just run us down about what happened when you got past the initial training? Did you have to get used to the Army culture or something like that? Even though I was ill just when at school and in general life, when I was in I was always trying to do the right thing. It wasn't a goody two shoes or anything, but I just tried to keep my nose clean, especially when you're first joined. You do your recruit training and then do initial employment training which is another 12 weeks for whatever job role you're going into and then you then go to your unit. I went to an infantry battalion based in Brisbane, whereas Brisbane was the biggest place I'd ever been until I came out. Yeah, well that itself is an interesting thing isn't it? Joining the Army was the first time I actually left the state. Yeah, was it really? Yeah. So what are your memories of that time? Brisbane was, when I look back at it, it was like a big country town. It was, if I may, big to me. It was just a casual sort of thing. Most of my peers were in their mid to late 20s. We were the first new batch of march-ins that the unit had in about three years. So you're looking at guys that were, yeah, mid-20s already at that stage and some older guys. It was the 80s, the end of the 80s, and a lot of guys used to be private for six or seven years before they got promoted to land school. Right. And then things started to change into the early 90s and stuff like that. Tell me about, you know, as you matured, or not matured is the wrong word, but as you got used to the Army and you'd been in your unit, how long would you be posted there for that? For a private you could be anywhere up to about 10 years. You could be in the one unit, but the unit would move around. No, the unit would stay in place. Oh, right. Yeah, you're the one that moved. I moved at the three-year mark because our unit was, the government of the day brought in a new scheme where it was called the Ready Reserve, where you joined, you did 12 months full-time. Right. And then you came back for three years back and forth to the unit. Oh, right. Basically as a full-time reservist. Oh, right. So I saw the writing on the wall early and thought, well, I'd rather go somewhere where I'd like to go. And at the time Townsville wasn't all that viable as far as I was concerned. No. So I asked to go down to Canumbera and the Gold Coast. Right. Where I was, which was my second posting where I played in the enemy platoon and we did demonstrations. Oh, right. You know, military tactics and all that sort of stuff. Yeah. And that was a place where, that was almost, that was like being a chess piece in tactics and you learn so much because you were the pawns. You were the ones moving around on the board sort of thing. Oh, I see. And so that's how the way I looked at it. Yeah. And I learned a fair bit. I learned, basically I learned my trade better there than what I did when I was in the battalion because it was just, in the battalion, it was just a case of go here, do this. Yeah, you've been told to do it. Yeah. Whereas the other, the next year, there was more leeway to do things and there was. Right. And it was all dog trial. Right. Yeah. Okay. Now, through you, and I don't want to dwell on your military career, but it's been a large slice of your life. I would think that, would that be right? Yeah. 25 years. Yeah. I'm going to ask you some questions about that, that are a sort of thing that a civilian like me might like to know, but I'll come back to that. And it's really, it's about Anzac Day. I want to speak to you a little later on and then not in any depth, but I'll just ask you a few on it. But what were some of the highlights of that career, would you say? For you? For me? That were important to you? You could say all of it was. Yeah, yeah, yeah. A lot of it was. There were a lot of things. Yeah. Some important, a lot of, some of the highlights were the little things. Yeah. A lot of the highlights were the big things. Now, I was, I featured on the front of Stars and Stripes, which is an American propaganda magazine that they have in service. And I appeared on the front of that in Iraq, when I served in Iraq. Okay. Just with the, with the captured Storch allies there, because I, we'd been loading up some wounded Americans and stuff like that. Right. And I happened to be just picked up the wrong end and got killed in blood and stuff like that. Yeah, so that picture was one of them. There was my time in PNG in New Guinea, where we ran training as part of a training team. Yeah, it's still relevant today, isn't it? Yeah. Solomon Islands was another one where, as part of a training team. Yeah. East Timor in 1999. Right, right, yeah. That was, that was probably the highlight of the career at that stage. Yeah. I happened to be in Darwin then at a meeting. I saw more naval ships. I didn't think we had that many. And the soldiers at least, there was quite an operation. You know, it was more like imagining something from the Vietnam days than there being Americans. That was an American movement. I was, I was a member of the 2nd Battalion at the time. Ah, right. We were the first ones into the security airfield and moved into Dili on foot. Yeah, yeah. What, what was the actual reception like when you got there? There wasn't much of a reception because a lot of people had fled. They'd gone, yeah. Your main problem were the militia. You had Indonesians there as well, still in the city. Right. That were friendly but not so friendly. Right. One of those funny things where, I was always a bit of a bower bird when it came to little souvenirs. Yeah. Came across a flag, I had an Indonesian flag on it, and I started pulling it down by this bit of rope, and one of the blokes I was with said, oh, we've got a problem on the ground, there's probably about 20 Indonesians, 20 Indonesian soldiers standing there. Oh. So, I kept on pulling it down, rolled it up, put it on my arm, saluted them and walked off. Did you really? They didn't know what to do because we were fully armed. Yeah. They didn't really know what to do, but they started to raid guns, but because we... It didn't happen. Yeah. Yeah. That's tremendously interesting. I mean, a big move away from Tassie, finding Brisbane's your finest place, and you mention a couple of names like that. You've done a lot of service, and I mean, personally, I think we all should be grateful to every serviceman we see, and for me to have you here talking to us is really a terrific thing. And so, yeah, thank you. That's good. I know that when I spoke to you recently, you said I'll be free every day next week, except for Thursday, because it was Anzac Day. And I have always felt that Anzac Day is really an important day, probably, controversially in my mind, more important than Australia Day, in a way. And I know it's very important to anyone that's served, and for other people who've got relatives who served, it's a very important day. But what's your Anzac Day like? Is it an occasion where you meet your old mates? There's not really a great deal of my old mates that live in Haver. There's a couple of people that I served under who were higher ranked than what I was. One's living down at Daver. One of my old soldiers from the 1st Battalion, he lives up at Westbury. So it's more of a solemn sort of day. I mean, I go on with the normal service, and then pretty much I might... I was going to head off to Lenner Valley this year, but I didn't end up going. I was just like, oh, I might just go home. And I do like to watch the stuff on TV. Yes, it's very good. The fellow that commentates for the ABC here in Haver, Phil Pike, he's actually... we're actually friends. Because we actually bought his old farmhouse. So he tried to get me to come along and do some things. But to me, it's just a day of... if there was people to drink with, I'd go drinking. But yeah, I just try to keep it in the middle. A calm day for you. Yeah. And look, let's face it, we're in the world today, you know, time is a very short commodity for everyone. And to have that, I know what you're saying, that a day where you don't do much, but the mind is working on people and places that you've been and things you've had to do, probably. Yeah. And just thinking of, you do think on Anzac Day, a lot of your past stuff. I remember just last night, or yesterday afternoon, we got a message saying that a bloke that I knew had gone into hospital in Burning. Yeah. I didn't even know he was in Burning. Right. And then last time I got a message about half past ten saying that he'd passed. Now this was a guy, I'd been in the battalion about three or four days and we were put on the guard, the guard that night where you roam the area sort of thing. Yeah. And he just said, you know, this Craig Butler, he just said, any of you kids, because he told me I've got kids, any of you kids, I just put my hand up. He goes, oh, you're on a phone picket tonight, so you don't have to walk around in the car. This was my first meeting with this Craig Butler, and I was sitting on a phone picket with him. I thought I was going outside to walk around then. Oh, I see what you mean. Yeah, phone picket. Oh, okay. You were warm. Yeah. Oh, good. That's very good. Yeah. That was the first memory. Yeah. Something like that. And I hadn't actually, I'd forgotten all about him, because you do forget about people. Oh, yes. Because I moved around, I served in battalion in Brisbane, an independent role of company in Canongra. Battalion in Townsville then, I actually had a stint in defence recruiting in Brisbane. Right. And then I was certainly on the Gold Coast where I did defence recruiting. Right. I then spent, on promotion to sergeant, I spent time in an army reserve unit at 20 Heads. Oh, wow. In a one-man depot. Yeah. My boss was an hour away, so it was just me in a depot with 20 reservists. Oh, yeah, yeah. I then had time in a battalion in Townsville again. I then went to salt pioneer section where I taught demolitions and water mature in Sydney. I then got sent to, as an instructor on a promotion course for corporal. I then went to the next posting for promotion course as an instructor for sergeant, and then trained development, and then back to an army reserve unit. Okay. So all those postings in that 25 years? Yeah, it's a lot of movement. Yeah. Yeah, I know we, you know, I've experienced the children of servicemen being in and out of schools, you know, and they've travelled a lot, and that includes schools overseas. Matt, having talked to you about your service career and, you know, your early life and coming into the army, it leads me to look at today, kids of today. What do you think about the world they're going into? Where do you start? Well, that's a hard question, isn't it? It's a big question. There's no correct answer. No, of course not. Somebody with your experience would have a bit of advice you'd tell them. Besides trying to keep your nose clean and don't smoke cigarettes because they're bad for you. Yeah, well that's important advice. You have to look at, you've got to do your own thing, don't go with what everyone else is doing. Because one of the things that flashed back to the mid 80s and high school was watching people start to go towards the naughty side, you know, naughtier than normal. Yeah, yeah. Not so much behaviour but actions like stealing from the shop and letting it rope you, that was a big thing. People used to steal from the shop. Right, yeah. Another one was when the, and I remember this, the cordial truck used to pull into the shop. Kids would jump out of the bushes and steal from the back of the truck. Now this is, it sounds like it's harmless at the time, but those are the things that then set you up for bigger and bigger and worse things to go and steal. Get away with the bottom of the cordial, well maybe I can get away with something bigger. Yeah, you've really got to look at, do what you think is best for you. But you've got to look at it in a way, we used to say, you know, would this pass the 60 minutes test? Yeah. Do you want to appear on 60 minutes for this, this and this? Being famous, something's not right. Not all that crash on. Yeah, no, that's quite a good time. It's hard to give advice on that sort of thing, because I looked at things differently to others, I just went, that's wrong, I'm not participating in that, I don't want to do that, I want to actually try and do the right thing. Yeah, I mean, as a parent, I think that's what you want your kids to be like, so your mother's non-democratic way of bringing you up probably had a bit to do with that, wouldn't it? Yeah, because you didn't want to, you know, Eddie Murphy talks about the shoe. Yeah. For those that know the Eddie Murphy track about, you know, your mum could throw the shoe. Oh yes, yes, the shoe would come. Yeah, that's how mum lived. Yeah. That was, and I spoke with my auntie when my mother, I mean, a couple of months, two months ago, and she was younger than my mother, and she actually said that, mum said it when we moved into Rokeby in the early 70s, that I'm not going to have my kids running around the street. No. And doing naughty stuff. Yeah. That came from somewhere, and that's probably where it is coming from. Yeah. What would you say to her now, if you could talk to her? I would probably say, um, I made it. I made it, I think. I think she'd be really proud. My brother's actually a nurse. Lee? Yeah. Lee's a nurse. Yeah. His wife is the head of nursing for trauma in the emergency room for nuances in general. Oh, wow. Yeah, so he's done quite well for himself. Yeah. A lot of people said, well, it never amounted to anything because of where we came from and, you know, and the sort of family we grew up in. Well, for those that didn't know, my dad was a drunk anyway. Right, yeah. He never said, mum called him an alcoholic one night, and he said, I'm not an alcoholic, I'm just a drunk. Yeah. So that was one of the things that stuck with me. Yeah. No use labelling people. No. Unless there's a real label to begin with. Well, absolutely. You're absolutely right. As an educator, um, I would really abhor labels on anyone at any time, uh, you know, even in my life now. Uh, yeah, yeah. I think what you just said, though, is to say I made it to your mum, who's passed away, obviously, and, um, is, I think it's a wonderful compliment to her, but also to you, uh, for following through with, you know, eventually getting to what you wanted to do, following through with it and having a successful career. Yeah. Yeah. I sort of, I tried to sort out my life, I tried to do the right thing. You did it very well. I was married for 20 years the first time. Right. Um, and had one child, he's turning 30 this year. Oh, great. Um, he took the public servant test a couple of years ago and was offered pretty much everything for federal. Oh. And he chose better fares as his job. Oh. So he works at better fares. Oh. And I asked him, I said, mate, yeah, the choice of anything was better paying in government roles. Yeah. He said, uh, he said, no, you've had a bit of influence on me, so I'll try and do the right thing for you. Oh, that's very, yeah, that's, that's really good. And it is, it is a compliment to you. Look, uh, I think we've, uh, really done very well with this conversation. Is there anything else you wanted to say at all? Um, yeah, just some of the teachers I remember, obviously yourself, Greg. Yeah. Mr. Butterworth. Yeah. Uh, Greg Frantz. Yeah. Um, he's a, for, at PA. Um, Jeff Towns. Not that I had Jeff Towns for any lessons, but he always asked how I was. And he tried to get me into the gym. That's it. And he wanted me to get there in the, in the, like, at all ages. My answer to him was, oh, you haven't got enough weights there for me to lift. Um, he was a bit of an influence. Um, obviously Eddie was, was up there. Is it Tony Gray or Tony? Yeah, Tony. Tony Gray was, I had for a couple of years as the home teacher. Yeah. Uh, Mr. C, Mr. Dean Hawkins. Yeah. There were a lot of influence. Yeah. And I do remember. Oh, that's great. That's really good. That, that, that I think Matt is a terrific, uh, place to finish on and with a list of teachers. But then there's one there that has the, that didn't teach you, but he asked you how, how, how are you? And I think one of the key things for any young person listening to this, who's going to become a teacher, make a connection with a student by knowing their name or smiling at them and talking to them makes a big difference. It's a small thing, but a big effect. So thanks for your time, Matt. I really appreciate it. And, uh, for those that are listening, the episode will come on if in within a week or two, uh, and I'll let you know exactly when this particular episode will come about. Thank you very much for listening, everybody. And again, thanks to Matt.