- Cormac McCarthy, No Country for Old Men
There are several reasons we got ourselves into the disgraceful mess that has stained our nation, destroyed Afghan families and damaged the stellar reputation of Australia and its military. I was a serving officer at SASR from 2004-2010.
Continue reading the opinion article in The Age HERE
]]>This is part 4 of my ‘How to Transform’ series
If you want to leave the military and contribute to society in a different way, keep reading.
In the 1987 sci-fi epic Predator, Major “Dutch” Schaefer (Arnold Schwarzenegger) is the leader of the team and depicted as a highly-skilled and experienced special forces operator.
After witnessing most of his elite team being wiped out by a lethal alien, they eventually wound their impervious foe. Finding its blood trail, Dutch says the immortal line: “if it bleeds, we can kill it.”
It was a stunning display of deductive reasoning from the Major.
“If it bleeds, we can kill it.”
The phrase entered modern lexicon, “Urban dictionary” stating it:
“Can be used in any number of…situations often regarding an overly optimistic and highly unlikely outcome.”
My first encounter with an unlikely outcome arrived when I applied for a seat at the Australian Defence Force Academy (ADFA). This was going to be my start point for a long journey to joining Aussie Special Ops. At the Army recruiting shop, the Sergeant told me the odds of acceptance “were about 20% – if you’re suitable to start with.” One in five? If I’m suitable? This was a long shot. I started running laps at night time. I studied harder and dodged drinking where I could. After two years of hard work, I landed an acceptance letter and a spot at ADFA.
I realised something quickly: if you wanted something a lot, your chances of obtaining it increase. If you study harder and smarter than your peers, your chances increase. If you speak with authority on why you want to join and what you can offer, your chances increase. In short, I learned you could cook the odds in your favour. Not in one fell swoop – that was a dirty myth. It took a concerted effort across fifty different skills or abilities, each one garnering an extra 1-2% advantage. Cumulatively, over the years, you gain “Advantage in Aggregate.”
When I went to apply for the SAS, I heard about the 15% acceptance rate. Everyone told me why I was a bad fit: “…wiry guys, built for endurance”, “you have to be the best”, “you need a lobotomy to join”, “prawns: good bodies, heads full of shit”. I ignored just about all the adults I spoke to. All were well-intentioned, but largely clueless about the unit. Instead, I got started on building tiny advantages I knew would take a decade or more to bear fruit. I read every book I could find on the secretive unit. I later joined an infantry unit, knowing it would give me exposure to leading troops in the field. I spoke to every SAS soldier I could find – they were rare as hen’s teeth, and quiet too. I debriefed soldiers who came off the selection course to find out what was hard, what to train for. I trained for extra endurance, knowing as a 110kg person, I would need it. I heard that your chances of entering jump to ~75% if you are still standing at the end. In contrast, you had a 0% chance if you self-withdraw.
At the end of my three-week selection course, I was still standing with a few of my mates. That night, I stood in an SAS Colonel’s office, 14kg lighter and a shell of a person. He warned “…we are willing to take a chance on you. But you have a long way to go.” I cried for a bit, proud of the 11 years of work I had put in, sad I could not share it with my Mum – she had died from cancer the year prior.
I went on to lead troops in the SAS and serve in two wars. Surely I was amongst the luckiest in the history of the ADF. It was a dream come true – an occasional nightmare – but mostly it was the stunning#defence vision of soldiering I had as a nipper.
Entering the SAS helped me understand that odds are relative – they do not apply smoothly across a normally distributed sample. They can be stacked in your favour. I remembered this when I chose to apply to Ivy League Schools in the USA. I knew entry to the Wharton School of Business was about a ~15% probability. I tipped the odds in my favour by studying the school, arriving in person to shake hands with the administrators, recruiting local help, and boosting my scores. I got in. Later, I applied to McKinsey & Company for a job. The year I applied it had 200,000 applicants, and awarded ~2000 positions. I secured one of those spots by reading everything I could on the company, being trained by McKinsey Associates, and studying the application process relentlessly. I later I applied to a reality TV show that took 24 out of 24,000 applicants. Again, I achieved it by taking a dozen small steps to improve my chances.
Every one of these steps involved understanding the odds, and then deliberately ignoring them. The odds of success don’t translate evenly – it is not a ‘normal distribution’. People who are willing to make a thousand improvements, over a thousand days – skew the results.
I’m not special. I grew up in a country town, went to a state school, in a middle-class family. The only special advantage I had was a rampant imagination, and a willingness to take small steps every day to improve. I learned how to “skew” the odds in my favour by building “advantage in aggregate.”
I have a secret for you: the most coveted institutions are Ivory Towers, guarded by a cohort that want you to believe they are impossible to enter. Bide your time. Storm the gates when you have the advantage – and don’t fight fair – always fight hard, always win – the only fair fight is the one you lose. Pack your knuckledusters. The Gate Keepers will go to water when they see how hungry you are.
They bleed, and they can be killed.
This is a short series of articles on ‘How to Transform’ based on my experiences transitioning from the military and entering academia and business. Reach out to me via comments here, or directly via Linkedin messages for any questions.
I was in my Canberra apartment doing some decorating – it was the first thing I had planned since returning from my last tour of Afghanistan in 2010. After a decade of deployments, I was enjoying the mundane. My phone rang and it was a senior officer from a special operations unit. “Do you want to come back to the unit at the end of the year? You will be able to lead a squadron” he said.
I was interested. Leading a 90-strong sabre squadron would be a massive job. I would lead and train the toughest fighters with more than a decade of combat experience. I had one problem: I was exhausted. I had completed eight deployments in my last six years at the SAS. I had battled depression for a few years. The Australian contingent had suffered fatalities from combat and accidents, some were murdered by the Afghans they were training. I felt rough as hell.
By my last tour, I could sense that we were losing both the war and a little bit of our minds. It felt like a game of ‘whack-a-mole’ – no matter how effective we were (and we were lethal) we were not likely to change the outcome of the war. A neighbouring sanctuary with relative safety and a 2400km border with Afghanistan ensured no amount of killing would alter the calculus. The strategy had meandered from destroying Al Qaeda, to fighting the Taliban, to counter-narcotics and then counter-insurgency. General McChrystal, the lead boss, had been fired in Washington D.C. after a magazine exposè. It was a fucking mess.
“You can take over the support squadron for a year, and at the end of that you will compete to go to a sabre squadron. We also need you to go to Headquarters for a year.” What? Alarm bells rang when I heard that little clarifier. It was like offering an actor a break out role, and tossing a condition ‘but first, we want you to consider a credit in this soft-porn film.’ The officer ran through the reasons why this would be a great move for me. I was already staring out the window, thinking about a new career. I knew it was time to go.
That night I stared at a blinking cursor. It rested on the first line of the Wharton School of Business MBA application. I felt a spark in me that had been missing for a long, long time.
People often ask me a long list of questions about completing an MBA. Should I do an MBA? If so, where? How do I pay for it? What schools are best for Australia? Do I do the exec program, full time, 24 months or 14 months?
These are all the wrong questions.
These are all the wrong questions.
It’s not the MBA you want, it’s what it can gives you that we all crave.
I wanted to be respected by society when I left the military. Instead, I often felt pitied. More an object of curiosity than a business person or an academic. As soldiers, Hollywood has both defined us, and destroyed us by the same hand. I remember watching the film ‘Born on the Fourth of July’ with my mother. Tom Cruise plays a disabled Marine Recon Sergeant and Vietnam veteran who is completely defeated by his war experiences. In one scene he is drunk, and shouts at his mother from his wheelchair. “We went to Vietnam to stop communism!… We shot women and children!” It was a harrowing scene, tough to watch as a delicate nine-year old. My mother warned my brother and I “don’t you boys ever go to war – this is what it could do to you.” The Deer Hunter, Platoon, First Blood**, The Taxi Driver and Born on the Fourth of July – all Academy Award winning films, each with one thing in common: depictions of young men, once soldiers, now tormented and unstable. Interesting people, but liabilities to society – never assets.
The reality I know is far different. For every Hollywood depiction of a battered soldier, I know of hundreds of Allied soldiers who have retrained themselves to enter new fields of work. Many now contribute to business, arts, technology, philanthropy, science & engineering and academics. They are better for their experiences, and have a lot to offer once they have bridged themselves back to society. Take a look at thought leader and author Jocko Willink – he won’t be everyone taste, but he is in the conversation, and contributing plenty. Many more lead from the shadows, creating solutions that will eventually help millions of people.
So when you consider doing an MBA, realise the deeper questions you are probably asking: How will I contribute once I leave? How can I be taken seriously?
An MBA is not what you crave. It’s the skills to contribute
My MBA gave me something more valuable than a stamped parchment certificate: It bought me self-improvement, self-repair and self-respect. It landed me a global network, a job in a coveted consulting firm, and even a fun stint on television. Most of all it was a great laugh, and I needed that more than anything.
An MBA is not what you crave. It’s the skills to contribute – a seat at society’s table, earned, not gifted from pity.
Next up: Animal House: MBAs and how to get one.
**First Blood did not get an Academy Award, but I have written to the Academy and to review the 1982 category for “Best Film in the Whole Universe” category – fingers crossed
This is a short series of articles on ‘How to Transform’ based on my experiences transitioning from the military and entering academia and business. Reach out to me via comments here, or directly via Linkedin messages for any questions. Reach out to the Wharton Veterans Club for help on admissions and applications with a veteran background.
My first brush with trauma happened in Afghanistan. In the pre-winter cool of 2007, I was on a combat mission to clear a strategically critical valley in Oruzgan province. We shivered in the dawn fog as we marked landing zones for a clearance force. Giant helicopters landed and disgorged busloads of soldiers onto the battlefield. They ran silently, squatting in ditches before the clearance started.
Two hours later, I was kneeling next to a dying soldier. We were trapped in a small aqueduct and a member of our team had been shot through the chest and badly wounded. I was keeping low to the ground since the enemy had spotted us, and were registering their displeasure with heavy weapons. It was a close battle and it was not going well.
Those opening minutes, my first in combat, were not good. I realised things would not be the same again after the sun set on that day. If my team and I survived, I knew we would have to live with some form of trauma.
I went back to work after that long deployment in Afghanistan. Something was not right – normally, I could work at high intensity for 12-16 hours a day. Now I could barely manage 12-16 minutes. Exhaustion was ever-present. I felt emotionally numb. Nothing could rouse me from a steady state of apathy. I drank heavily. I couldn’t sleep at home unless I barricaded my door shut. When I slept, which was rare, I would have nightmares. It was a pathetic existence. I was far from my best self, and getting worse.
I finally sought help.
A psychiatrist diagnosed me with moderate Post Traumatic Stress Disorder and Depression. I was not surprised. Without help, it would be a fast track to personal and career ruin. The diagnoses was a warning light on my personal health dashboard.
I visited a neuroscientist that came recommended from an Army doctor. He listened closely as I explained my experiences and symptoms. He nodded, jumped to his feet and started drawing on the whiteboard. He sketched out a picture of a brain, spinal column and detailed parts within the brain, circling a couple of them.
“This is your amygdala” he circled a small patch near the spinal column. “this is an ancient, reptilian part of your brain that controls fight or flight responses. It keeps you alive when you face danger. You have been overusing this for the last six months. So, you are more lizard than human at the moment.” I laughed. “This,” he said, pointing at the frontal lobe of the brain. “is your prefrontal cortex. This is responsible for cognitive functioning, problem solving, decision making, empathy, rational reasoning and logic. We call it the ‘CEO’ of your brain. These executive functions have been ‘benched’ since your life has been under threat. It has probably atrophied to some degree. We are going to rebuild your mind, and I’m going to show you how.” This made sense. I was relieved when I realised I was not mad.
“Don’t mind the recurring memories,” he told me. “When people experience trauma, as you have, that experience is hardwired into the brain. It is stored as a DVD-quality image, and can be recalled at any time. The quality does not degrade with time.” I was astonished. “This is useful for our species in terms of survival and evolution. It’s a reminder of what you need to avoid to stay alive. So if you do experience intrusive thoughts, you are not crazy – your brain is working as it should. Your symptoms don’t feel great, but they are designed to save your life.” I was relieved. It was the first time I felt that I was not totally mad. “You will recover, most people do. I’m going to get you started with some tips and routines I want you to follow.”
This was the first step in a long path to recovery, and it set the foundation for the habits I have today. I went on to learn about the importance of sleep, exercise, diet and meditation. I kept these habits – initially, they saved my sanity. Later, they became the foundations of high performance that I used for new endeavours. The first step in the whole process was accepting some responsibility for my health, and it was the hardest step .
If you suffer from the effects of trauma, a life saving step is accepting responsibility for own recovery. The onus is on you to be responsible for your own mental health. This is a responsibility that people sometimes unwittingly avoid. Programs, medicines and science professionals, medication and treatments, are all tools for treatment. However these tools applied in insolation, or without an integrated strategy, are unlikely to help you. Instead, it will take your complete, integrated, sustained and proactive participation to recover from trauma and mental illness. As supermodel Rachel Hunter told us in her Kiwi accent – it won’t happen overnight, but it will happen.
Mental illness is not uncommon in militaries and broader society:
“It will take your complete, integrated, sustained and proactive participation to recover from mental illness”
Mental health should not be viewed as an isolated system. It is part of a ‘system of systems’ we have in the human body. Your mental health is affected by your physical fitness, diet, rest, gut health and social environment. Recognising your mental health is one cog of many in your overall system, is critical to treating it holistically.
It’s important to tackle these issues before you leave your Defence job. If not, building a new life and career will be much more difficult. Consider this analogy: if you planned to bulldoze a home and build a new, better one in its place, you would have an existing foundation to use. If that foundation is cracked and broken, would you want to build on it? What would you say to a builder who tries to build a new house on top of a shattered foundation? It won’t last the trials and stresses of a new life, new career, new home. The foundation I am referring to is you – your values, experiences and personal health.
So what can repair that foundation?
I tackled my own recovery in seven steps:
1. “F#$k pride.” Consider your ego for moment. We all have one, and if you’re a proud professional like I am, you probably have a very healthy one. Good for you. Now go and check it at the door, you won’t need it for this next phase. Ego may prevent you from admitting you need to take control of your recovery. In the cult film, Pulp Fiction, mafia boss Marsellus Wallace, reminds another character he is partnering with: “F&*k pride. Pride only hurts, it never helps.” I would never advocate taking advice from a character of this sort, but when it comes to trauma, consider invoking the ‘Marsellus Wallace Clause’. This may be a life saving step, because most other helpful actions hinge from the moment you admit to yourself that you need help.
2. Stop the bleeding. Think about what ‘business as usual’ will look like if you continue on this track. Social disconnection, substance abuse, anger issues, and a lack of productivity can lead to a spiral of separation, social estrangement, unemployment, homelessness and an early death. If this high-risk path is unattractive to you, contrast it to another: recovery, reinvention and contribution. Stop the bleeding and go a better way.
3. Get diagnosed. Request a specialist diagnose any existing illness, and then help with a recovery strategy. A GP or military doctor can immediately refer you to external support. A diagnosis of any issues that may afflict you is essential – it will guide your treatment. 54% of mental health suffers do not access any treatment, and this can complicate later diagnoses and treatment. An early diagnoses can help, so avoid missing this step.
4. Fear no stigma. Fear of being judged for having a mental illness is both imagined and real. Mental illness was not yet destigmatised during my time in the military, but it has improved dramatically. If you fear being tarred with a negative brush, push on regardless. Prioritising your health over your pride, even your employment, is not a bad idea. If you fight on without treatment, you may suffer more than just dented pride.
5. Forgive yourself. If you have ever been involved in any trauma, guilt is a very common symptom. That will pass the faster you can rationalise the events that took place. Health care professionals have tools and mindsets to help you with this. The faster you can rationalise negative events, the sooner you can use your best asset: the remaining days of your life.
6. Build a Resilience Toolkit. As I recovered, I learned about the science of positive habits. This included understanding how rest, diet, and exercise affected my mental wellbeing. The habits I learned around these pillars helped me recover, and also became the foundations of high performance
7. Execute, Recover, Reorientate, Repeat.
In the words of Trotsky, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.”
Hiding from trauma is not a strategy. I know, I’ve tried it. In the words of Trotsky, “You may not be interested in war, but war is interested in you.” When it comes to dealing with trauma, tackle it front on. Fight it with sound intelligence, a clear strategy, tactics backed up by science, relentless discipline, and with no mercy.
Choose war.
#veterans #resilience #mentalhealth #exercise #wellness #defence #growth
*For more insight on trauma, listen to Dr Dan Pronk, former special ops doctor on the Unforgiving 60 podcast from the ~19:00 – 21:00 minute mark. Read Sebastian Junger’s outstanding Vanity Fair article for his insights on trauma and veterans reintegrating into society. It became the foundation of a book called “Tribe: on Homecoming and Belonging” that should be compulsory reading for every person about to leave the service.
I wrote this article in the interest of helping to save lives, and improving quality of life for veterans, or any person suffering from trauma. If you are military, a first responder or corporate team leader, pay attention to mental health training and intervene directly if one of your peers or team members needs help.
If you or someone you know need help, please contact at Lifeline on 13 11 14
For more help, visit the Black Dog Institute’s site on trauma recovery. St Vincent’s Hospital also runs an online course on trauma recovery for a nominal cost. Reach out to you GP or military doctor for any assistance or specialist referrals.
If you plan to eventually leave the military, keep reading.
]]>This is a Part 1 of a short series on my tips for transitioning from military to business
If you plan to eventually leave the military, keep reading.
I read a book called “Ahead of the Curve” on a quiet night in Afghanistan. I was seated in a Special Ops Task Group operations room, taking a break from the usual mayhem of war operations. The book was a memoir by a journalist who spent two years in the cut and thrust of Harvard Business School, an elite MBA program. I was hooked. I was on my 10th deployment overseas, and I was tired. I had already battled mental illness from some traumatic deployments early in my career. I was ready for a change. My problem: I had little understanding about the challenges waiting for me once I left the military.
Leaving an institution like the military is not just difficult, it’s also dangerous. Statistically, you have a higher chance of being unemployed, of committing self-harm, and becoming estranged from family and friends. That’s the bad stuff. On the upside, you have gained many skills that cannot be taught in academic institutions, and you have a chance to make serious impact in society. If you are willing to learn some basics, then you stand a good chance of turning yourself into a new animal for an exciting second-turn at life.
Here are a few interesting facts:
The Bad:
The Good:
+ Self-employment opportunities are higher than ever before
+ Your leadership and execution skills are well aligned to small business ownership and entrepreneurship
+ You have a higher probability of outperforming peers in some key industries
+ Top academic institutions are actively searching for capable ex-military candidates to join their ranks
+ There is no ceiling to what you can achieve, and no rules, other than the law and common decency
Some challenges you may face
Apathy. Many people won’t care about what you went through in the military. I don’t say that to be callous – I say it because at some point you will need to move on from your experiences and forge new skills, in a new culture. It’s an opportunity – a great chance to show you are not a ‘one-trick pony’
Stereotypes. There is a lot of recent media that refers to ‘veteran issues’. In the last six months, I counted a 100 different reports. Most of these relate to mental health, substance abuse, unemployment and homelessness. There is a counter-narrative to all this – one of ‘post traumatic growth’ where people come back stronger after a tragedy. I have countless friends from the military: business owners, actors and professionals, that experienced hardships, but many of them were able to turn their misfortune into a growth experience.
Special Ops? Once upon a time, mere mortals would reel at the site of you in your advanced body armour, and ‘Call of Duty’-style weapon. Those days are over. In the workplace, people will ask you curiously how many people you killed, if ‘Zero Dark Thirty’ was real, and how fast your bullets go. Many will be sympathetic to you, because you ‘followed your orders and did what you were told’. This might sound far-fetched – except for the fact that I experienced all of these biases in the workplace. The good news is that you have even more skills you will be able to turn to your advantage in the fullness of time. A strong bias-to-action, willingness to learn, and agility will be your best assets.
The transition process lacks structure. There are a ton of well-meaning institutions out there ready to help with your transition. The Defence Community Organisation (DCO) and their Transition Department have the lead. I counted more than 30 other organisations within the official Defence Transition Guide alone. The problem: many of these teams have not stood in their customers shoes before. The support system is fragmented – if there is an overarching, coordinated strategy for transitioning veterans, I was not able to find it. The good news is that there is a large network of ex-military people waiting to help you.
I found my transition and transformation very hard, that’s the reason I am sharing my ideas with you.
Three things to consider before you transform yourself:
Consider purpose first, then pay. I was pretty confident I could walk out of the military and land a $250,000 annual package, work 9-to-5 every day, and waltz around the office like Harvey Specter from an episode of ‘Suits’. Instead, it looked more like this:
When I finally received a job offer, it was from one of the best firms in the world – I earned a good salary and it was a prestigious role. The downside: 14-20 hours of intense work each day. I sometimes flew six times a week. I gained weight and my physical health was poor after two years in the job. Admittedly, the weight gain was mostly due to cheesecake overeating in 5-star hotels – it’s hard for me to be sympathetic to myself when I put it that way.
Aside from the cheesecake perks, the work was stressful and technical. I was inserted into companies I had no background in and had to swim hard to keep up. I felt displaced and struggled with a loss of purpose and identity. However, the training, skills and discipline I gained were world class, and it was the apprenticeship I needed in business before I really got started.
Since then, I have worked for myself for the last 12 months. I started an ecommerce fashion brand Kill Kapture, and coach other companies in resilience and high performance. In 2018, I earned less financially, but I gained time, freedom and a sense of purpose. This has been a far more sustainable proposition for me, especially as a new father and partner. With the right approach, you can turn your unique knowledge and skills into a valuable proposition for businesses or consumers.
So back yourself. You have outstanding skills. You have faced adversity like no other. You were given responsibility from a young age. You are not afraid of leading, failing and making decisions. These skills are in short supply in corporate Australia, and they are very, very hard to teach.
Your defining advantage (Unique Value Proposition, for business jargon heads) lies in these skills. Your years in the ADF have made you tough and resilient, with an execution focus: that is valuable.
Once you learn the basics, you will be ready for battle. But first, put the work into learning the fundamentals.
More to follow:
I’m looking at covering some of the themes below.** Please let me know what you might be interested in:
**My personal guarantee to you is to only discuss fields that I have first-hand experience in!
“Freedom is the right of all sentient beings” – Optimus Prime, Leader of the Autobots
Hurricane Sandy was bearing down on Philadelphia in the winter of 2012, and for the first time in my adult life, I was out of money. I had just emptied my bank account on my tuition bill that semester. I walked through the deserted streets of Philly with a box of coins I had kept on my fridge – I was looking to buy supplies before the hurricane struck. The bill for my post-graduate education totalled $225,000 US dollars, not including living expenses.
That winter, seven years ago, was a tough one.
I chose to head to a US business school because I had a feeling that my service and skills would be highly valued. I knew that institutions and companies in the US coveted veteran recruits to a greater degree than they do in Australia. Graduating from a US school would provide a near-certain guarantee of employment, and two years as a student would provide time and space for me to recover from war service. I was exhausted from repeated deployments. My post-graduate education was an investment, but it truly saved me – I recovered well and found my way into a good job after graduating in 2014.
The path out of the military can be a dangerous one. Unemployment amongst veterans is five times higher than the national average, with a staggering 30% of veterans unemployed. The links between unemployment and mental illness are well documented. This ‘at-risk’ group is only marginally supported to educate themselves for the workplace.
The Career Transition Assistance Scheme (CTAS) allows soldiers who have served 12-18 years, regardless of war service, a total of $1100 in Career Transition Training, plus other minor benefits. To give you an idea of the training opportunities that will afford you, a Hairdressing Certificate III will cost you $12,350.
Contrast the CTAS offering to the US post 9/11 GI Bill. For US soldiers who served more than 90 days active service since September 10, 2001, educational benefits include:
The original GI Bill was raised after WWII to assist the millions of service personnel that had to readjust to civilian life in the US. It allowed veterans to access college education, at a vastly reduced cost. It was an educational and economic success. By 1957, the Bill was estimated to have created 22,000 dentists, 67,000 doctors, 91,000 scientists, 238,000 teachers, 240,000 accountants and 450,000 engineers. According to a congressional study the Bill led to a “… massive expansion in higher education, but also helped expand the nation’s economy as a whole. Congress estimated that for every dollar spent under the GI Bill, the economy got seven dollars back.”
The inadequacy of the existing transition program has been acknowledged by Government and the CTAS review conducted in mid-2018 is an early step to addressing the issue.
My charge to Australian Government is to form, fund, and execute an Australian equivalent of the Post 9/11 GI Bill as a pilot program to the 2021 cohort of discharging ADF members. Ideally, the pilot program would include:
As we commemorate our fallen today, it’s worth remembering there are plenty more lives at stake in the future as veterans leave the service looking to contribute to society. Subsidising beyond $12,350 needed to become a trainee hairdresser would be as strong start.
At the invitation of the Australian Government, I am willing to volunteer 12 hours a week in 2020 to assist raising the pilot program – please share or respond if you would like to assist.
For veterans looking for employment before or after discharge, WithYouWithMe is a great job placement and training agency for Aussie service personnel. For MBA scholarships, the AGSM Military Scholarship is an outstanding start. The Wandering Warriors provides support, training, education and funding for service personnel and have a great network of companies that recruit veterans.
Simply use any of the latest mobile devices (iPhone or Android) and tap/scan (no app required) the smart label (newer jackets). Below is a video example of scanning the smart label found in The Pathfinder Jacket, Full Metal Jacket and Juliet Jackets:
"What does this mean for me?" You may ask yourself. Now you can verify and prove the Kill Kapture item is authentic, whether the item has been stolen/lost in the past, and prove ownership of Rainf4ll enabled products.
In the example above, all of a consumer's Kill Kapture items are stored in an easy-to-access “digital wallet”. This means that if you ever sell or give away any Rainf4ll enabled Kill Kapture item - it can be transferred easily and quickly to another person without having to worry about tracking down physical copies of paperwork! The feature also allows consumers to add “events” (like Instagram posts) onto their Chronicles for each individual product so that you can build stories for your cherished possessions with ease!
If you have and older version of The Pathfinder Jacket and want to get it fitted with Rainf4ll via Operation Total Recall (video HERE), or, if you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at info@killkapture.com
If you run a veteran business, sell physical items, and would like you’re products to be Rainf4ll enabled, please contact us at info@killkapture.com
Operation Total Recall (retrofit older Pathfinders with Rainf4ll) in the works:
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