Veterans Lounge & Wellness Centre

05/11/2026

I’m still here 1997 to 2026 - I can begin drawing again 🎊❤️🇦🇺

Album · 2026 · 1 Song

05/11/2026

The female Veterans are leaning into the hill. There were over 1000 serving Defence Abuse Response Taskforce (DART) offenders when MajGen Len Roberts-Smith went public with his findings! He called for a Royal Commission into the offending (but) we did not get our Royal Commission until the numbers of Veterans suicides became so nationally embarrassing

Now the Voices of Voices are behind BRS and others like him, who are fighting for their truth.

Female Veterans are supporting this and I am one of them Mary-Ann Martinek 🇦🇺🕶️❤️

05/11/2026

Such courage, indefatigable energy and team spirit. Read the stories of our Peacekeepers

Desert ground in Kuwait. An SAS patrol rehearsing for Iraq, the vehicles moving fast.

No one in the Regiment knew those vehicles better than the warrant officer who would not come home from it.
Warrant Officer Class Two David Russell Nary.

David was born in New South Wales in 1963 and called Perth home. He enlisted in December 1981 at 18 and served as an infantryman. In 1989 he passed selection for the Special Air Service Regiment. He handed back his corporal's stripes to start again as a trooper.

He spent 16 years with the Regiment and became its vehicle specialist. He was a key developer of the Long Range Patrol Vehicle, the six-wheeled Land Rover that carried SAS patrols through Afghanistan and Iraq. He also served in East Timor with INTERFET and UNTAET.

David Lewis, then chairman of the SAS Association, called him "as tough as nails and then a little bit tougher." He said David could find the funny side of anything, however grim it got.

Twenty-one years ago today, a vehicle struck David during a mission rehearsal in Kuwait. He died of his injuries on 6 November 2005. He was 42. He left behind his wife and their children.

A year later the Army named its new Special Operations Vehicle after him. The Nary. When those vehicles deployed to Afghanistan, his name went out on patrol again.

David's name is on the Roll of Honour at the Australian War Memorial. It is there because he died in Kuwait, assigned to an operation. If David had suffered the same injuries in a training area in Western Australia, his name would not be on it.

That is a gap. The Minister puts it at around 50 ADF members killed in training over the past 30 years. They trained for the same fights David did, and many of them died here at home.

Yesterday the Minister for Veterans' Affairs, the Hon Matt Keogh MP, announced $500,000 for APPVA to begin work on the Australian Military Training Memorial on Anzac Parade in Canberra. Those men and women will have a national place of their own. We thank the Minister and DVA, and every family and mate who helped get it this far.

Rest easy, David.
We remember you.
Lest we forget.

Rod Hutchings
National Media and Communications Executive
Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans' Association

05/11/2026

Never forget the history of our the Black Anzac Project - A Vision for Veterans’ Support and Inclusion

Private Douglas Grant, 13th Battalion, was born into a traditional Aboriginal community in the Bellenden Ker Ranges, Northern Queensland, in the early 1880s. In 1887 his parents and much of his Aboriginal community were killed but no records were kept regarding the circumstances. Grant was adopted by a white family.

He enlisted in 1916 and with the intervention of his foster father, was accepted for active service overseas. He was wounded and captured by the Germans at Bullecourt in 1917 and remained a prisoner for the duration of the war.

After his capture, Douglas spent two months in France with the other Bullecourt prisoners, who were used as forced labourers for the German Army. Owing to his dark complexion, Douglas ended up at the German camp for Muslim prisoners at Zossen in the German state of Brandenburg, where he supervised the distribution of comforts to Indian prisoners as a member of the British Help Committee.

Douglas’ role in distributing comforts was an extremely important one. Not only did the parcels lift the men’s spirits with much-needed essentials, but the system also provided the opportunity to accurately record who had been taken prisoner and where they were held. This vital information could make a huge difference for families at home in Australia who were waiting for news of their “missing”.

A highly educated man, Douglas returned to a society that was ruled by the White Australia Policy, and he struggled to find work during the Depression. He was hospitalised with severe depression at least once, and never found steady work, and did not receive benefits such as the Soldier Settler Scheme, and was subjected to racial discrimination because of his heritage. He struggled with alcoholism but continued to be an active member of various soldiers’ associations, and was politically active in arguing for rights for Indigenous men and for returned soldiers. He died alone and in obscurity in 1951.

- Research prepared by Drs Aaron Pegram, Meleah Hampton and Lachlan Grant, Military History Section, Australian War Memorial, 28 March 2019.

IMAGE:
Private Douglas Grant 13th Battalion, AIF Wünsdorf-Zossen Germany, 1918 - Colourised photograph by Benjamin Thomas

05/11/2026

Ben, we need veterans Court in Bendigo as an expansion of the Veterans Court in SA. We need Veterans Courts in EVERY State. RSL WA Peter Tinley AM as we continue to obtain RETRO comsuper medical pensions - our Veterans are fighting poverty, the court systems and fighting for our reputations.

Thank you for interviewing BRS.

*** EXCLUSIVE ***

A local council has a new idea to support veterans.

They’ve introduced an acknowledgement to honour our service men and women.

Cumberland Mayor Joseph Rahme says “everyone has embraced it”.

Listen to the details HERE.

🎧https://omny.fm/shows/ben-fordham-full-show/exclusive-new-acknowledgment-honouring-war-veterans🎧

05/11/2026

don’t procrastinate - good advice