Battle Ready

by Ollie Ollerton

  Simon told me about an organisation he had connections with called The Grey Man. Self-funded and based in Oz their MO was to rescue kids in South-east Asia from being sold to a life in the skin trade. They sent undercover operatives into brothels where they’d identify child prostitutes and either inform the local law enforcement or rescue them personally. Simon wondered if I might like to join them and use my Special Forces skills to train their operatives? While living with Sarah I trained operatives in and around Brisbane and I told them that was the extent of the expertise I was willing to offer. I wasn’t prepared to head to Thailand to conduct operations as it sounded so dodgy, with limited or no backup in a country renowned for corruption.

  My relationship with Sarah was getting worse and fell apart after an alcohol-fuelled, turbulent night when I decided to make a break for it, seeking refuge at my mate Denny’s house, not too far away. It was then I resolved it was all or nothing and decided to head to Thailand to do exactly what I said I wouldn’t. But first I would go back to the UK to see my son Luke who I’d not seen for seven years. Seeing Luke was amazing and it was almost like we’d never been apart. He was now a young 11 year-old man and I was so proud to see him. This was so good in so many ways, but also amplified my emotions when it came to what lay ahead.

  FALSE DAWN OF HOPE

  I loved doing something useful that drew on my past, connecting me to a time in my life when I had enjoyed self-respect. When I’m passionate about something I throw myself into it heart and soul and this was no different. I pledged my expertise and invested my remaining savings from Iraq into the Grey Man, and following a particularly poisonous exchange with Sarah, I told her I was leaving her and hurriedly flew to Bangkok.

  The underbelly of Thailand is complex and labyrinthine. It’s easy for a Westerner to wade in moralistically against the sex trade, failing to understand that not everybody who offers themselves for sex does so unwillingly. From a transaction of flesh for dollars a working girl is able to send money back to her village on the Laotian border which will feed her grandmother, pay for her little brother’s school books, buy food for the buffalo and grains for the family rice padi. Some working girls even use the money to study and eventually leave the skin trade for a better life. But for every story like this there is another of a child barely in puberty being taken from her village, drugged and trafficked to the Golden Triangle, where for the price of $30,000 dollars, tigers, battery-farmed in Laos, can be killed in front of you for your own consumption, balls, teeth and all. A 12-year-old girl from Isaan Province is considerably cheaper. Some girls are sold to Burmese fishermen as a plaything to while away the long hours spent at sea. Used and abused, their torn little bodies are cast overboard into the Bay of Bengal or the Andaman Sea for the fishes to feed on before washing up on the coast as faceless Jane Does.

  Helping free these kids from a life in the sex trade filled me with hope and made me realise that helping others was so much more important than focusing on my own woes. Even in the SBS it had been about me and the service, the adventures, the Action Man stuff, were all about me and my ego. But this was different. There was no salary, no plaudits and certainly no backup. We made the decision to work without guns as this might bring assumptions that we were DEA if we were questioned along the way. We were undercover tourists. Our only recompense for the danger we were placing ourselves in was the satisfaction of knowing we were making a difference. If the shit hit the fan and our cover was blown, we had an RV to try and make it to an escape vehicle. One minute I’d be sitting in some dark bar flashing with tired fairy lights, plastic flowers on tin tables, getting loaded on Sang Thip whisky. The next, under the ruse of visiting the bathroom, I’d scope out the layout of the upstairs corridors where the working girls operated in cell-like rooms. Behind their open doors were soiled mattresses on floors, low lights and children with too much make-up on their young faces. The intel we gathered was then used to plan the rescue mission.

  I was still drinking an awful lot whenever I got the opportunity of any down time, and even when we were on the job, since that was part of being undercover, getting to know the sex operators and gaining their confidence. But I was on top of it because I felt I was doing something useful, helping people who couldn’t fend for themselves.

  By the time I had joined them, the organisation had staged an impressive 140 rescue interventions. But sometimes selflessness is closely tailed by pride and having pulled off our biggest coup yet – that of rescuing 22 children in one fell swoop – The Grey Man made the fatal flaw of informing the authorities. The story reached the US State Dept, who annually funded Thailand to the tune of millions of dollars to stamp out the child sex trade, and they erupted with fury. A red-faced Thailand went on the defensive by rubbishing our organisation’s credibility, calling us con men and sending their police force to hunt us down. After escaping over the border to Burma we returned with our tails between our legs to Australia.

  I was devastated. Not only had I spent all my own money on a cause I believed in, but the chance to help those poor children had been snatched away by the Thai government, and with it the one thing that had so far eluded me all through my life: a true purpose. At my lowest ebb yet, and in perhaps the darkest place I have ever been, against all reason I got back with Sarah.

  I tried to keep going, doing a spot of labouring to pay the bills, then working at the laundrette. Every morning I did my best to greet the new day with a sense of optimism, hoping things might change, but that mocking voice – be it my own negativity or Sarah’s – took a piss on me and put out any flame of hope.

  I was trapped in a toxic relationship I could see no way out of, a vicious repeat cycle mirroring the day before, running on a treadmill fuelled by self-loathing, comfortable with the discomfort of life.

  The downfall of the Grey Man was fresh poison for her to bait me with. If I felt diminished before by her, there’s no way to describe the loser I now felt like. Sarah bullied me into getting a nine-to-five job, and I found myself complying by finding employment in a sweat shop laundry. Compared to her mansion of vipers, the place was an escape. Again, I settled into the discomfort of life. A few months down the line, idly loading large sheets into pressing machines, I wondered why I had returned to her and was so scared at the prospect of setting out on my own. It would be hard to start again and rebuild myself but maybe I could fall back on my Special Forces training and start to plan a way back to myself? I had to switch off my emotions first, had to stop thinking of myself and focus on the goal. What was the goal? Mission: Get the Fuck Out.

  THE GREAT ESCAPE

  By now I had been with Sarah for two years. Two years!? What a waste. It was do or die: if I didn’t try another escape, I’d take my own life. I felt like fucking Papillon escaping Devil’s Island.

  That gentle voice spoke up in my head: ‘What’s to stop you packing your bag and leaving tonight after your shift here?’ I waited for the other voice to counter, the one that liked to piss on me, but there was only silence and the thrum of the washing machine clicking through the next stage of its cycle. In the SBS, we were taught to breathe, recalibrate and deliver; to distance and distract ourselves from the fear curdling in our guts. This was an essential part of training that came in handy when stacking up against a door before entering a firefight. Breathing and recalibrating happens at the same time, lowering the cortisol levels in your brain which make you stressed. I started breathing consciously.

  When you’re down and out, time becomes immaterial as every day is largely the same, measured by drinks and arguments and night and day are only separated by fresh hangovers and blackouts. Suddenly, life seemed very precious to me; I didn’t want to waste any more of it. A flicker of excitement sprang in my chest at the idea of escape. I started imagining myself leaving, my clothes folded neatly in my sports bag, my face clean of stubble and fixed with a determined expression. And, leaving Sarah’s forked tongue and insults far behind, I’m running alone like Forrest Gump in
to my future and a glorious Gold Coast sunrise.

  The gum trees outside were turning blue with twilight. Somehow the day had disappeared.

  ‘Well then?’ asked the voice gently.

  ‘I can do this,’ I told myself. ‘I’m ready to change.’

  I left Sarah for the final time and took a room in a bright and welcoming three-bedroomed house in Bulimba, on the outskirts of the city. It was too big a leap to immediately live on my own. I was fragile as an eggshell and a hair’s breadth from falling back into co-dependency and drink, so I shared with other people. I’m a little OCD about things being tidy but I swallowed the odd cushion being out of place and unwashed plates in the sink in return for the warmth of friendly conversation.

  In my little room I felt like I’d escaped from a haunted house. I had been so far down the well of depression, anaesthetised by a diet of cocaine, Valium and booze, that at times I couldn’t string a sentence together, and yet here I was starting out on a fresh path again. And the less I drank, the more that inner critic was kept in the shadows where he belonged. Once you decide to help yourself an amazing thing starts to happen inside you. It’s called growth. Every little thing you invest in yourself, from shaving in the morning to eating something healthy, starts to yield more opportunities and insights, and with each of these gifts you become more grateful and positive. You start to notice doors opening. I was drinking less and less and hitting the gym with the energy of a teenager. In recompense for taking the first step, I began to get back some sense of my self-worth and that feeling was addictive.

  I lined my energy up with the opportunities in front of me. I’d been for a job interview some time before with an oil company. They stated that I was a little over-qualified for the role, more in respect of the fact they thought I would get bored, which after reading my CV was understandable. But then, out of the blue, they got in touch and wanted me to start as soon as possible. The job offered great pay and a reliable steady income. Maybe somebody up there liked me after all?

  EXERCISE: WHAT’S YOUR LIFE LIKE NOW?

  Perhaps you haven’t reached bottom, like I had in that laundrette in Brisbane. Perhaps your life is ticking along, but deep down you think things could be better. You want your life to change. But before taking that first step, check in with yourself by asking yourself some questions, to give yourself a baseline, a place to start from, and to look back at when you’re on your way to achieving your goal. It’s good to write these down, and to keep checking in with yourself as you work towards a better future.

  DATE: ___________________

  Are you selling yourself short? If so, how?

  Are you in a relationship that feeds your confidence or sucks it away?

  Do you tell yourself you’ll never be a success?

  Have you accepted your lot and told yourself not to expect any more from life?

  CHAPTER 2

  EPIPHANY

  You are probably reading this because you want to make a change in your life, and for that I congratulate you: you’ve bought the right book! It might not be a major change you need, like moving to another country or getting divorced, but it will be something you’re not satisfied with. Change doesn’t happen overnight; it takes focus and a clear direction of where you want to go and what you wish to change. The first step is committing to that change. This chapter is about identifying what you need to change then making deliberate positive steps toward achieving it.

  BABY STEPS

  As the days in my new Brisbane home went by it was the small steps I took that helped me. Like making my bed in the morning. The first thing you do when you wake up shapes the rest of your day. In his book: Make Your Bed: Little Things That Can Change Your Life, retired US Navy Seal, Admiral William H. McRaven says:

  Making my bed was . . . my first task of the day, and doing it right was important. It showed my attention to detail, and at the end of the day it would be a reminder that I had done something well, something to be proud of, no matter how small the task.

  I wanted to be a part of things, among people as it kept me away from solitary thoughts and getting depressed, so I joined the Brisbane Outrigger Canoe Club. This involved being on the water in our canoe by 5 a.m., the sunshine pooling brilliantly on the Brisbane River. I’d then cycle 5km to work, do a training session at lunchtime then cycle 5km back home and then head out in the evening to the Crossfit gym. I was fitter than I’d ever been, fixated on my external image and had pretty much close to 0 per cent body fat. I looked awesome and thrived off the attention my physical image elicited. However, behind this external prowess was someone plagued by insecurity, swollen with ego to be noticed, liked and make new friends. By now my OCD was getting irritated by the other people’s mess in our shared house, so I decided to get a flat on my own. I found a place by the Brisbane River, a loft apartment with outside decking and a mezzanine. It was stunning. It was also the first time I had ever spent a night on my own. Ever since being a kid I had always feared being on my own and had been dependent on women. My relationships always overlapped so there was never a chance of my being solo. It was as if I was trading a lease car for a new one. But that first night in the apartment with just my own company was fantastic, so liberating!

  I began to reflect on the time I’d lost in my toxic relationship, and that being with Sarah was simply history repeating itself; in that case, my marriage with Helen. Now that I had a job with the oil company, I had a structure within which to reboot myself. As my self-respect returned incrementally, I began to eat healthily, sleep better and exercise, something I had let lapse. I was spending more time outdoors and I even returned to writing poetry and sought out a spiritual psychologist to help me unwrap my troubled past. Since the chimp attack 33 years earlier I couldn’t remember any of my childhood. The following poem was written around this time and is about living and not wasting time in fear or anguish. It’s also about making the most of your time. Humans are so busy saying: ‘When X or Y happens, I’ll be content . . .’ but all the while we are wasting the valuable present, which is all we have.

  And almost like magic the distance grew into a blur of sound,

  And as I looked, I remembered only the recurring memory

  Of a time misplaced with fear and anguish!

  Who, I asked myself, am I? And as confused as I was

  I sat at the pinnacle of something my mind questioned.

  Where are you from and why are you here?

  I have no fucking idea,

  I came here looking for someone I don’t want to find,

  so lost and desolate I am, why don’t you tell me?

  Time comes quicker than any moment requested,

  if only we could grasp back the moments we would love to change!

  Your time is yours, what would you do

  to make it something you would never forget.

  As it turned out, the job with the oil company was a little disappointing due to the lack of structure and decent management, although I was able to carve out some time to focus on myself. As a member of the Brisbane Outrigger Canoe Club, I competed around Australia, winning gold, silver and bronze at several events. I also competed at CrossFit and had an extremely disciplined diet. I was so focused on my aesthetics that I became ripped, but this was a visual distraction for the dis-ease I felt inside. However, as soon as I started mentally investing in myself, I was given a return on my investment. I felt a natural urge to be the positive and spiritual soul that was deep-seated within me. I filled my head with positive affirmations, the most powerful of which was: ‘I am ready to accept change, as difficult as it may seem, I know I am being prepared for bigger and better things.’

  However, although I was managing to stop drinking in the week, as soon as the opportunity at the weekend arrived, I’d hit the booze big-time like it was some kind of reward. This would sometimes last until Monday, where I would then make excuses I was working from home, and I wouldn’t get back on track until Wednesday and then I was back in
a repeat cycle of regret and self-loathing. The problem was my job wasn’t sufficiently fulfilling. Compared to the work of the Grey Man it all seemed a bit pointless. The frustration of not feeling productive on a professional level was killing me and again I felt like I was heading nowhere and just marking time. For some people the stable job and the security of a good wage was enough, but for me that was the last thing on my priority list.

  I devised a technique to start thinking about the things I needed to change. First, I drew a circle with a biro around a CD with dissecting lines through it like the hands of a clock. I wrote my ultimate goal at number 12, and then from 1 to 11 wrote all the steps I had to take to get to that goal. I then focused on where I was and where I wanted to be and wrote that down on every point of the clock. I managed to fill every number from 1 to 12, and had more still to add, but just focused on the dominant 12 problems that were obstructing my path.

  For instance, I hated the amount I was still drinking, so in one section I put: ‘I am drinking much less’ and on the second section I stated: ‘I have savings in the bank’, on the third: ‘I have a loving relationship’, and so on, and so on . . . I then got into the practice of focusing each day on each of the 12 points, and started imagining what each of those subjects felt like: I put myself there as if it had happened, and allowed the good feelings of that to dissolve the current and present reality. It’s easy to see what my vibration would have been if I had written down everything I hated; it would have amplified my current state and circumstance. I still have the drawing of that first circle and within 12 months of setting the desire and intention, I had achieved each and every one.

  EXERCISE: THE CLOCK

  Create your own clock. At 12 o’clock write down your ultimate goal and on each hour thereafter (heading clockwise) write down a goal that you will achieve to take you closer to your ultimate goal. This can be a bad habit you have to overcome in order to get to the next step and should be written in the present tense as if you’ve already achieved it. Create three milestones toward your goal. One at three, six and nine and then as you approach each milestone state the two things you must do to reach that milestone. State them as mantras.