A Duntroon Mate's Testimony - JulianKnight.com.au

Entire affidavit transcript by a fellow staff cadet of Kokoda Company at RMC Duntroon (Jan-May 1987):

[Signed and dated 26th March 2021 and submitted as evidence for the applicant Julian Knight [Case: KNIGHT and COMMONWEALTH OMBUDSMAN, No. 2017/5456] in the Administrative Appeals Tribunal held Monday 3rd May 2021 in Melbourne, Victoria].

1. The Purpose of this Affidavit

I was an Army officer staff cadet accepted into Duntroon Royal Military College in January 1987 with an aviation cadetship to go on to fly military helicopters. I just wanted to service my country rescuing injured who would otherwise perish.

While a 3rd Class junior staff cadet I was certainly challenged by disrespect and immoral treatment, but not rewarded.

Instead, I became only disillusioned at the appalling basic infantry training standards. After tolerating four months of crap pretence infantry training and forced to cop juvenile school-boy indoctrination bullying abuse from senior cadets, I resigned from Duntroon in disgust. I likened Duntroon to the BBC’s Ripping Yarns TV satirical comedy series ‘Tomkinson’s School Days’ of 1976.

Having happily escaped then returned to formally resign from Duntroon, I subsequently went on to personally fund and gain my own commercial helicopter pilot license in 1990 and then get a business degree back in civilised society in Australia.

It was Duntroon in Canberra where I had first met Julian Knight in January 1987, in which as both ‘freshmen’ Army Officer Staff Cadet recruits, we were assigned to the same training infantry Company, Platoon and Section then required to share close military training together on a daily basis.

As a former Australian Army Corporal Julian Knight is currently incarcerated in Port Phillip Prison in Victoria since late 1987 following the Hoddle Street Shooting of August 1987, following his partial completion of Army officer training at Royal Military College (RMC) Duntroon in Canberra (Jan – August 1987).

I make this affidavit in order to shed factual truths about my experiences with Staff Cadet Knight during the short four month (17 week) initial training period at Duntroon between when I started training in early January 1987 and mid-May 1987 when I formally resigned at my own volition.

I make this sworn statement that during those 17 weeks I was the closest colleague, confidant and supporter of Staff Cadet Knight more than any other person at Duntroon.

Knight was one of just three 3rd Class staff cadets in my Platoon Section and Duntroon’s unwritten team-building training lore was to back ones fellow cadets at all costs. Further, since I was nearly four years older, and had more identifiable skills in the eyes of Duntroon, Staff Cadet Knight while partnered up with me was mostly left alone by the senior cadet bullies. But once I had resigned by mid-May, Knight was on his own and at the mercy of the senior cadets who must have had it in for him. I had no real idea at the time how the persecution would ultimately manifest.

The Army was mindful that I knew the partial causation for Staff Cadet Knight’s powder keg, psychotic state that drove his mass shooting rampage against innocent civilians in Melbourne. We were both born in and of Melbourne (Melburnians) and both residing back in Melbourne after our Duntroon experience. May be the Army surmised that we might both hook up?

Anyway, those Army threats of 1987 effectively imposed a blanket silence on both my mother and me to not speak out for the past thirty four years for fear of retribution by the Australian Army on our family.

This affidavit ends Duntroon’s bullying silence censorship upon me and I regret me taking so long to bravely garner the courage to be aware, take responsibility for standing by a fellow staff cadet who was normal and perceived exemplary by the Army like me a recruits for Duntroon training, and to stand up against the Army’s intimidating subculture of Duntroon junior cadets.

In my view, Duntroon is a discredited training institution unfit to train any recruits.

2. Relevant Background to My Enrolment at RMC Duntroon

I was born in Melbourne on 10th May 1964 and I am 56 years of age and now happily married. I am of good health physically and of sound healthy mind. I hold a number of tertiary qualifications including a Commercial Helicopter License (Kununurra Airport 1990), a Bachelor of Business in Management (Monash 2004), a Diploma in Project Management (UNE) and Diploma in Outdoor Recreation (NSW TAFE 2016), amongst others. I am managing director of my own company, which owns five trading entities.

Prior to joining the Australian Regular Army in January 1987, I had had four years of military style training on Fridays with my alma mater Camberwell Grammar School’s Army Cadet Unit plus various field exercises [period 1975-1981]. I advanced to the rank of Lance Corporal in 1981. The school awarded me its School Geography Prize in 1981 for my skills in map reading, as well as House Colours for my volunteering capacity as the school’s Gymnasium Supervisor.

I first applied to join the Australian Army via officer training at RMC Duntroon in 1981 whilst still at school undertaking the Higher School Certificate in Year 12. I was rejected by the Army due to immaturity but invited to re-apply in subsequent years, which I did three more times.

Whilst enrolled in a management course at Footscray Institute of Technology (now Victoria University) 1984-85, I undertook extracurricular activities in orienteering and leading overnight bushwalks. Afterwards I acquired 30 hours helicopter flying experience in New Zealand towards a commercial pilot license in 1986, prior to my successful fourth application to be accepted into RMC Duntroon later that year.

My father had held a commissioned rank of Acting Captain in the Australian Army’s Citizens Military Forces (CMF) scheme for volunteer reservists some decades earlier. He told me about his Army experiences in a positive light, including his time at Puckapunyal Army training barracks.

From an early age it was my career aim to join the military in some capacity and particularly as I grew older, to fly military helicopters to transport and rescue troops, but not in an attacking capacity. I recall during my secondary school years, Dad taking me and my siblings to Watsonia Army Barracks for public open day and watching Army exercises with Leopards tanks and helicopters.

Of note, Staff Cadet Knight, who was part of the same officer cadet intake at Royal Military College Duntroon (‘Duntroon’) as me, was also from Melbourne. I got to learn while at RMC Duntroon that Julian’s father had also served as an Army Officer, that he had grown up in an Army environment, that he had similarly been a school Army cadet like me, but had gone on further to serve in the Australian Army Reserve prior to being accepted into Duntroon for officer training. He had apparently performed quite well from my recollection talking to him.

3. Defence had publicly confirmed that Entrenched Bastardisation no longer persisted at Duntroon

Duntroon had been exposed in the media in the mid-1980s for its condoned subculture of bastardisation of junior cadets when the Royal Military College had been a four year combined military training and university degree course. Back then, junior cadets had been dubbed ‘Fourthies’ when in 4th Class, the first year of training.

The clandestine practice of intra-Company bastardisation was a sadistic form of bullying committed by senior cadets within the same company for the purpose of ‘weeding-out’ lesser and unwanted new recruits that were perceived as not fitting the mould. The bastardisation dished out had been not just physical and psychological and sexual.

Scandals about victims of the abuse were that many became so distressed and damaged, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder, had their lives ruined and some committed suicide. The subculture had pervaded other training establishments across the Australian Defence Force in the Royal Australian Navy and to a lesser extent in the Royal Australian Air Force. Bastardisation abuse of recruits at the Navy’s former HMAS Leeuwin training base near Fremantle had been widespread, similarly at the ‘old’ Duntroon through the 1970s and early 1980s.

However this mould was not the ‘officer and gentleman mould’ of physical and psychological since they that negative press about in the 1970s and 1980s when it was then a four year combined infantry and university degree military course.

Anecdotal accounts by senior staff cadets of past sadistic acts of bastardisation by senior cadets of junior cadets had included:

‘The Royal Flush’ – junior cadet held down by two larger senior cadets and head forced into the toilet bowl and the toilet flushed;
Drenching by fire hosing a cadet in bed asleep after midnight;
‘Rumblings’ – after midnight senior cadets would rush into a junior cadets bedroom, shout to wake him up, turn the rubber mattress upside down and proceed to beat the cadet and ‘bish’ (mess up) the room;
Throwing a cadet into the adjacent assault course bear pit and drenching him with a fire hose;
Locking a cadet in a wardrobe with toast burning in an electric toaster;
‘The Human Sacrifice’ involving stripping a cadet, frog-marching him stark naked by two stalwart seniors, a mixture of tar and treacle then painted on him from head to foot, after which a bag of flour was emptied over him, then fire-hosed;
And other debased sadistic practices unworthy; passive-natured, odd, physically under-developed and non-assertive. Those who didn’t smoke and swear were common targets. Good-natured Christians were identified early on for special attention. They were beaten, raped and humiliated on a regular basis. It was relentless. Soul-destroying. Many of those who were singled out are still tormented in their minds today. Their abusers have occupied their thought-life and won’t go away. They are a shadow of the men and women they ought to be;
Nuggeting- having boot polish smeared onto their genitals and rubbed with a hard brush- people reported being left bleeding with black shoe polish all over their penis and scrotum;
Running the gauntlet- being attacked with sacks full of irons, boots and other heavy items;
Repeated rapes, and being forced to rape other members by older recruits;
‘Soggy SAO’- being forced to masturbate onto a biscuit with a group of men, the last person to ejaculate had to eat the whole SAO biscuit;
Forced to participate in bare knuckle fights, with seniors crowding around while people were pushed unwillingly into the middle of the circle and forced to fight;
‘Rumblings’, where seniors would come in, wake you up, turn your mattress upside down in the middle of the night and proceed to beat you repeatedly;
Being tied up and having a fire hydrant sprayed all over you;
Being hung up high on a crane, or in the showers via a broomstick, or on other machinery and left for long periods;
Being tied up and dumped into storm water drains, in the showers or in public and pelted with rotten fruit, having oil and foul-smelling substances poured all over.

Up until the mid-1980s just a few years earlier, sadistic ‘bastardisation’ (or ‘hazing’) had been an ingrained part of the Duntroon subculture and considered an unofficial rite of passage to graduate as an Army officer.

In the years leading up to my enrolment at Duntroon, Defence Force Recruiting had run a campaign to dispel the continuance of bastardisation so as to build recruitment. This included Duntroon.
I recall that during the time preceding my acceptance into Duntroon, reading of news reports that the Australian Defence Force including Duntroon had cleaned up its bastardisation practices so that recruits would no longer be exposed to debased harassment but instead treated with due respect as officer cadets during their training to graduate into Army officers.

My understanding upon applying for Duntroon a fourth time in late 1986 was that following the scandals of bastardisation coming out of Duntroon from cadets and reported in the media, that the Defence Force had eliminated the abusive practices.

This was to proof false and misleading as I observed junior cadets experience, especially those targeted cadets such as Staff Cadet Knight and to a far lesser extent myself. Defence propaganda had not lived up to the persisting reality in Kokoda Company at Duntroon in 1987.

Such ‘bastardisation’, as it had notoriously become known in the media in prior years, could be done out of sight of the main central area of Duntroon. I recall it was surrounded by bushland at the base of a hill (‘Mount Pleasant’) that had walking tracks through connecting to the Australian Defence Forces Academy (ADFA) nearby.

4. Both Knight and I had met all Duntroon’s Rigorous Officer Assessment Criteria

As successful applicants to Duntroon, both Knight and I on our own separate merits had passed all the tests prescribed by the Australian Army’s Army Officer Selection Board (AOSB). This included a rigorous combination of:

Medical testing
Physical fitness, strength and stamina testing
Psychometric, intellectual IQ and academic capability testing
General knowledge testing
Emotional balance and maturity testing
Aptitude testing for Army suitability, combat and officer leadership
Personality, commitment and team player testing
Background checks and character references.

As 3rd Class staff cadets, Knight and I had separately passed all these tests to the satisfaction of the Australian Army sufficient to be granted entry into Duntroon; no ifs or buts.

I do recall three bizarre questions on a multiple choice psychometric test along the following lines:

If you were to stand on the edge of a cliff, would you have a tendency to want to jump off? I answered no, and got in.
Do you have a problem with using a rifle to kill people to defend yourself or others? I answered no, and got in.
What is the meaning of ‘inebriated’? Actually I didn’t know and so I would have failed this question, but I got in.

The anecdotal ratio of applicants to actually successful applicants for Duntroon at the time was 3000 to 100, or 0.03% success rate, or conversely a 97% failure rate. This means that both Knight and I, along with the other hundred odd other recruits were the rare 0.03% who arrived at Duntroon on the January 1987 intake to commence officer training at Duntroon having met all the Army’s standards as suitable candidates to become Army officers.

Our intake bunch from all over Australia, were not just deemed by the Army leadership to be normally adjusted intelligent young people, but of ‘the right stuff’ to be suitable to become leaders of men in combat, indeed ‘of officer material’ for the Australian Army.

So presumably then commencing as ‘officer staff cadets’ at Duntroon, all we each needed to achieve during the following 18 months of formal officer training was to pass the various skills, knowledge and fitness training regime to meet the standards to become a junior Army officer.

May be the Army had a desperate shortage of helicopter pilots, I don’t know. The Army didn’t share its thoughts and needs with recruits like me, even though they recruited me to be a leader of men in combat in the Army and presumably to go on to fly Blackhawk helicopters on Army combat deployment.

The Unanswered Question: So what caused Staff Cadet Knight’s mental state to deteriorate between his arrival at Duntroon as one of the rare 0.03% as a shiny keen recruit of ‘officer material’ to the point of being compelled to stab senior cadet five months later; then three months further on to unleash shootings of civilians in Hoddle Street? Duntroon knows the answers.

Despite me being at Duntroon some 34 years ago, my recollection about many experiences and my association with Julian Knight as an officer staff cadet remain quite vivid as if it were just a few years ago.

So I kept and maintained a small notebook whilst at Duntroon and for my own benefit. In it I privately recorded key pieces of information as part of my learning. For instance, my first day was Monday 5th January 1987, my issued Army number was xxxxxx :). I was assigned to Kokoda (infantry) Company as a 3rd Class staff cadet in 15 Platoon, 45 Section, with two other colleagues of my Class. My bedroom was 3m wide x 4 long and located towards the northern end of the Kokoda accommodation block on the eastern side on the ground floor.

In 45 Section, the 3rd Class staff cadets were me (aged 22), Julian Knight (aged 18) and Chris Whitting (aged 23) who was married. Staff Cadet Knight was one of the youngest of that intake, the lowest allowable age for enlistment into Duntroon as I recall.

Once the year got underway, I realised that the culture was such that many junior recruits were being singled out for what I regarded as petty contrived ‘offenses’ which attracted a ‘charge’. So I started to also record certain events and names should I need to defend myself in a potential charge hearing. For me that never eventuated, however, I recorded the names of key bullies – Army officers, Non-commissioned Officers and Senior Cadets in Kokoda Company.

5. My Experience at Duntroon from the January 1987 Intake

In December 1986 I was finally accepted into Duntroon for Army officer training at the age of 22 following my three previous applications; the first attempt while in Year 12 at school in late 1982, then again for the July 1983 intake and then the January 1984 intake.

I had also passed the aviation testing to be an Army Pilot, and became one of just three Staff Cadets granted an ‘Aviation Cadetship’ where upon graduation from Duntroon we would each be assigned to helicopter pilot training in the Army’s Aviation Corps. Personally, I did not think this was special since I had previously invested $30,000 on helicopter training, so obviously my so-called ‘aptitude’ for flying was going to be half reasonable. If others had done similar, then they would likely have been too.

As part of January 1987 intake I arrived by Army bus from Melbourne at Duntroon to begin what had recently become an 18 month Army officer training course, reduced from the previously four year degree course since 1985, just a few years prior.

I was immediately allocated to Kokoda Company at Duntroon, one of five full-time companies making up the Corps of Staff Cadets, the other companies being Long Tan, Alamein, Gallipoli and Kapyong, each named after historic military battles involving Australian troops.

One of Duntroon’s many unwritten rules (‘lores’) was that cadets of each company were not to mix or fraternise with cadets of another company at any time outside formal trainings sessions, so my knowledge about what went on at Duntroon like the other cadets was mostly restricted to my own experience within Kokoda Company.

Within Kokoda Company, each infantry section and platoon was a mix between 3rd Class junior staff cadets and the more senior 2nd Class cadets (just six months ahead in training), led by the 1st Class most senior cadets (although just 12 months ahead in training).

Duntroon’s Official Training Regime

Situated in Australia’s capital Canberra, the Royal Military College – Duntroon states its official purpose is to oversee the initial military training of all officers for the Australian Army. The barracks have been based at the historic Campbell family sheep grazing homestead of what the family named ‘Duntroon Homestead’ since 1911. This was timed post Australian Federation in the lead up to the looming Great War of 1914-1918.

The Australian Army’s official sell of Duntroon’s role is that the Royal Military College “prepares staff cadets for careers in the Army by promoting leadership and integrity, inspiring high-ideals and the pursuit of excellence, and instilling a sense of duty, loyalty and service to the nation.”

Personally having been a staff cadet in 1987, I refute that pretext as false and disingenuous propaganda just to rebuild suffering recruitment.

Indeed, I joined for those noble reasons, but the disrespectful and abusive treatment I received at Duntroon was in my experience anything but “inspiring high-ideals and excellence”.

The basic infantry training (which was basically all it was in 3rd Class) was rushed and substandard in all respects. The abuse metered out to junior cadets at the hands of senior cadets has been sanctioned by Duntroon officials since Duntroon’s inception, relegated to dish out indoctrination through coercive control, bullying and bastardisation. Such a Dickensian brutalism that has been entrenched for over a century at Royal Military College Duntroon (since 2011) and remains contrary to Australian social values and only serves to undermine any sense of leadership and integrity one may have innocently had upon enlistment. In my five month experience there, there is nothing at the place deserving of the title ‘Royal’.

The only outcome that Duntroon delivered effectively of the above ideal was “instilling a sense of duty, loyalty and service…” not to the nation, but to The Army Brass tribe as it sees fit and to its sadistic antiquated subculture of blind obedience whatever it takes.

Duntroon being a military training college, its campus maze design, layout and presentation of the training barracks was immaculately groomed, as to be expected. The organisational order of the barracks was logically regimented, disciplined and strict. Cadets were required to march between buildings rather than walk, to salute senior officers they came across, address NCOs by their rank and surname. Cadets were addressed as ‘Staff Cadet’ and surname. Headgear (cap, bushhat) outdoors was compulsory and uniform presentation had to be exemplary at all times, save when doing PT. No-one was allowed to sit around because the presumption and enforced lore was that each cadet had a burden of workload commitments with enforced deadlines at all times.

Weekdays there were two formal uniform inspection parades daily, followed after a rushed breakfast by a bedroom inspection by senior cadets of one’s own Platoon Section. Then formal training would be scheduled – marching practice, theory lectures, rifle range practice, physical training, etc.

In the junior 3rd Class, spare time was minimised and minimal. Training was weekdays, scheduled tightly down to the minute from dawn (Reveille at 6:15am) to last lectures finishing at 9:30pm and lights out at 10:30pm – that is officially; many ‘bogged’ (prepared their uniform presentation until 1am, only for fall asleep in lectures the next day.

Weekends were designated spare private time (in the accommodation blocks) but due to unwritten workloads both Saturdays and Sundays was invariably preoccupied by cadets preparing the presentation of their individual uniforms, kit and bedrooms for weekday inspections – washing, tumble drying, ironing, polishing, rifle cleaning, etc. Many cadets would use the Recreation Room and on a Friday and Saturday night head into Canberra to one of the preferred pubs and nightclubs to all hours.

Training officers and NCOs as an unwritten rule did not go near the accommodation blocks, so only the cadets of the three classes (3rd, 2nd and 1st Classes) were observed in the respective accommodation blocks.

As 3rd Class staff cadets, we were confined to the Duntroon Corps barracks and many areas within were out of bounds, especially avoiding the sacrosanct Parade Ground. The Officers Mess Hall could only be accessed at each meal under command of the Platoon Section senior cadets at designated times – breakfast, lunch and dinner. Only at weekends were cadets permitted to venture outside and only wearing smart civilian attire. Cadets of all classes were permitted to park their cars inside the barracks grounds, although the roads were narrow and wining and parking spaces limited.

I recall that Kokoda Company’s accommodation block was a long rectangular three storey brick hall featuring many individual staff cadet accommodation quarters off to each side of a central hallway. There were a number of ablution rooms (respectively male or female only), the male ablutions near me had toilet cubicles, a urinal and a communal shower. There was a central recreation room (‘Rec Room’) upstairs. This design layout was pretty much a replication of the other established Corps companies which skirted the perimeter of the Parade Ground. I know this because I secretly paid night visits to a few other company accommodation blocks during my time there, without getting caught.

Of relevant note, Kokoda Company’s accommodation block had been a more recent addition to the long established part of Duntroon and was more isolated from the other company accommodation blocks, situated down a slight slope and rather out of sight from the main college area. The training Assault Course was adjacent and behind Kokoda’s block. I recall it featured a deep dirt bare pit with ropes for cadets to swing over it as part of the course.

So all this was the official cadet training and boarding arrangement of Duntroon – tidy, organised, spick and span, regimented and properly the expected public face of a barracks for Army officer training. But it was superficial. Duntroon’s coercive unofficial indoctrinating treatment of junior cadets was not apparent from the barracks layout or immaculate presentation.

Duntroon’s Coercive Bullying Subculture

I did not observe or learn of any sexual assault in the short 17 weeks that I was at Duntroon. I recall there were about half a dozen female cadets in the entire 3rd Class intake for Duntroon of January 1987. This is not to say that sexual assault had not occurred.

The culture of the senior cadets was that punishment was deserved by those perceived to be different or unfit for service. The warped attitude by many senior cadets, not all, was that as junior cadets only six month or 12 months’ prior, they had been abused, so now it was they turn to dish it out as an unofficial rite of passage to graduate to become a senior cadet. This perpetuated the cycle or bullying and abuse went unofficially over and above Duntroon’s the official training regime.

Whereas the vilest sexual abuse was not observed by me during my short stint in 3rd Class, the psychological and physical bullying was allowed to continue to flourish.

In my experience, the culling of applicants by the Selection Board prior to acceptance for entry, rather than being the passport to certain graduation, was just the first phase of an ongoing deliberate culling process by Duntroon of any cadet deemed not up to the perceived ideal standards to be an Army officer.

In addition to Duntroon’s official training regime – discipline, presentation, marching, fitness, infantry theory skills, organisational skills, combat suitability and aptitude; Duntroon unofficial culling practice prescribed unwritten conformity of cadets into blind obedience and a style of cultural conformity whatever it takes.

Most of the culling of cadets rather than just by failure to pass all the infantry theory and practical tests and meet the training standards, was the enforced bullying and intimidation regime. This reduced the task dismissing cadets by the Duntroon authorities and so lessening the workload burden of Duntroon’s officers in charge.
Duntroon’s unofficial bullying regime was dispatched by senior cadets outside official training hours within the confines of the accommodation blocks. It was outside the view of Duntroon officials but with their full knowledge.

The subculture of Duntroon’s coercive bullying subculture was thus to foster the graduation of only:

Juvenile school yard bully boys (95% of Duntroon cadets were aged 19-22 and were graduates of privileged private schools – including myself, but not Staff Cadet Knight who was 18 and a high school graduate);
Those of average intelligence or slightly above, but not of high intelligence such to question authorities;
Those not of a freethinking mindset, but wholly conformist to the groupthink mindset of superiors;
Those prepared to surrender moral values, self-worth and become subordinate to intimidation by the dominant group of seniors;
Those having desperate needs for belongingness to an exclusive gang and prepared to pay a high psychological cost to be and remain a member;
Those who feared ostracism and loss of face back home by resigning;
Unquestioning immoral ‘yes men’ prepared to carry out orders contrary to moral values, ethical standards Australian social mores;
Those who played the Duntroon game whatever it took, at any cost, and who were prepared to lie in the pursuit of their own career prospects in the Army.

Supposedly being an institution teaching leadership of soldiers and readying for combat, Duntroon’s senior cadets far from being colleagues deserving of trust and comradery, were encouraged to be more sadistic tormenters of the junior in their own Platoon and Section.

The result was that a perpetual cycle of bullying pervaded senior class cadets as each new intake of junior cadets advanced in to the senior classes. It fostered a mindset that:
‘I had it done to me as a junior cadet, so now in 2nd Class then 3rd Class, it’s my turn to do it to the next intake of junior cadets.’

Effectively, Duntroon military management delegated the weeding-out process to senior cadets in the confines of the company barracks out of sight and out of mind of the senior brass. Kokoda Company was the most notorious and reputedly dubbed the ‘bastion of bastardry’.

Instead of Duntroon’s Army Officer Selection Board being the sole scrutineers of recruitment entry into Duntroon, three more levels of scrutineering occurred at Duntroon on top of Duntroon’s multifaceted official training regime:

Weeding Out of junior 3rd Class cadets by senior 2nd and 1st Class Cadets acts of bullying, psychological intimidation, tormenting, ridicule and punishment;
Weeding Out of senior 2nd Class cadets more senior 1st Class Cadets acts bullying and psychological intimidation and punishment on top of Duntroon’s elevated training progress assessment criteria;
Weeding Out of 1st Class Cadets by Duntroon’s even higher elevated training progress assessment criteria imposing heavy workloads and stresses on the most senior cadets.

I observed a few 3rd Class staff cadets in Kokoda Company at times outside the official training schedule being bullied and harassed by senior cadets (2nd and 1st Class staff cadets). I was not privy to the extent of such a regime in the other four training companies. This is because 3rd Class cadets of each training company were prohibited from contacting (mixing/socialising) with any other cadet from another training company – visiting another accommodation block or sitting with a cadet of another training company during meal times in the Officers Mess.

This intentionally meant that Duntroon’s unwritten regulations ensured that 3rd Class cadets were socially isolated from their peers of the same intake most of the time.

I do not recall that Duntroon’s regulations were ever made known to me in writing. Charges were used by senior cadets and Duntroon officers and NCOs as instruments of bullying to coerce and intimidate 3rd Class cadets psychologically. In targeted cases, frequent compounded charges were dispensed against certain selected 3rd Class cadets to weed them out by intimidating the cadets to give up and resign.

There pervaded an unwritten subculture amongst senior cadets in Kokoda Company that they were authorised to ‘harden up’, make compliant or else ‘weed out’ those junior cadets perceived to weak-willed or lacking due discipline. The behavioural tactics applied varied from acts of banter, physical games, and various acts of disciplinary acts upon the junior cadets.

This unofficial (but condoned) bullying regime in my view was Duntroon unwritten policy. It served only to only undermine any mutual respect between cadets of differing classes within the same organisational unit being the company, platoon and section groupings. It went against the lore instilled in cadets from day one of ‘not jacking on your mates’.

The warped presumption driving this bullying regime was that it would help galvanise 3rd year cadets in teamwork to help each other to resist the intimidating behaviour of the senior cadets. But the attitude that it truly instilled amongst the victimised 3rd Class cadets was to disrespect and distrust senior ranks as bullies unworthy of their seniority.

In my view, this classed based bullying was anti-Australian, contrary to the values of our celebrated classless society, and perpetuated a disturbingly expectation of immoral behaviour being tolerated and to be expected through one’s Army career as an officer. Lord help military personnel under such a command.

Duntroon officers and NCOs rarely entered the cadet accommodation blocks and routinely turned a blind eye to any reports of abuse committed by the senior cadets against the junior cadets.

This included individually being thrown in the bear pit and fire hosed upon as a practical joke method to punish and toughen up any junior who dared question or challenge a senior cadet for any reason.

6. My Association with Staff Cadet Knight at Duntroon

I had not known Staff Cadet Knight prior to arriving at Duntroon along with about a hundred odd other ‘3rd Class’ staff cadets in the intake of January 1987. I was assigned to the same Platoon section as Staff Cadet Knight in the luck of the draw, randomly, but who knows? His bedroom was a few doors down from mine northward on the same side of the hallway on the ground floor. We communicated frequently.

While I was slightly older (22) than the mean age of about 20 for 3rd Class cadets and so slightly more mature, Staff Cadet Knight was considerably younger (18) and arrived naturally slightly less mature than most of the other junior cadets, yet had clearly met all the stringent Army standards for officer training. At that life stage, a near five year age difference especially in males tends to be significant in one’s maturity.

Recall that the Army had previously rejected my three applications to Duntroon on the basis of immaturity. In my view, Julian Knight would have been a more worldly and mature 18-year-old than when I was a much more sheltered 18 year old from boys only and privileged Camberwell Grammar School in leafy eastern Melbourne. So he had done exceptionally well to be selected into Duntroon officer training at just age 18.

There were just three of us in the section. I don’t recall the third cadet’s name (Chris?) but he was slightly older than me and married. Julian and I shared bush navigation exercises and on one particular field exercise the two of us shared a ‘hoochie’ (Army issue tent fly). As a team we were becoming quite proficient on exercise in our First Term. On ‘Move Out’, he would pack our sleeping bags, while I packed the hoochie and from being asleep to being mobile took us under 2 minutes. Julian was an excellent shot on the rifle range. I think I was barely adequate.

Being in the same Section and 3rd Class, Staff Cadet Knight and I participated in formal training mostly together. I recall we shared bush navigation exercises together and on one occasion the two of us won a cross country navigation race against the other 3rd Class cadets. This was mainly due to my previous experience with club orienteering in back in Melbourne.

On another two day field training exercise the two of us shared a ‘hutchie’ (Army issue 2-man tent fly). We worked well as team, trusted one another. I recall pre-dawn Staff Cadet Knight packing up the hutchie while I packed both our sleeping bags. From sleep to ready to move out with all gear in our packs took the two of us just two minutes.

We both enjoyed the practical field training as 3rd Class staff cadets, less so the boring lectures that were full of statistics quickly forgotten and where many cadets were falling asleep.

Since both of us had had our own form of Army training experience I think we jointly felt that the repeated practice marching, uniform and respective bedroom preparation for daily inspections back at barracks were redundant skills that we had already mastered before Duntroon. Whereas what we both sought from the training was to learn and practice the more advanced infantry tactics – attack, defence and patrols and the like. Yet at Duntroon, we felt the training in these more advanced infantry skills to be substandard and frankly a joke that would only have us exposed to being killed in real combat.

Staff Cadet Knight was an excellent shot on the rifle range, whereas I think I was barely adequate. In fact I recall two illegal discharges one involving a blank, and another when I fired a last round on the target range after not hearing the ‘cease firing’ command.

I recall that Knight was of a slight build, shorter than me by some inches ( I am 5’ 11 inches which is was pretty average for men back then) and in my view a little immature in comparison to the other 3rd Class cadets who were mainly in their early 20s. I recall that some of his outspoken comments while well-meaning or part of the Army banter, drew unnecessary adverse attention to himself by both the Duntroon trainers (NCOS and Officers) but more problematic by the senior cadets, who pseudo-officially controlled the culture of discipline and subculture of insisting upon unquestioned obedience and conformism through coercive control, physical bullying and ridicule in front of one’s peers.

However, he was one of the most enthusiastic and self-motivated during the various training tasks we undertook, which was mostly together as 3rd Class cadets in the same Platoon Section in Kokoda Company. He clearly had had previous Army training experience in the Army Reserves, unlike most of the other cadets.

I observed that a closer comradery and trust built between staff cadets of the same class across the companies, than within Kokoda Company across the class levels. What was unexpected for me was that rather than rapport and team building within Kokoda Company and within each of the three platoons, the subculture of the senior cadets was one of antagonism, disrespect and bullying treatment of the ‘freshmen’ 3rd Class staff cadets. This seemed to have been a hangover of the days of physical and mental bastardisation of the ‘old‘ Duntroon four year course.

I observed that Knight as a Staff Cadet seemed to perform well in physical training runs (PT), on the firing range naturally far better than me given his years of Army Reserve experience.
Back at Duntroon, we respectively had a score of boots and greens presentation ‘show parade’ penalties stacked against us – basically as punishment for not being up to scratch on substandard uniform presentation – for unrelated reasons. At the time I left, he and I shared the highest number of these penalty ‘show’ parades for all Duntroon – I recall I had 21, Staff Cadet Knight had amassed 26. It seemed par for the course.

In my opinion, Staff Cadet Knight was a keen soldier coming in with a background with the Australian Army Reserves as a trooper. He displayed no fear when an assault was on. He was up usually the front on training combat exercises.

7. Kokoda Company Senior Cadets’ Persecution of Staff Cadet Knight

All such treatment of junior cadets by senior cadets ranged from simple inconvenience, discomfort, embarrassment, escalating with targeted cadets to humiliation, physical abuse, ‘bishing’ (midnight ransacking of a cadet’s bedroom), and psychological bullying and debasement.

Still, Kokoda’s perpetuation of bastardisation of junior 3rd Class cadets went beyond bullying to sadistic debasement intended to weed-out any recruit that the bully boys deemed to be not part of their coercive controlling gang. Once a junior cadet had been perceived by senior cadets as being in some ways not conforming, or not up to behavioural expectations or weak-willed, that cadet was targeted for ‘special treatment’ which involved continual daily persecution of various forms at every opportunity. The motive by the actors of bastardry was not to change the targeted cadet’s behaviour but deliberately to psychologically pressure the cadet to resign under duress.

Intimidation and belittling of Staff Cadet Knight included senior cadets screaming at Staff Cadet Knight on separate occasions within inches of one’s face just for petty issues. I copped similar abusive shouting treatment in the hallway outside my quarters on a few occasions as I observed happen with other 3rd Class staff cadets. Such intimidating behaviour could have well been emulated in through in Marine Corps scenes out of the Stanley Kubrick’s U.S. Marine boot camp training film ‘Full Metal Jacket, of 1987 the same year, where abusive drill instructor Gunnery Sergeant Hartman screams abuse and ridicule up close to recruits.

Kokoda Company pervaded a menacing brutal culture quite unlike the civility I experienced while networking with other staff cadets afterhours in the barracks of the four other companies.
I recall Staff Cadet Knight becoming the target of repeated constant trumped charges imposed by senior cadets in Kokoda Company. They would burst into his bedroom shouting and making a mess at all times of the day or night. His room was only a few doors down from mine. They would repeatedly harangue him in front of other cadets for petty excuses or for no excuse at all. I recall Knight copping abuse just because he had his hair cut really short.

Staff Cadet Knight was abused from his early training. I believe because his immaturity and them misreading his keenness made him a target of the bullying culture at Duntroon. More than most cadets, he was ridiculed, harassed, persecuted, tormented and ostracised by the more senior cadets and especially by the big and bulky Kokoda Company Cadet Under Officer ‘Mongo’ (Phillip?) Reed.

Reed’s nickname was Mongo to his friends, but he insisted that 3rd Class staff cadets address him as ‘Sir’. I didn’t at the time realise the origin of the name Mongo, but it would seem to originate from the burly aggressive character ‘Mongo’ in the satirical Western film Blazing Saddles of 1974.

In my observation of Reed, he and his favoured seniors in 1st and 2nd Class behaved like juvenile boarding school bully boys as if heading up a gang. From my direct experience in Kokoda Company, CSM Reed ruled with an iron fist of intimidation akin to a delinquent school of bullies to a degree I felt what would be that of a criminal gang leader in a maximum security prison.
This man took a personal dislike to Staff Cadet Knight. One 2am occasion Staff Cadet Knight had his room burst into and hosed down completely with a fire hose, then was inspected at 5am as part of drill. Kokoda Company had a reputation then as particularly more parochial and uncouth. It was ignored as being part of the training ‘in this man’s army’. Staff Cadet Knight probably copped more abuse than anyone else in that intake. In my book he was a victim of Defence Force abuse and bastardisation.

I recall vividly that CSM Mongo Reed had a large and solid build perhaps weighing in at 100kg. CSMO Reed was over six foot tall and solidly built and had an aggressive disposition. He was feared by the entire 3rd Class and by most senior cadets in Kokoda Company. He displayed a controlling coercive demeanour around Kokoda’s accommodation block as if he owned the place like a gang leader. My weight was about 80kg and Knight’s a lighter weight of perhaps 70kg.

He ran Kokoda as if the barracks were his fiefdom like a gang leader and I certainly feared him and when approached by him would instantly obey his every command without hesitation. CSM Reed would deliberately target a junior cadet’s accommodation quarters in the small hours at night, screaming at the cadet with a few henchmen (senior cadets), and proceed tossing bed clothes off the cadet, and embarking on a bullying session shouting orders with the cadet forded to stand at attention. He did it to me once, but did it to Staff Cadet Knight repeatedly, taking what seemed to be a perverted pleasure in intimidation and bullying of anyone he disliked. He seemed to have absolute authority delegated to him by RMC Duntroon command structure. No-one dared challenge him else raise his ire and be punished by another penalty ‘show’ parade.

On reflection, CSM Reed behaved like a school boy bully. CSM Reed’s dominating and controlling persona reminded me of the ‘Lord of the Flies’ tribal character of Jack Merridew. CSM Reed would regularly resort to fear, bullying and degrading tactics to enforced his coercive control over cadets in Kokoda Company. He was unapproachable and indeed feared across all classes of staff cadets, even in other Duntroon companies.

He was a leader in the bullying culture that RMC Duntroon had become publicly notorious for fostering. My experience in Kokoda Company during the four short months that I endured there was that CSM Reed was executing RMC Duntroon command culture to weed out any staff cadet that was perceived to be of the ‘tough stuff’, but more so not to display blind cowardly obedience with whatever bastardisation measures were dished out at Reed’s absolute discretion.

CSM Reed perpetuated the old Duntroon (4 year course) school bully boy culture of prior years that had exposed Kokoda Company in Duntroon as ‘The Bastion of Bastardry’. Mongo played up to the thuggery expectation of Duntroon’s delegated authority that senior cadets ‘unofficially’ weed out ‘unworthy’ 3rd Class cadets.

Kokoda Company was the bastion of bastardy that Duntroon set up for borderline recruits out of sight of the main college campus to vet 3rd Class recruits that its Selection Board may have been remiss under then political pressure to inflate its January 1987 recruit numbers.

I avoided Reed like most and a few times became the recipient of his bullying behaviour. On one occasion he entered my room with other senior cadets and started shouting and berating me about some petty presentation issue such as my sock draw with socks having an inappropriate ‘happy face’ fold.

I did observe him taking a quick dislike to Staff Cadet Knight and he persecuted Knight at every opportunity. It was as if Reed had taken it upon himself to the chief disciplinarian of Kokoda Company and his task to weed-out any staff cadet that in his eyes feel short of measuring up to ‘officer material’.

8. My Reasons for Resigning from Duntroon

Basic Infantry Training was Superficial and Rushed

Despite being a career goal, the experience quickly proved to be a total let down – expectations, standards, training, trust, propriety. Yet my performance in the basic training during this time seemed to be acceptable – passing all the fitness tests, achieved a high standard of uniform presentation and parade marching, passed infantry theory exams, weapons practice, field exercises, discipline and team participation and the like.

The recent transformation of the Royal Military College from a four year combined degree and military training course to an 18 month infantry training only course clearly had been an arbitrary one not properly thought through to achieve the equivalent depth of infantry platoon commander skills and leadership.

Having only attended for about 17 weeks as an officer staff cadet at Duntroon (from early January to 9th May in 1987), I participated in about 80% of the six month 3rd Class basic training focus. I did not go on to the more advanced 2nd Class and 1st Class levels of Army officer training, spanning a further twelve months.

I questioned field tactical decisions in training led by another captain in charge – (who was Duntroon qualified plus with a few years Infantry Corps experience – so he should have been a shining example). I recall after a training ‘engagement’ personally walking up to the mock enemy ‘Majura Force’ and asking their opinion of the engagement. They told me that their machine gunners would have easily mown most of us down even as soon as the captain’s tactics had commenced. Great! School cadets had been more co-ordinated than this.

I recall a simulated combat wound training where we were demonstrated CPR. The Army trainers were crap. I had previously completed 8 years in Surf Life Saving to Advanced Resuscitation certification and had to show the trainers how CPR was done. Class theory training was rushed and superficial and many cadets fell asleep because they were only getting 5 hours sleep a night due to ironing and polishing their kit ready to shine for next morning parade. But ask most of them about the effective range of an SLR – no real idea. I felt that if I had continued I would be eventually be a dead duck in combat.

I was not reprimanded to any serious degree more than most, although due to my inexperience with automatic weapons, I made two unauthorised discharges of my rifle. One was on the rifle range when I fired my final round about 20 seconds late after everyone else had finished because with earmuffs on I did not hear the case fining command. The second time was at the end of a field exercise out in the Majura Training Area while loaded with blank rounds I wrongly went through the removed magazine procedure and mistakenly fired a blank round into the dirt.

I later realised that this was due to me making the same mistake on both occasions. The training procedure for disarming a rifle at the end of firearms exercise involved removing the magazine and emptying the chamber in order to clear the weapon of all ammunition to render it safe.

I had never used a firearm before entering Duntroon even in the school cadets, so I had no prior knowledge of how to use any firearm let alone an SLR semi-automatic machine gun, which was in 1987 the Australian Army’s standard issue weapon.

In my experience as with all the other basic infantry training at Duntroon, the SLR training was rushed and superficial. There was no one-on-one training. So I simply did not know how to use it properly, and the mistake I made was to empty the chamber before removing the magazine, so leaving a round in the chamber before test firing to check the chamber was clear. This applied whether it was on the rifle target range with live ammunition or in field exercises with black ammunition. So I copped two penalties simply because of my inadequate training on the SLR.

As a 3rd Class cadet I was also received practical training on the M16 to an even lesser extent. Other weapons were only taught by way of theory introduction in indoor lecture theatres, or observing others fire them in the field – like “look what this M60 can do to this section of concrete!” Very little time was allocated to such training. In my view it was all rather superficial, rushed and so quite ‘check-a-box’ token.

First Aid Training was Abysmal

Army first aid training at Duntroon was even worse. Prior to Duntroon, I had served as a volunteer in Surf Life Saving clubs along Victorian surf coast at Torquay and Fairhaven on and off since my school days for about six years. During that period I had acquired and renewed a number of first aid certificates as well as acquiring an Advanced Resuscitation Certificate using oxygen for application on surf patrols.

So my knowledge of practical first aid was fairly good and perhaps better than that of most cadets at Duntroon of both junior and senior classes.

However, my experience of the theory and practical field first aid training at Duntroon which was logically intended for infantry combat application was so substandard and rushed as to be all but useless for simple injuries, let alone for saving lives in a battle context with multiple wounds from gunshot and exploding ordnance.

I recall the CPR example shown to my training group was contrary to the standard practice. The compression timing was too slow. The method was flawed with the mannequin chest not rising upon giving breaths. The triage of treating multiple patients was also contrary to standard practice, when observed fractures treated before head wounds and unconscious patients.

This first aid training went for only a few sessions and I recall was in March some time. It was about this time that I had really started doubting the training standards of Duntroon.

Vague Map Reading Test

I point out that my first map reading test was not completed because I was fastidious on accuracy and was not aware of the 30 minute time limit. I found the map referencing questions to be vague (like 100 metres out from the subject reference. I was another aspect of the training poor standards that I had experienced. I had got all the questions correct but had not finished. When I did the second test I passed well, since by then I had realised the referencing to only be approximate.

I won the orienteering race with Staff Cadet Knight.

Collectively these training inadequacies formed my impression that I could not trust Army standards to keep me alive in combat. Since I was to graduate into the Army Aviation Corps to be trained to fly Blackhawk helicopters, my faith in Army training was lost. I had only joined the Army to fly helicopters to get my commercial helicopter flying career off the ground.

Mistreatment by Non Commissioned Officers

The attitude of the trainers (NCO’s, officers and senior cadets) was confrontational and belligerent.

I recall on two occasions being mistreated by non-commissioned officers in training. Once was when I was ordered to put a heavy radio on my back (weighing 10kg) as well as my infantry pack on my front (weighing a similar 10kg) and then run up an embankment. It put an enormous train on my lungs and heart rate.

On another occasion, whilst in on training exercises, I momentarily fell asleep due to the sleep deprivation regime, and Sergeant Hogan ran up to me and shook me violently.

Another time while diving to ground while under enemy fire (blanks), I landed within a few metres of a deadly Brown Snake, so slowly retreated stood up and refused to play the game for ten minutes or so.

Victimisation by 21 Penalty Show Parades

I recall Staff Cadet Knight and myself respectively had a score of boots and greens presentation ‘show parade’ penalties stacked against us – basically as punishment for not being up to scratch on substandard uniform presentation – for unrelated reasons. A show parade was in addition to the daily routine inspection parades.

By early May, I had amassed 21 penalty show parades for mainly kit presentation. A show parade was an additional uniform inspection parade timed before the formal parade in which the staff cadet had to wear a different uniform and so be burdened with two uniform inspections in the morning instead of just one. The reasons that I was penalised were minor infringements such as rifle not clean enough, a shirt crease in the wrong place across the back, and other petty imperfections. But I took these on the chin like many others did and did not complain. I was well disciplined, did not talk back to senior cadets when copping a dressing down. I was neither seriously bullied nor bastardised.

The only other staff cadet to have more penalty show parades than me was my Platoon Section colleague also in 3rd Class Staff Cadet Knight, who has amassed 26. Yet neither Staff Cadet Knight nor I were perturbed by these punishments and we both treated these penalties like a badge of honour, and a hurdle that we were determined to both get over.

I was at no time asked to show cause. However, the choice I made to resign came after a series of events associated with poor training standards and being betrayed by my mentor, a training captain from another Duntroon company. Each staff cadet was assigned a mentor (an officer, a senior cadet or an NCO) to be a sounding board for queries and concerns. Such discussions were supposed to be strictly confidential. However, I recall two episodes in which this trust was breached by my mentor. During my exit interview I made special mention of this. I also made special mention of specific examples of poor infantry skills training.

Over-Emphasis on Uniform Presentation to Distraction

My recollection of most of my time at Duntroon was spending countless hours on uniform presentation. After the five months I was more qualified to starch and iron greens amounted to polish boots than to fire a rifle. I could iron a shirt faster than my mother.

Cadets so tired from polishing boots and brass and ironing uniforms into the wee hours, were falling asleep in training lectures unable to concentrate. The punishment was to have anyone falling asleep in lectures to stand up the back, as that made any difference, and as if that fixed the cause of the problem.

I vividly recall on one occasion in the Kokoda recreation room (cadet common room) the commanding officer asking if any cadet present at a meeting had any issues they wished to raise in front of the assembled company. I raised my hand and highlighted the problem of cadets feeling compelled to stay up late after midnight every night to prepare their uniform for the following morning parade inspections. From that moment, all cadets in Kokoda Company were required to retire and lights out by midnight, so I made one positive impact.

Duntroon’s Drinking Culture Not Befitting of a Military Leader

Although alcohol was prohibited in the cadet barracks, an encouraged culture of afterhours heavy drinking of alcohol was encouraged by senior cadets to the point of inebriation. The Duntroon senior brass administration turned a blind eye.

There was a officers’ bar on the Duntroon campus which was only used on formal occasions before heading into the Cadet Mess for dinner. Also ADFA had an open bar on the adjacent hill, opoen an night afterhours.

Drunken juvenile ‘boat races’ were enforced by senior cadets led by Kokoda CUO Mongo Reed, in the beer garden at the Kingston Hotel ‘Kingo’ in the nearby Canberran suburb of Griffith, a 4km drive away from Duntroon. This entailed two rows of a dozen or so staff cadets sitting on the ground closely behind one another all with a full schooner of beer in the hands. The two rows would then race one another to skol the beers starting with the front to of each row. The first row to skol the quickest won.

Also cadets would later frequent nearby Private Bin Nightclub (‘The Bin’) situated a convenient 3km from Duntroon on busy London Circuit in Civic and notoriously frequented by staff cadets, soldiers and rugby players during the 1980s and 1990s. Not uncommon for cadets to engage in long night drinking sessions on Fridays and Saturdays. The venue has since been renamed Mooseheads Pub and Nightclub and remains popular with the same type of rowdy crowds. Since then in March 2006 there was an alcohol-fuelled brawl out the front of the nightclub involving an estimated 800 patrons and rugby supporters. Another infamous brawl occurred by drunken revellers in January 2017.

Duntroon’s Culture of Mistrust was Perverse

I recall that one of the key reinforced principles of the training was that cadets must never Jack on one’s mates’ which included other 3rd Class cadets and any colleague assigned to one’s training activity. This was designed to instil comradeship, trust and interdependence within the Corps. Conversely, jacking on one’s mates meant to be a turncoat and to side with authority rather than fellow cadets.

In my experience, in reality this was hypocritical since senior cadets spent a great deal of their time in barracks harassing junior cadets and took relish in any opportunity to get 3rd Class cadets especially into trouble by dobbing them in for any mistake or misdemeanour not matter how petty or indeed contrived.

For instance, I had deliberately set aside immaculately presented set of greens which I had not ever worn since being issued with them. I kept these hanging in my bedroom wardrobe so that they would always pass inspection. I confided this trick with a 2nd Class cadet, who subsequently dobbed me in to a 1st Class cadet who was doing an inspection. I was then ordered to change into these immaculate set of greens.

In my Duntroon experience, officer staff could not be trusted. The officer class and NCO class seemed to be in cahoots with each other. This is because often information about what occurred on one exercise would somehow filter back to some a central record and become known to other Duntroon training staff and misused to intimidate staff cadets on another training session or as part of a disciplinary process.

Each cadet was formally assigned a mentor for guidance and to confide in. In my case, Captain Ian Goss, a guidance officer at Duntroon was my assigned mentor, however he betrayed me to other officers about some off the cuff criticism I had raised with him in confidence. Thereafter I no longer trusted or confided in Captain Goss anything, telling him that everything was just fine.
The general consensus amongst the 3rd Class cadets I missed with in both Kokoda and other companies was that the only ones trustworthy were 3rd Class cadets. Trust at Duntroon was better alignment between staff cadets of the same Class across companies than within Kokoda company between the 3rd, 2nd and 1st classes.

The perpetuating bullying culture by senior cadets undermined any trust junior cadets might have initially had within Kokoda Company. Senior cadets were effectively the enemy of junior cadets. A cyclical tribal mentality premised that: ‘They bullied me when I was junior 3rd Class, now as a senior class (2nd and 1st) it’s my deserved turn to do it to you freshmen 3rd Classes’. Indeed, there are records of this abuse and sadistic attitude prevailing in Duntroon’s original first intake in 1913 and repeated throughout its history.

I recall that I was ‘jacked on’ (betrayed) on two particular occasions by Duntroon’s assigned mentor to me, a guidance officer for cadets, one Captain Ian Goss. Each cadet had an assigned mentor that they could seek advice from and confide in, supposedly. According to my private notes, this betrayal occurred in March 1987 and came on top of Duntroon’s perpetual daily obsessive overemphasis on cadet uniform presentation, marching perfection on the parade ground. It was also compounded by the ongoing bullying and psychological abusive that I and other 3rd Class cadets copped from Kokoda senior cadets, many of whom I had by this time lost any respect for, particularly CUO Mongo Reed, Thorp, and Everingham and Hamburger.

9. My Resignation from Duntroon

For the reader, it may not come as a surprise that after just three months training at Duntroon that I was steadily losing respect for not just the training focus and poor standards, but for the Duntroon training staff – the officers, NCO’s, the senior cadets.

I began questioning the very essence of whether this Duntroon basic infantry course was worth enduring just to go on and hopefully pilot military helicopters. By extension I was questioning whether the Army was for me with Duntroon being anything to go by.

It certainly was not the noble army that my father had proudly served in as an officer with the Citizens Military Forces and told stories about. It was more an indoctrinating boarding school that valued bullying behaviour over the promised ideals of teambuilding, professional training and leadership.

The place has gloss but it was not prestigious. By the time April 1987 had arrived, after about ten weeks, many 3rd Class staff cadets across the Corps had either resigned or gone AWOL (and so summarily dismissed) due to bullying and/or becoming disenchanted with the training culture.

The demeanour of those who remained had either gained the favour of senior cadets, had taken their dose of bullying, had brown nosed senior cadets, or were just hanging in there.

It was a sad place. It had become the antithesis of the ‘officer and a gentleman inspiration’, of professional earned leadership, of motivation and hope.

For me, this place went against my morals in many respects – senior cadets’ disrespect for junior cadets, ludicrous emphasis on petty matters like tiny uniform blemishes, physical and psychological abuse being condoned as a Duntroon subculture, and the censorship of any criticism.

This realisation often in my bed at nights, eventually dawned on me that it was time to bite the ego bullet and resign. I could not trust the place to deliver on its promises, such as my aviation cadetship if I prevailed through the following Class stages over the following 12 months odd. I could not condone the bastardisation, bullying and intimidation that underpinned the psychological indoctrinating infantry training. I was no bully, and if I was to progress to 2nd Class and 1st Class and be required to then bully juniors myself, well I wouldn’t do it. I knew this was my limit. I would say no and disobey the order.

That would be the end of my time at Duntroon. It was the time of many virtuous cadets I witnesses at Duntroon – to the Army’s loss I might add.

I just joined Duntroon as a pathway to fly helicopters. Helicopters used to be part of the RAAF, which is logically where the pilot training and professional aviation culture naturally resides, not under an irrelevant Army infantry grunt culture that insists ADF helicopter pilots first be subjected to infantry basic training and certainly not under a Dickensian bullying grunt recruitment filter.

What intelligent pilot would choose to subject his/herself to such unnecessary boot camp crap? In 1987 despite being 22, I must have still been naïve and too immature to realise and to still believe Duntroon’s legacy of recruit bastardisation had gone and to starry eyed believed the Defence Recruitment shiny propaganda about Duntroon being a college for natural leaders to become an Officer and a Gentleman.

Now no, I was outa there, like watching the revelation end scene of The Wizard of Oz. All I needed to now do was to exercise my right from enlistment as an officer staff cadet, to resign with dignity ASAP.

In late April 1987, I approached the Officer Commanding Kokoda Company Major Todd Vercoe in person while he was in the Kokoda accommodation black and explained that I had decided to discontinue my training and to resign from Duntroon and the Army.

The reaction I received was to hang in there because the first six months of 3rd Class was nearly over and I would be elevated into 2nd Class from July 1987. He encouraged me to continue my training. I was not told how well or how poorly my training records were, but there was no indication that I was due to show cause or be dismissed. My understanding was that I was doing reasonably well on the books, but had made some mistakes and had to repeat a few tests such as the map reading test.

My experience of the poor training continued, less so bullying by the senior cadets. They were picking on others more like my Section colleague Staff Cadet Knight.

However, I had become disillusioned by the poor training, the over-emphasis on uniform presentation, the 21 penalty show parades that had been applied to me for petty flaws.

I was also concerned about the hinted prospect that if I did not meet a top training standard the Army was going to cancel my aviation cadetship and instead allocate me into the Infantry Corps upon graduation and just over 12 months’ time. I had no interest in any other role in the Army than flying helicopters, but I couldn’t tell them that because I was supposed to be Army first then and Officer second and a Pilot third. It was a dumb inverse priority in my book.

I approached the Officer Commanding Kokoda Company Major Todd Vercoe verbally on a second occasion in the last week of April, and then again in the first week of May requesting that I be allowed to resign. He told me that the administrative process would take time.

Another three 3rd Class cadets that I had befriended had just resigned, one deciding to instead join the police force. My colleague Staff Cadet Knight was increasingly getting into trouble for minor misdemeanours and the other 3rd Class staff cadet Chris Whitting had somehow managed to obtain off campus accommodation to be with his wife. There was an ongoing stream it seemed of 3rd Class cadets from various companies and the place was becoming rather empty of cadets I could trust – 3rd Class cadets. I was and was feeling somewhat lost in direction and depressed about my prospects to continue to tolerate the poor and rushed infantry training that I had no interest in anyway and of the Army’s ludicrous finicky overemphasis on polishing boots, ironing uniforms.

My Decision to Go a week’s AWOL as an Ultimatum to Duntroon

My 23rd birthday was approaching being 10th May 1987 and on the weekend after returning from a field exercise while back at barracks, I decided to leave on my own accord temporarily in order to bring my resignation to a certainty sooner than later. I was fed up with the stalling by the Kokoda commanding officer.

On the afternoon of Saturday 9th May I phoned and booked an interstate Greyoundl bus from Canberra to Brisbane return, under a pseudonym.

On the Sunday afternoon, I penned my resignation letter to Major Vercoe which I toned in disappointment, frustration, and ultimatum. In it I explained that I had requested to resign multiple times because I had lost faith in the training standards and focus of Duntroon and in its pathetic culture and poor leadership. I protested that had been denied the right to resign because of supposed delays in processing administration. I also stated in my letter that I was leaving on my own accord, and that I would return in exactly seven days to formally resign, which should give the Duntroon administration sufficient time “to get its act together”. I dated the letter Sunday 10th May 1987 and signed it and upon my departure, left it on my bed for someone to find the following morning soon after Reveille. I even made my bed with hospital corners, but turned my socks in my sock drawer to show upright happy folds – former Duntroon cadets will know what I mean.

I told no-one that I was leaving because I did not want anyone else to get into trouble on my behalf. I packed an overnight bag, changed into civilian attire and phoned for a taxi under a second pseudonym to collect me from the nearby NE rear entrance to Duntroon on the corner of General Bridges Drive and Northcott Drive.

Just before sunset on that Sunday evening it was quiet with few around. I closed my bedroom door in Kokoda Campany and I exited my bedroom window (being on the ground floor) to avoid being caught in the hallway, then walked northward to the rear entrance of the barracks to await my taxi.

I happened to pass by two senior staff cadets from another company walking the opposite direction back up towards the barracks and I gave an excuse of something like I had to see my mother in hospital, which fortunately drew no special attention. Apparently, later the two got into trouble when they confessed to having seen me walk towards the rear exit in civvies. This just further disappointed me in Duntroon’s accusatorial mentality.

When my taxi turned up I instantly realised that I was now committed to my actions that would be irreversible. I had already made my decision, so without hesitation I hopped in and was instantly free and free spirited. I then successfully caught the bus that night from Canberra to Brisbane, not home to Melbourne where I knew they would be looking for me. I even alighted the bus at a stop in Brisbane before the main terminus just in case the Army had been clever and despatched MPs to track me down in Brisbane.

The Army was not so clever. I disembarked the bus at Ipswich on the Monday afternoon as a respected civilian restored. No Army MPs were around to greet me in Ipswich. I was anonymous, and so took the train into Brisbane.

The Greyhound staff had treated me the best I had experienced in four months – politely and civilly. I was still me and despite the Army’s four months of attempted brainwashing, I was still compos mentis and free thinking.

I recall that once the bus had left Canberra metro lights and was at speed on the country highway, I had escaped. I then overnight while ‘woop woop’ and nowhere to be found, I had time to ponder Kokoda’s Reveille the next day and the incensed reaction by command learning of ‘my dummy spit, up yours, and be back next Sunday’ note. I must have been smiling in my sleep on that bus.

I had gone AWOL officially – Absent Without Leave. But at Duntroon one could readily be charged with daring to look sideways at a precious senior cadet. I had completely lost faith in the whole Army thing. I was happy and free and I was 23 and over silly Duntroon and the Army. No more bloody show parades or polishing boots!

I stayed in a backpackers in inner suburban Spring Hill booking a week’s accommodation. I met a Scottish girl there on travelling holiday in Australis, Jean Dalziel from Ayrshire. We got on and I confessed to her that I was AWOL from Australia’s Royal Military College (equivalent to Sandhurst in the UK) which she found rather fascinating and amusing. It was a pleasant civil distraction for me after my Army internment and I happily slept in, bludged and drank cold beer.

During that week I bussed again all the way down to Melbourne on a booked return ticket again under a false name, to explain my Duntroon decision and action to my parents just so that they knew what was happening and that I was ok.

It was because I did not trust the Army to tell them the truth. So I turned up at home in Balwyn unannounced and my mother was the only one there. I spoke briefly to her for about twenty minutes, explaining that Duntroon was crap, that I had become completely disillusioned with the poor standard of training and that I had tried to resign but they were stuffing me around. I mentioned my resignation letter that I had left on my Duntroon bed and promised that I had every intention was to return briefly to formally resign, and to tell Dad (who was at work).

I did not say that I was staying in Brisbane.

Then our home phone rang and Mum answered it, and I realised it was the Army on the other end, so I walked out immediately while mum was on the phone, and deliberately disappeared. Instead of taking the nearby tram, I walked to the Mont Albert train station and caught the train back into Melbourne to the interstate bus depot. But I alighted at Richmond just in case, then I made my way back to Spencer Street (the interstate bus terminal) and that night caught my booked bus back to Brisbane and Spring Hill and to Jean at the backpackers.

No one knew I was hiding out in Brisbane to chill and wait. (Jean and I would late catch up again in Melbourne).

Whilst home briefly in Balwyn, I did not say where I was staying. Mum had no idea that I was bunking up in Brisbane in the interim.

Subsequently, my mother later told me that yes that call was from the Army looking for me. She has since confirmed with me that the Army asked her if I was there. Mum said no, but that I had been but had since left, but that she did not know where I was.

That was completely correct. I just took off to make sure the Army would not capture me, so that I could honourably return to Duntroon on my own promised terms, not on their terms, like so many other escaped AWOL cadets had been since I had enrolled. I guess I wanted to set an example to the cadets back at Duntroon as to how to AWOL without being brought back on one’s ear and to then resign honourably on a cadet’s own terms.

A few days later after RnR in Spring Hill with Jean, beers and descent time to savour good food, I travelled by bus from Brisbane to Canberra arriving on the Sunday under a third pseudonym.

From the bus terminal in Canberra, I ordered a taxi to Duntroon’s front gate then walked up to the gatehouse, explained who I was and that I was back to formally resign and to contact Major Vercoe of Kokoda Company and the Commandant.

I was then accompanied to an administration building for a quick interview and then ordered to return to my bedroom and to stay there, which is what I did.

I was always going to do the honourable thing and return to Duntroon when I said I would in my resignation letter; to also formally resign from Duntroon and then go through the process of securing an honourable discharge from the Army.

I was honourable, but my treatment at Duntroon had not been honourable or respectful, so my AWOL ‘up yours’ action was my way of showing mutual contempt. I did on my terms showing how things should be done properly. They did not catch me AWOL. I left on my terms and return on my terms.

I had chosen to return to Duntroon on a Sunday out of hours when it was quiet so that I would not draw attention to myself and to save mutual embarrassment of others seeing me return and walk back to Kokoda Company.

Upon my return, I was mostly ignored by the other cadets and treated persona non grata as if I had betrayed them. But the depth of friendship that I thought I had with fellow staff cadets up until I went AWOL, was revealed as being quite shallow and more a convenience while under the training regime. I never contacted or was contacted by anyone at Duntroon once I left. I realised upon my brief return to Duntroon that the Army Brass’s attempt to instil a mateship bond between cadets was artificial, imposed and a pretence – just like falling out parade would show a semblance of professional close-knit companies of junior officers, but be a fake charade hiding mistrust in authority.

Back at Kokoda Company few cadets approached me or spoke to me. Pog (Anthony?) Heath did to his credit but he was probably the truest, most respected and most natural leader I had met in the whole of Duntroon. A 2nd Class cadet in my Section also chatted with me about what I would do outside the Army and I recall speaking about me getting my commercial helicopter pilot license and of my entrepreneurial business ideas.

I also recall Staff Cadet Knight did come up to me as well and we spoke a little about where I had been, that others had also gone AWOL and of what my intentions were. I told Staff Cadet Knight that I had lost trust and faith in Duntroon and that I was resigning from the Army for good, and would get my helicopter license privately at my own cost, somehow.

I recall on that Sunday afternoon being permitted to have a meal at the Officers Mess. It was just after scheduled lunch and in the big hall I was one of just a few on one of the long tables seated by myself. I didn’t recognise the few others in the hall. It was as if I was suddenly an outsider. I was in still in my civvies. The food was just great and this was the first time that I had been allowed time to select what I wanted from the buffet and sit down and eat in a civil manner without disturbance or arbitrary time pressures or crap rules about how to eat.

It was my last supper at Duntroon, happily. I went up and simply thanked the kitchen crew “always fantastic food guys” before I then walked casually back to my quarters in Kokoda. It was Sunday, I was out of uniform and I did not have to march. Not many people were around anyway. It was as if the boarding school was empty due to school holidays. I felt very calm, satisfied, and innately triumphant.

My Exit Interview at Duntroon

I recall that my exit interview at Duntroon was arranged for the following morning, the Monday and the start of another new week, but minus the silly routine and the training.

My AWOL had worked. My amassed 21 penalty show parades had been rescinded. I slept in past the 6:15am Reveille with my bedroom door remaining closed (probably on orders).

Clearly getting a reinforced sense of being persona non grata (other cadets obviously ordered not to talk to me). My ongoing training had clearly been cancelled – all that paperwork by the trainers now a waste. My Duntroon status was clearly now as a pending ex-cadet, like an ex-parrot. I was past caring about compliance. I noticed that I was persona non grata in Kokoda – just goes to show the false depth of so-called ‘mateship’. I never had anyone contact me again from that place – except Julian.

I was a pending civilian about to be prepped for expulsion. It was scheduled at a civilised time mid-morning when all other cadets would be in lectures; I guess to avoid embarrassment – not mine, but the Duntroon command for losing another one of their hopefuls.

I was ordered to report to the Commandant’s administrative building in full parade uniform. Upon arrival respectfully as ordered, I marched into the building before what compared with a seated panel of Army brass somewhat reminiscent of the original Selection Board. It was like a court, a colonial style building with timber panelled walls and harked to another era like a court room.

I observed upon arrival that the interview was me against the Duntroon Brass, so not a session for openness but consistently one-sided against me as if I was on a small wooden chair under a spot light of interrogation like in the 1960s British spy television series ‘Callan’.

I quickly ascertained that the interview was not intended to be illuminating of facts, flaws or evaluation, but rather only a session for the Army’s benefit documenting evidence against me for its permanent record. I observed being recorded by a male typist in Army uniform up the back.

No transcript of my exit interview has ever been provided to me by the Army. May be I should do an FOI for my record?

Clearly such documented transcript was just more intimidation and would become a legal document for exclusive use by the Army to prosecute me, should ever I become a protagonist post-Army.
All I can say is that in Australia the Army is a servant to Australians, not some communist dictatorship, so go where your cultural allegiances lie!

My exit interview was chaired by no less than the Duntroon Commandant Major General Murray Blake, whom I recognised had been on the Selection Board in my application interview. Also in attendance were I think Duntroon’s Commanding Officer Lieutenant-Colonel David Kibbey, and Officer Commanding Kokoda Company Major Todd Vercoe and a few others whom I recognised but could not put a name to.

General Blake explained his disappointment in me, both my decision to resign from the Army but also of my “illegal” action in going AWOL and letting down my fellow staff cadets. He said that he personally recalled during my selection that I showed real promise of becoming an Army officer and questioned why my motivation had changed. Well I wonder!

Major Todd Vercoe also explained that my application to resign was due to come through the Monday after I had gone AWOL, so if had chosen to wait just another day, AWOL could have been avoided and so my honourable reputation remained intact.

I replied stating that at the time I felt that despite my repeated requests to resign from Duntroon being ignored with what I considered to be delaying excuse, that my best option to show that I was serious was to have done what I did, and that as a result it has worked in speeding up the process.

My disillusionment and resolve to resign must have been obvious from my attitude and manner during this exit interview, which clearly did not go down well with Blake, but I was past caring.

General Blake commented that my decision to resign meant that I had wasted a lot of taxpayers’ money because it cost a million dollars to put each cadet through Duntroon. I did not know how to respond to that criticism at the time, but on reflection any money expended by the Army on me was taxpayers’ money, not the Army’s money nor General Blake’s money, so care factor.

Had Duntroon treated me with due respect as an accepted officer cadet and provided first rate professional officer training, and not have been subjected to an antiquated culture of bullying – well then probably I would have thrived at the training challenge, and so not have become disillusioned and so not have gone AWOL. The Army would then have got its money’s worth out of me.

I recall responding to Commandant General Blake’s questions about why I had chosen to resign. I summarise my reasons as being due to:

Duntroon’s rushed, superficial and poor training standards in key infantry skills;
The character of the senior cadets who were less like intelligent and respected officers and gentlemen but more like juvenile school boy bullies;
The pathetic focus more polish boots, iron greens more than learning how to shoot an SLR properly and learn about combat skills;
The bad attitude of senior cadets who I said most 3rd Class regarded them more as the enemy instead of supporting seniors worthy of respect and bad leadership;
The betrayal of confident by my assigned mentor Captain Goss, who was an example of breaching Duntroon’s highest lore not to jack on your mates;
My consequential loss of faith and trust in Duntroon in its perverse training priorities and failure to prepare me to be effective and survive real combat.

I vividly recall that my comments were all being recorded by the typist up the back on my left. I vividly recall this because getting into Duntroon had been a career dream of mine since while at Camberwell Grammar School I joined the Army Cadets in 1979 at age 14, eight years prior.

I think one of the last quips from Blake leading the panel went something like “don’t ever think of re-applying Ridd”. [Nuh, new life awaits]

Then I was told to hand in all my uniform and kit immediately to the Duntroon Q-Store, allowed to wear whatever uniform I chose to walk out and that I would be required to leave the barracks that day to return home under my own steam.

Blake confirmed that he would see that I would be honourably discharged from the Army and outlined the Army’s administrative process would take probably many weeks (likely due to the backlog) and that I was required to remain at home in Melbourne until the discharge came through, otherwise the Army would give me a dishonourable discharge which would be a slight on any career hopes I would have outside the Army.

Commandant General Blake then ordered me dismissed and to stand to attention to the panel and to salute. “Do it right Ridd”. I did and then marched out left and back to my Kokoda quarters to pack up, return my kit and leave. I chose my greens as the uniform to depart in since I felt this to be the most useful to me when going bushwalking and camping.

I completed all the required exit tasks and left Duntroon by the Duntroon minibus through the front gates that afternoon and was dropped off at the Greyhound bus depot in Canberra. It was Monday 18th May 1987 and that was it for me for my Army career – a short chapter of my life I referred to as just a camp.

I caught a booked Greyhound bus that evening back home to my parents in Melbourne overnight under my real name. It arrived next day at Spencer Street. I walked up to Collins Street and caugh the tram to the terminus at Mont Albert Road Balwyn.

I expected to be treated as a disappointment by various family members for not sticking it out, and I was. I recall particularly my uncle Peter who had married my maternal Aunty Pat, almost disowned me. He never sought to sit down with me to allow me to explain. I didn’t really get along with him after that.

I recall that the Army’s honourable discharge letter to me took seven weeks to arrive in mid-July.

Putting the Duntroon experience behind me, my focus was to move on and concentrate on a period of renewal and learning in a completely different industry. I made no contact with anyone from Duntroon in the seven week period after I departed and received my final letter of an HONOURABLE discharge. In fact I had not made contact with anyone in the Army until some 25 years later in 2012 after I decided to finally post a blog summary of my account of my Duntroon experience with Julian Knight. I was soon contacted by a solicitor and former Army officer Mary-Ann Martinek. I replied to her and we chatted at length on the phone.

10. My Shock Learning of the Hoddle Street Shooting Rampage

In the weeks following my return home to Melbourne, unfairly I felt I remained still under the dictatorial thumb of the all-powerful Army, ordering me into home detention to await the Army admin’s letter to approve me being honourably discharged from the Army and so permitting me to get on with my post-Army life.

I viewed this as an extension of Duntroon’s coercive controlling regime outstretching its intimidating power and influence beyond its Canberra barracks to continue to use its governmental resources to monitor discreditable cadets anywhere in Australia or beyond.

But now well over the Duntroon pathetic camp episode, I positively focused myself on a completely new career direction. Having post school in 1983 spent a sabbatical six months solo backpacking up the coast of Queensland to Cairns and beyond and recalling fond memories, I decided to get away again, away from staid Melbourne and its depressing overcast weather and return to sunny happy northern Queensland.

This time it would not be a backpacking sabbatical, but a quest to now work toward achieving a new goal – my commercial coxswains ticket, starting with undertaking all the relevant theory and practical training, acquiring a years’ sea-time via extraverted networking and so allowing me free headspace to allow me time to reflect, mentally move on and to reset.

So once the Army’s honourable discharge letter arrived freeing me up, I took another bus back to Brisbane and began a new career training chapter. I caught up with Jean again. Cutting a long story short, having studied and passed a series of maritime qualifications to become a coxswain, in August 1987 I was back in Townsville in Far North Queensland a free spirit seeking out sea-time on coastal vessels for my coxswain logbook.

After I left in May 1987 and ultimately resigned from the Army in disgust in July 1987, I recall the next month in the national newspapers, Julian Knight was on the front page.
On the morning of 10th August 1987 while walking down Flinders Street mall in the Townsville CBD I happened to pass by a newsagent and on the footpath outside was a newsstand that had a photo on the front page of the newspaper whom I clearly recognised as being Staff Cadet Knight.

I instantly was shocked and thought: What?

I read the bold headline about some mass shooting and went in and bought the paper and read the news about Knight’s involvement in a mass shooting in Hoddle Street in Clifton Hill back in my home town of Melbourne.

Having sat down outside and read the news report in the mall, I could not fathom why Julian would do such a thing? Civilians? In Melbourne? The police had caught him. There seemed to have been no-one else involved and there didn’t appear to be any questions about Knight not being the only shooter or of others out to get him and him defending himself.

What had happened to him at Duntroon in the months May, June, July 1987 after I left? When had he left Duntroon and under what situation or was he on leave?

What had driven him so such an unprovoked murderous rampage at night shooting random passers by. I surmised at the time that he must have been psychotic, inebriated, depressed and hateful against the world. If he had shot up Kokoda seniors and the establishment perhaps I could see a correlation between the sadistic brutal bullying he repeatedly copped and some violent revenge. I guess in hindsight, such a calculated attack would have been more justifiable, not excusable, but more justifiable. Shooting up the bastards that persecuted him beyond distraction would have exposed Duntroon’s abuse culture for what it was and possibly succeeded in shutting the place down.

He had become the Hoddle Street mass murderer. The shootings resulted in the deaths of seven people, and serious injury to 19 others.

What had happened in the months May, June, July 1987 had obviously got worse for Julian, but I was not there. In some ways I had been his only true support but I should have done more. I had once spoken up in front of the entire complement of Kokoda Company after the CO had tokenly asked if any staff cadet had any concerns. It was dead silent, with everyone playing the obedient wall flower. But I spoke up. I complained to the CO in front of them all that in daytime theory classes many cadets were falling asleep because of the late night spit polishing and I asked what is the point? I got ostracised after that one. But it was the sought of standing up against the bastards that Julian and I celebrated.

Media reports tell of how he was expelled after a bar brawl in which he stabbed his key tormentor – the third term head cadet sergeant of Kokoda Company. At the time, I expected the media to be pursuing me for a story, since I automatically connected the massacre with his Duntroon persecution. But no-one ever contacted me. No-one ever connected his actions with his Duntroon torment. It has taken me 25 years to be public about this.

I was not then aware of the intervening backstory at Duntroon following me being formally dismissed by Commandant Blake on that Monday 18th May 1987. I had said my goodbye and best wishes to Staff Cadet Knight at the time.

But then from the mass media coverage of the Hoddle Street shootings I read about Knight’s subsequent stabbing incident at some Canberra nightclub against Kokoda head bully Mongo Reed on Sunday 30th May 1987 and of Knight’s departure from Duntroon. It had been just two weeks after I had last seen him in the Kokoda accommodation block.
Bewildered in the Townsville mall, I tried to comprehend this shocking incident and associate it with my trusting 3rd Class buddy.

My next thought was that because I knew I was possibly the closest colleague to Staff Cadet Knight at Duntroon and just a few months prior, that the Army (Duntroon authorities) would be well aware of this. I expected the Army to seek me out but I was well away from Melbourne up in Townsville wandering around trying to get my sea-time of coastal boats with a new career focus. I was officially out of the Army, honourably discharged about a month, and I was in a positive head space off in a new direction.

But it got worse. I later learned from my mother that the Army had phoned the family home not long after the Hoddle Street shootings to warn and threatened her and me that if any of our family went to the media about this and tried to link Duntroon in any way to these shootings, that no one in our family would ever be able to be in public life, the public service or to have a passport and travel overseas, etc.

In hindsight the caller was presumably Duntroon Commandant Blake or one of his henchmen. The threat was coming from the unwieldy power of the Army and the message was unequivocal. My mother took it very seriously. It was intimidating and consistent with Duntroon coercive and bullying culture. I didn’t learn about this phone call until my mother told me after I had returned home to Melbourne from up north about a year later.

But the Army’s threat was certainly effective in silencing me and my family from speaking out for decades. I am speaking out now.

At the time in Townsville after just learning about the Hoddle Street shootings, I also expected investigative media to research and find out about me and my close training association with Knight while we were both at Duntroon, and so want to interview me and go public.

But that never happened. The Army’s silencing shutdown of cadets and the media must have been absolute.
In some ways I had been his only true support but I should have done more. I had once spoken up in front of the entire complement of Kokoda Company after Company Commanding Officer had asked if any staff cadet had any concerns.

It was dead silent, with everyone playing the obedient wall flower. But I spoke up. I complained to the CO in front of them all that in daytime theory classes many cadets were falling asleep because of the late night spit polishing and I asked what is the point? I was consequently ostracised after that one. But it was the sought of standing up against the bastards that Staff Cadet Knight and I celebrated.

I later learned that Staff Cadet Knight soon after I resigned from Duntroon on May 18 had sought to similarly consider resigning from Duntroon and to apply to re-join his previous squadron in the Australian Army Reserves. This would have been a sound fall-back for Knight to reinstate his NCO career still in the Australian Army but instead in the real world.

11. My Conclusions about Duntroon and Staff Cadet Julian Knight

Duntroon Failed to Properly Train Army Leaders

I had considered that getting into Duntroon would be something special, but it was anything but. The military training was substandard, rushed and skewed toward uniform presentation and marching practice than infantry training let alone officer training.

From day one, I was disappointed in the poor attitude of officers, NCOs and senior cadets and of the disrespect shown tow junior staff cadets. After just a few months, I had taken a view that the place was a sad joke and that I would not gain any benefit from continuing to remain there.

I make no judgment about Julian. Each of us is capable of killing, killing animals, killing another human being. Rifles are very efficient at killing. That is what they are made for, to make the task easy. Armies exist to train those interested to kill. Duntroon is one such training establishment. The psychological tests to gain entry ask if one is prepared to kill and if one says no, then one is rejected as unsuitable.

Controlled, just killing is sanctioned by governments in their armies and governments represent the will of their societies.

What happens when a keen, capable soldier is abused by the Army, when this abuse involves repeatedly consistent ridicule, torment, intimidation and psychological torture? Well, like the reinforced intense training of a soldier to kill makes for a good solider, the reinforced intense abuse of a soldier to kill makes for a bad soldier. When frustration boils over into extreme anger mixed with depression and presented with an opportunity to get pay back (easy access to weapons), do you get 9th August 1987?

I do make a judgment about Duntroon. Incessant bullying of Julian was a key contributing factor that led to the Hoddle Street massacre.

I regret not having come forward before. What happened on Hoddle Street in August 1987 could have been avoided if Duntroon had not been a cultural incubator of bully boys in its officer training. I hold Duntroon culpable for the psychological state that it created in Julian. I only know Julian from my time with him doing basic training. He was someone you could trust in battle when the shit hit the fan. That attribute was never respected by the Duntroon establishment. They just kept picking on him and putting him down.

The place is a depraved throwback to the 19th Century. Duntroon breeds old school bully boys not deserving of officer status. It would be an excellent outsourced training ground for the Syrian Army. Is that what standard Australians expect of its Army leadership?

Duntroon’s institutionalised culture coercive weeding out junior cadets

In my experience in just over four months as a junior staff cadet at Duntroon, whilst I observed no sexual bastardisation that had been reported in the media in previous years, certainly the physical and psychological abuse had perpetuated. It was routinely dished out by senior cadets to junior cadets as a method of weeding out anyone that was deemed to not befit the bullying culture.

The abuse morally descended indeed to what could be characterised as forms of bastardisation, and Duntroon management was well aware of it and yet turned a blind eye.
Duntroon’s bullying culture only served to fuel resentment and mistrust between junior and senior cadets of the same company. Trust was better aligned with same class across companies than within Kokoda Company between classes.

The place is a depraved throw-back to the 19th Century. Duntroon breeds old school bully boys not deserving of officer status.

Staff Cadet Knight was a Good Soldier

I knew Julian when he was normal and we shared an Army tent and trusted and supported each other during harsh training at Duntroon that involved psychological abuse. So my knowledge of him when he was like me, approved for Army officer training and had passed the Army’s psychometric tests like me.. so better than Joe Blow normal, was that he was a trustworthy solider I could depend upon.

In my humble opinion, from my four months experience training at Duntroon closely with Staff Cadet Knight, he was a good soldier. He was fairly normal individual. He was competent in what I regarded as most of the infantry tasks assigned to him particularly on training exercises with other staff cadets in the field. He was self-motivated, enthusiastic and displayed initiative. He was good in a team and showed a degree of influence and leadership.

Staff Cadet Knight was someone I entrusted – to back me up, to be there I needed support and vice versa, and in the field during infantry battle exercises he shown no fear and could be totally relied upon.

Yes at times he was questioning of decisions made by Duntroon trainers when he regarded them as less than ideal. I questioned field decisions of the trainers as well, as was part of the training.

We were not there to blindly follow commands like in attrition warfare in the days of yore in World War I, but to be professional and effecting contemporary infantry commanders of men in combat.

Although younger than most of this peers in 3rd Class, over time with the right professional and supportive training in infantry tactics and combat leadership, Staff Cadet Knight over time would have likely made an effective platoon commander, a Lieutenant.

Duntroon’s Bullying Subculture Drove Knight to a Mad Rage of Confused Vengeance

Staff Cadets abuse at Duntroon is a grossly unstated back Story to Knight’s Hoddle Street Shootings.

It was coercive control, thuggery, and brutality at the hands of senior cadets of Kokoda Company and its institutionalised sadistic abuse that drove Staff Cadet Knight into what must have been a maddened violent outrage.

What psychotic state he was in during the short time after he had been expelled I do not know. Duntroon had turned him into something very dangerous. Iit without doubt in my view that Duntroon’s ‘Lord of the Flies’ culture of bullying – the abuse, repeatedly consistent ridicule, torment, intimidation and psychological torture at Duntroon must have been a contributing factor to lead him to do what he did at Hoddle Street.

Staff Cadet Knight had entered Duntroon only eight months prior as a keen, capable soldier worthy of promotion to an Army officer. Julian Knight was psychologically assessed for entry into Duntroon. That either means that his experience confined to barracks under the Duntroon training regime for the following seven months changed Knight into a mass murderer, else the psychologically assessment was grossly flawed in failing to detect a disturbed personality trait that could commit such a crime.

I do not support his heinous crimes, but the Army has so far got away with complicit psychological torture that drove his extreme mental state at Hoddle Street. Knight’s Court Trial has seen Duntroon, its bullies in charge and in control, and its training regime escape scot-free with any contributory culpability for the Hoddle Street shootings and the deaths of seven civilians.
I regret not having come forward sooner. What happened on Hoddle Street in August 1987 could have been avoided if Duntroon had not been a cultural incubator of bully boys in its officer training.

Kokoda Senior Cadets were culpable in driving Knight’s Mental State into Aggressive Rage

In my view those noble soldier attributes of Staff Cadet Knight were never respected by the Duntroon establishment. They instead sided with the bully culture of Mongo Reed and his biased views of having only subservient type cadets ticked through the training.

Duntroon trainers and particularly senior cadets in Kokoda Company , rather than helpfully trying to improve Knight’s focus, effectiveness and skills competence (aka doing their job), they devoted more time and effort punishing and persecuting Staff Cadet Knight for what could only be categorised as petty or contrived mistakes.

Certain identified senior cadets became key instigators and tormentors of Staff Cadet Knight particularly in the accommodation block outside official training hours. They seemed to take special delight in repeatedly harassing, abusing and punishing Knight as if some orchestrated plot to pressure him to resign.

From my observed experience whilst at Duntroon the following senior cadets and their various repeated charges warrant being laid for instigating, planning co-ordinating criminal acts of bastardisation upon fellow cadets, including serious bullying, harassment and threatening behaviour, physical abuse including assault, and workplace intimidation.

Kokoda 1st Class Cadets

CSM ‘Mongo’ (Philip) Reed
Corporal William Yates
Lance Corporal Craig Thorp
Nick Everingham
Matt Thomson
James Muntz

CSM Mongo Reed as the head staff cadet of Kokoda Company, must be held culpable for his abusive assaults on Staff Cadet Knight and for ordering the senior cadets to dish out the repeated punishment of Staff Cadet Knight.

To the following Duntroon senior cadets in whatever their current capacity today, various repeated charges warrant being laid for co-conspiring and conducting criminal acts of bastardisation upon fellow cadets including serious bullying, harassment and threatening behaviour, physical abuse including assault, and workplace intimidation.

Kokoda 2nd Class Cadets

Robert Hamburger
Dale Burnside
Ashley Colmer
Charles Shaw

It is these staff cadets who should have been up on serious misconduct and disciplinary charges, if not legal criminal charges of assault and workplace intimidation. In my judgment, each of the above listed offenders and abusers were of bully boy character unbefitting an Army officer. For their actions they should each have been summarily dismissed from Duntroon and dishonourably discharged from the Australian Army.

Duntroon’s Commandant Blake Was Ultimately Responsible for Knight’s Bastardisation

Perhaps theses senior cadets were agents doing the bidding and dirty work of the Duntroon authorities. I wouldn’t put it past Duntroon’s subculture that such bullying methods were despatched by the Duntroon authorities to selected senior cadets to execute. The place lacked ethics and transparency. It was run like a Dickensian boarding school for bully boys, that at times descended into tribal aggression like some ‘Lord of the Flies’ scenario.

The following officers and trainers at the time were the chain of command overseeing the running of Duntroon’s training and assessment, including discipline, governance and morale. They failed dismally in all respects.

Duntroon Commandant Major General Murray Blake
Commanding Officer of the Corps of Staff Cadets Lieutenant-Colonel David Kibbey
Officer Commanding Kokoda Company Major Todd Vercoe
Sergeant Kim Hogan

These were the direct authorities who were responsible for Staff Cadet’s Knights training and treatment who allowed the repeated persecution and punishing of Knight by abuse, bullying, physical and psychological abuse and bastardisation.

Duntroon Commandant Major General Murray Blake must be held ultimately responsible for the consequential psychological damage and trauma inflicted upon Staff Cadet Knight whilst enrolled at Duntroon between January and May 1987.

Similarly, in my judgment, each of the above officers in charge at Duntroon should each have been summarily dismissed from Duntroon and dishonourably discharged from the Australian Army.

Duntroon Cover-Up?

At the time of these tragic crimes and in the months and years following, no-one from the Army nor legal system nor media made any contact with me about my association with Staff Cadet Knight.

This is besides my mother receiving a phone call not long after that date from an Australian Army Officer connected to Duntroon. My mother recalls vividly that the Officer stated that if she or I went public about my association with Staff Cadet Knight and dared link Duntroon to Knight’s actions that my mother and my family would have official sanctions imposed – such as being denied a public service job in government, have passports cancelled, never be allowed to travel overseas, and the like. My mother will testify an affidavit to this effect if requested.

I was never called to be a witness, yet I was perhaps his closest ally whilst at Duntroon.

12. Postscript

Within three years of my resignation from Duntroon with expressed disgust at the woeful substandard training and unnecessary boarding school bullying, I self-funded, studied and flight-trained to gain my Commercial Helicopter Pilot License replete with an advanced low-level flying and basic gas turbine engine endorsement (for larger helicopters).

I also obtained a Bachelor of Business from Monash University, ultimately graduating in 2004.

To me, getting into Duntroon and flying helicopters to rescue injured soldiers had been a noble early lifetime ambition for me. But Duntroon failed to meet up to my standards in every way and so I have since dismissed those four months training as having given it a go, but left with my head high.

Since 1987, I have found no reported evidence of Duntroon having changed its bullying culture of abuse. In my experience this training institution was and remains discredited and akin to a military asylum amongst others like the adjacent ADFA and the now defunct HMAS Leeuwin, in which Defence Force Recruitment has systemically selected bullies to indoctrinate recruits by physical and psychological abuse.

Duntroon’s reputation is trashed in the eyes of the Australian public due to ongoing accounts of many past junior recruits of Dickensian sadistic treatment (bastardisation) published in the mainstream media and social media line and from the reporting of the 2013 Royal Commission into Institutional Responses to Child Sexual Abuse.

The place has long lost credibility as a training institution probably since its inception in 1911, has changed little and does not reflect Australian social mores and perhaps never did. Duntroon barracks is a stain on the Australian Army and the proud tradition of Australian soldiers sacrifices.

The Australian Defence Force’s recruitment process demands external overhaul with public scrutiny. Duntroon as an Army officer training barracks deserves to be immediately shut down, and the entire premises transformed into a military hospital, its asphalt parade ground dug up and converted into a shady garden for patients to convalesce. The old Duntroon House should become a museum of Australian Defence Bastardry open to the public and especially to past cadets at weekends.

Sworn on Oath,

(alias Tigerquoll)
Duntroon Officer Staff Cadet (with Aviation Cadetship)
January – May 1987, Corps of Staff Cadets

End of Affidavit.