Former soldier Matthew ‘Willy’ Williams continues to return to the front line despite terminal brain cancer diagnosis
When Matthew ‘Willy’ Williams was only 21 years old doctors told him he had a brain tumour and it would kill him.
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There aren’t many people who have received messages from a member of Russia’s most “blood thirsty” mercenary group asking how he is, other than Adelaide-born former soldier Matthew ‘Willy’ Williams OAM.
After being medically separated from the Australian Army in 2021 after doctors “accidentally” discovered he had an inoperable and incurable brain tumour in February 2018, Willy has interviewed front line soldiers on camera while bombs are going off in the near distance.
“I think a lot of people have these opinions … who have never actually been in an area where you’ve seen an 18-year-old boy, blue eyed, blonde hair, chewed up by a machine gun out on a field with no hope,” the 27-year-old, who has 160k YouTube subscribers, told The Advertiser.
“People have this illusion of what weapons do to bodies from movies. I can tell you it’s far different from that.
“The suffering, the brutality of a belt-fed machine gun firing 1000 rounds a minute into someone, you know, it gives you a new perspective.”
Willy has travelled to many war zones including Ukraine, Israel and Gaza. He spends time interviewing people from all sides of the wars from enemy soldiers, rebels, civilians and army personnel – some of which he stays in contact with including an anonymous member of a Russian mercenary group, who asks him how his health is going.
The 27-year-old is known for his 45 minute to two hour long interviews with soldiers on the front line with views ranging from 10,000 to over a million per video.
He said his most memorable experience abroad was interviewing a grandmother who was living in an underground, damp, bloody bunker beneath a kindergarten in Zolote, a town under Russian occupation for almost two years – which had a pre-war population of 13,000 but then only 100 remained.
“She was telling me …‘I remember when my mother was telling me to be quiet in the basement, in the bunker, because the Nazis were coming’,” Willy said.
“She was saying she wouldn’t leave no matter what, and likely she was (eventually) killed.”
While in Ukraine reporting on the conflict, the Adelaide former soldier considered joining the efforts against Russia, despite his brain tumour, but ultimately decided against it.
“The effect I have have on this war is far greater in reporting than it is fighting,” he said.
“The pen is mightier than the sword.”
Throughout his trips, which are mostly crowdfunded, he has made connections with a wide range of people.
Willy joined the army as an infantry two days after graduating high school in 2014.
After two years of training he was deployed to Afghanistan in 2017 as a crew commander of a vehicle and a convoy leader.
For just over eight months Willy would transport “VIPs” across Kabul, Afghanistan and act as a quick reaction force if other teams missions went south.
He lived in a small camp outside Kabul’s “green zone”.
“I absolutely still miss it,” he said.
“I was there with all my mates, my best friends were all there. We earnt really good money because you’re not spending a cent.
“You have a very, very sort of low external stress because I didn’t even have a rental or a house … I didn’t own anything, I didn’t even have a car.
“The only thing I was concerned with was me and the boys over there.”
Upon Willy’s return to Australia the army changed its drug policy which meant any taking of codeine without a prescription would be a violation of the policy.
Willy had been experiencing consistent headaches and the only drug that helped him was codeine.
“I went to get a prescription and the doctor was like …‘lets give you a scan’,” he said.
That’s when doctors discovered a 42mm tumour in his brain.
“There’s a level of disbelief … like how is this happening? This can’t be happening,” he said.
“Then for a long time following that was anger because it was like ‘why me?’
“I couldn’t watch the news because I would watch and it would like be you know, John Smith was murdered or X person has been raped and I’d be like, ‘I got a death sentence for doing nothing wrong … when these people do these horrific things’.
“I know that’s maybe a silly comparison but that’s what my mindset was.”
Now, Willy has reached “acceptance”.
“I don’t even think about it day to day, I really don’t,” he said.
“I know it’s going to get me … but I’ve just accepted that.”
Willy has dedicated his life to being an independent reporter. He has plans to continue to visit war zones around the world.
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