‘It destroyed my life, it cost me my marriage’: ADF veteran with PTSD not told why he was the way he was

Shane Healey didn’t realise he had PTSD until he was told he was responsible for more enemy deaths since the Vietnam War — and it’s ruined his life.

Shane Healey didn’t realise he had PTSD until he was told he was responsible for more enemy deaths since the Vietnam War.

But by then the former Australian Defence Force Special Operations Command intelligence operator had lost his career, his marriage and for a time his mind.

“I just got told too late,” Healey, a veteran of multiple tours of Afghanistan and Iraq said.

His military personnel file had been stamped “psychological wreck” but Defence has now admitted his symptoms were “ignored” until after he left service and he had appealed to the Department of Veterans Affairs to retrospectively be considered and treated as medically unfit.

It was post a tour of Iraq in 2014/15 when he did mandatory psych health checks that his suffering was apparently obvious to others.

Former Australian Defence Force Special Operations Command intelligence operator Shane Healey was told he was in a “risk category”. Picture: Tim Hunter.

“They said ‘mate do you realise that you’re in a risk category?’,” he said.

“I said ‘no’ and he said ‘on your psych docs it says you’re responsible for more enemy deaths than anyone since Vietnam’. It wasn’t until I was in a mental health facility when I found out about the process for retrospective medical discharges and had to do that myself. I sent in my specialist forms and they went ‘yes’ straight away. If they knew back then why didn’t I go to counselling, why was I never notified that it said in my psych docs back then and even since then there’s no follow up just a medical discharge, away you go?

“It destroyed my life, it cost me my marriage, I went to a mental health facility, I lost 70 per cent movement in my arms, I’ve got chronic pain syndrome … had they done that I would have been medically discharged in September 2016 but that didn’t happen and I just got out, fell downhill a lot quicker than I thought. I knew nothing about it. I knew I was struggling, I didn’t go anywhere, I didn’t leave the house, I was getting angry all the time … They knew in 2011, I showed symptoms back then especially because as a targeting analyst my whole role was about getting people killed.”

ADF veteran Shane Healey says PTSD “destroyed my life”. Picture: Tim Hunter

Healey was part of the Australia-US co-ordinated kill and capture program during the height of the Afghanistan campaign and was responsible for the intel “targeting pack” for the Special Forces missions against designated Taliban targets. On one occasion he himself went out and physically captured notorious Taliban bomb maker Haji Hamidullah from Baluchi Valley, known as the valley of the shadow of death.

He said it was a tough job and he just didn’t realise what it was doing to him despite entries in his personnel file that did.

He said he has no regrets about his career and said recruitment was not the issue nor was the service but it was how Defence and Veterans Affairs treat you after you leave.

His war was diagnosed during service but he was not advised and no effort made for counselling and when he left he was given a short course on how to write a CV and little more to prepare him for civilian life.

“There are gaps there that need to be looked at whether by the Royal Commission into Defence and Veterans Suicide or someone else,” he said.

Healey is currently battling Commonwealth Superannuation for compensation.

If you need help please call Open Arms Veterans & Families Counselling Services’ 24 hour hotline on 1800 011 046.

Originally published as ‘It destroyed my life, it cost me my marriage’: ADF veteran with PTSD not told why he was the way he was