A Newcastle father and son competed in one of the world’s toughest off-road races on the June long weekend, helping to showcase veterans’ mental health challenges and the positive steps taken to address them.
Veteran-led mental health charity Swiss 8 sent a team on a “Pursuit of Purpose Experience” and entered a racing team in the Finke Desert Race in the Northern Territory, held over the June long weekend.
The event is an off-road, multi-terrain two-day race, in which 685 competitors ride motorbikes, cars, buggies and quad bikes on one of the world’s toughest and most remote courses.
Along with other Swiss 8 team members, Newcastle-based Sergeant John Downie took on the race with his 16-year-old-son, Andrew.
The father and son duo were both racing on motorbikes for the event. Andrew finished 332nd and John 342nd in the race, which ended prematurely due to a fatality.
Downie, the sergeant of a training team at Singleton’s School of Infantry, said he had competed in the 2019 Finke Desert Race and had been excited to give it another go with his son.
“I’ve been riding for a while now, but I’ve never raced competitively until I started racing in Finke,” Downie said.
“My son started to show me up a bit, so I thought I would enter him into the race and put him up to the test.
“I hope that this race will give him a bit of mental toughness and teach him to push through any challenges that life throws at him; the endurance required to finish this race and mentally push through those barriers will be testing.
“He’s going to go further than he has ever before, and at the end of it all, he will be so proud of himself and what he has achieved.”
Andrew, who was the youngest racer this year, said he had been nervous for the race but was excited to push himself through the challenge.
Swiss 8 founder, veteran and Novocastrian Adrian Sutter said they had entered the race as part of a “Pursuit of Purpose Experience” where veterans use their lived experiences and find a new sense of purpose as they face life after service.
“Loss of connection, identity and purpose are the main issues that veterans face when leaving the military. Through the worst of COVID, all of Australia was essentially facing the same kind of thing,” Sutter said.
“So, we are trying to bring people together, help them stay connected and do exciting stuff to get them out of their comfort zone and find purpose in life, like the Finke Desert Race.”
Sutter said the team’s journey was filmed as part of a Life After Service mini-documentary.
“We thought putting a doco together about veterans’ lives after service would help everyone in Australia understand how veterans have overcome challenges and how others can implement a few of these tools into their own life,” he said.
“If you can find something that will get you out of bed every morning, then you have a purpose, and that’s what we are trying to recreate with the race and the documentary.”
Sutter said Swiss 8 was founded by a team of Australian military veterans, where they had developed an app that helped veterans access programs, helping them stay on top of their mental health.
“It’s grown a bit now; we have opened it up to the entire Australian public and have veterans helping build these programs and delivering them to other people who need support,” he said.
With the announcement of the Royal Commission into defence and veteran suicide, Sutter said it was now the time for the veteran community, ex-service organisations and political parties to form a united front and tackle these issues.
“The Royal Commission has been a long time coming; in the past, the government did have a lot of holes in their model and how they approached helping veterans,” Sutter said.
“Now we really do have a gold standard in veteran welfare and care, but we are still losing way too many people to suicide.
“The goal from Swiss 8’s perspective is that we hope this Royal Commission focuses on the hard and ugly truths, the gaps in the current model and the reasons as to why veterans are taking their lives.
“We need to find a way to solve these problems, by not finding someone to blame but looking for solutions and ways forward.”
For more information visit the Swiss 8 website.
Hayley McMahon