The goldfields around Meekatharra are full of people looking for something.
Some are chasing fortunes. Others are simply looking for space to breathe.
For Geoff, the search is a little different. On a good day, he heads out into the red dirt country beyond town with a detector and the hope of finding a few gold nuggets. The rest of the time, he is focused on putting the pieces of his life back together.
For much of his life, Geoff knew exactly who he was.
He was a soldier.
For 13 years, the Army gave him structure, purpose and a place where he felt he belonged. There, Geoff learned a simple truth: life is easier when somebody has your back.
“The very nature of the Army ensures you have mates,” Geoff says. “It’s almost an unavoidable part of service.”
The young recruit who arrived at Kapooka in 1984 was, by his own description, shy, skinny and completely out of his depth. On that first night, after saying goodbye to everything he knew, he lay awake wondering whether he had made a terrible mistake.
“I shed a tear and wondered what the hell have I done?” he recalls.
It would not be the last time the Army surprised him.
There were deployments to Malaysia, Thailand and Singapore, followed by service in East Timor during his second enlistment. There was a Royal Guard posting to London, standing sentry at Buckingham Palace, Windsor Castle, St James’ Palace and the Tower of London. For a kid from country Western Australia, it was a world that seemed impossibly distant only a few years earlier.
When Geoff talks about those years, the stories that matter most are usually not about where he went, but about who was standing beside him.
The Army, for all its frustrations, created something increasingly rare in modern life. It forced people to rely on one another. Friendships were forged through shared hardship, boredom, laughter and endless exercises. Men and women worked together, lived together and, in many cases, grew up together.
For Geoff, who had spent much of his childhood feeling unanchored, it felt like finding a family. After leaving in 1989, he spent several years in civilian life before reenlisting in 1995.
“I could not shake the fact that the Army was my family and was still calling me,” he recalls.
When Geoff left the Army for the final time, he discovered something many veterans know well, but struggle to explain to civilians.
You can leave the Army, but the Army doesn’t always leave you.
Civilian life was supposed to be the next chapter, but Geoff found himself missing things he had never expected to miss.
“Army was our life, always,” Geoff says.
Years rolled on. Geoff built a career, raised five daughters, a son and two grandchildren, and created a life beyond service. From the outside, things looked much as they should; until they didn’t.
“For years I knew I had been going downhill and finding getting up each day harder and harder,” he says.
“I had to put on a mask each day and pretend to be someone I wasn’t. It affected my personal life, and it started to erode my marriage. I began taking risks and making bad choices.”
Eventually, everything caught up with him.
When Geoff lost his job, the consequences extended well beyond employment. Financial pressures mounted rapidly, and a vehicle he had financed before his life began to unravel left him carrying a significant debt he had no realistic way of repaying. With demands continuing to arrive and no clear way forward, the situation became all-encompassing.
Looking back now, he speaks with the blunt honesty of someone who has spent a lot of time thinking.
“It was like I was destined to self-destruct,” he says.
By the time Open Arms connected him with Bravery Trust, Geoff wasn’t expecting a miracle.
“I was weary as I didn’t think there was anything that could be done,” he says. “I had just financed a new and expensive vehicle prior to my downfall. This meant that once I surrendered the vehicle, whatever was left over after the vehicle was sold at auction, I needed to pay back. I had no capacity to do so. The excess debt was huge, and the finance company sold the debt off to a collection agency,” he says.
What happened next reminds him of something the Army taught him long ago: people cope better when they know they are not carrying the load alone.
“Bravery Trust took one look at my financial situation and put me straight at ease”, he says.
“I was assured that Bravery Trust would do all the negotiating and I would not have to carry the burden. Although I felt better knowing I had someone in my corner, I thought the debt was too big for that consideration.”
Working alongside a Bravery Trust financial counsellor, Geoff began the long process of addressing a debt he had assumed could never be resolved. Drawing on specialist financial counselling expertise, the team advocated on his behalf and negotiated with the finance company and debt collectors, helping relieve a burden that had consumed much of his attention and energy.
“I felt supported from the first phone call, although I was still very anxious,” he says.
“Knowing I had someone in my corner felt like someone walking me down the street with their supportive arm around me.”
The negotiations took close to a year. Finally, the call came.
The debt had been cancelled.
For Geoff, the relief was not measured purely in dollars, but by the room to breathe it gave him. He had the ability to focus on recovery instead of survival, and the opportunity to start rebuilding a life that had felt beyond repair.
“I knew I would not have to worry anymore,” he says. “In my situation and still ongoing struggles, that one act was enough to give me a small bit of breathing space. I am forever grateful.”
Rebuilding, Geoff admits, is still very much a work in progress.
“I still have a long, long way to go,” he says. “I wake up some days and stare at four walls. Other days I’m unable to get out of bed.”
“I am trying to rebuild my life, and I have to say, it is bloody hard.”
The difference now is that Geoff isn’t doing it alone. The same bonds that shaped his years in uniform continue to sustain him today. Some of the mates who regularly check in are people he hasn’t seen for more than 20 years, but that distance seems to matter little among Army friends.
“They talk to me like I saw them yesterday,” Geoff says. “This is a common thing amongst Army mates.”
Alongside that support, Geoff credits Bravery Trust with helping ease one of the most overwhelming periods of his life. While the challenges he faces haven’t disappeared, having a significant financial burden removed gave him the room to focus on everything else and begin taking steps forward again.
It’s why Geoff encourages other veterans who are struggling to ask for help, whether that’s from a mate, a support service or an organisation that understands military life.
“Reach out to a mate, they’re there for you,” he says. “Reach out to veteran services like Bravery Trust. They know what we did for our country and the scars we carry. They care and want to provide a service to make the rest of our lives worth keeping.”
These days, for Geoff, life is measured less by long-term plans and more by putting one foot in front of the other.
Amid the challenges, there is comfort in knowing there are still people willing to stand beside him, just as they did throughout his years of service.
For veterans carrying burdens they feel they must shoulder alone, that may be the most important message of all: help exists, mates answer the phone, and even in the hardest stages of life, nobody needs to fight their battles by themselves.
To share your story, email us at feedback@braverytrust.org.au.
