Veterans' Affairs in the firing line
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What is the purpose of this episode and who are the guests?
Hi, I'm Amanda Gillies and today on The Detail.
We offered our lives to the country and for me I feel now, you know, I turned around and asked for something little back and they've almost told me to piss off.
I talked to a retired soldier with a combat-related brain injury about his experience with veterans' affairs.
I am bamboozled by maybe a lack of professionalism. I'm just like, man, you know, potentially do your job.
Turns out he's not alone.
Veteran Affairs New Zealand is trucking useless, is what I'm hearing.
Veterans Affairs appeared to be prioritizing cost over care. Government
support just isn't working for veterans. And
embarrassed believes the government is failing veterans and not protecting future servicemen and women. So when the system fails those who served, who picks up the pieces?
We run on the smell of an oily rag, purely volunteer organization. And, you know, the irony of having organizations such as the NCDF, the Ministry of Veterans Affairs, you know, the RSA has well over twenty hundred million dollars worth of of funds and they refer people to us. Um and it's just ridiculous the situation. It's so inverted, I guess, is the is a polite word I I'd use.
That's Aaron Wood, co-founder of No Duff, a charity for veterans which he says fills the gaps left by veterans' affairs.
New Zealand is the worst country in the Western world in terms of its veteran support space. The worst. That's not hyperbole.
I'll have more from Aaron soon. Now, the role of Veterans Affairs, a unit of the Defence Force, is to support eligible ex-service people after they leave the force. On the Defence Force's official website, it says, while you're still serving, NZDF will look after all your health needs. After you leave NZDF, Veterans Affairs may be able to help you. Or in Greg Pup Johnson's case, Maybe not.
It took them almost a year to reach out to my doctor who saved my life to ask her or recommendations of treatment and then she sent through a list of things and they rejected every single one of them.
Greg is a former NZSAS corporal and grew up in a family of service. Today he joins the detail to talk about the hidden cost of fighting wars and what support exists for a contemporary veteran in New Zealand. Now he has a condition sometimes called breeches brain, which he says is the result of being consistently exposed to explosions. something he actually studied while serving overseas.
I think about two thousand fourteen, fifteen, I started researching traumatic brain injury in a in a service military context. Yeah, not not knowing that, you know, I had my own my own effects. I worked a job at a US TV show here in New Zealand, which was in an office doing a communications job with radios and technology. And um I hadn't been in an office for a long time. And yeah, that just led me in a downward spiral, which turned out to be a brain injury. injury that led to a pretty dark place
When you say dark place and this is a tough question, are you able to talk me through that a and what you were experiencing at the time, Greg?
Yeah, the dark place was, you know, wanting to take my own life. Because it was so hard on a couple of fronts. It was at the time we didn't really understand that it was brain injury, you know, even though I'd been researching it for years at that point.
How is Veterans Affairs in New Zealand prioritising cost over care for veterans?
As I've said to others, when you're in that dark hole, it's really hard to to look around and see, you know, the evidence that's laid out in front of you. And it was hard trying to get help through veterans' affairs, you know, the complete lack of understanding of my condition and yeah, the the fact it took almost two and a half years. For them to accept that I had an injury. Yeah, that all all played into it.
Greg first contacted Veterans Affairs after he'd seen a military doctor for a routine checkup in twenty nineteen. He'd actually returned to the military to, in his words, give back.
You know, some of the questions were like, you know, has your mood changed, you know, memory and and these things had all changed.
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Chapters
8 chapters
1
What is the purpose of this episode and who are the guests?
0:03–3:30
2
How is Veterans Affairs in New Zealand prioritising cost over care for veterans?
3:30–6:40
3
Why did Aaron Wood create the No Duff charity and what gap does it fill?
6:40–9:29
4
What is Greg Johnson’s combat‑related brain injury and how did it develop?
9:29–13:23
5
How did Greg’s claim with Veterans Affairs unfold and why was it rejected?
13:23–15:47
6
What led Greg to a suicide crisis and how did volunteers intervene?
15:47–18:05
7
How many New Zealand veterans are there and why is the exact number unknown?
18:05–20:33
8
What reforms and reviews are needed to fix the Veterans Affairs system?
20:33–23:12