15 May 2025
On Episode 187 of Military Life Podcast, the Chief of Army, Lieutenant General, Simon Stuart, AO, DSC (CA) continues the conversation with Bec on the vital role families play to a Defence member’s service.
Military Life: Welcome back to the Military Life podcast, Chief of Army Australia, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart.
CA: Thanks so much for having me back on Beck, really appreciate it.
Military Life: I mean, obviously, we have just spoken about how well the last podcast episode did. And after listening to a number of your recent speeches and podcast episodes and keynote addresses that all touch on topics like the Defence Strategic Review, new directions, and technology, tools and equipment for Army, and as you describe it, cataloguing the range of things Army have done over the last 18 months, illustrates the fact that there has been a fundamental and comprehensive transformation of the Australian Army which is obviously no small feat. I have to admit that it can feel like Defence partner and family topics can pale in comparison to the heavy and significant work of transforming the Australian Army. Do you think it's important that Defence families and Army families feel the person leading their ADF members and someone who has an impact on their lives is a real person and is doing episodes like this, talking about family issues alongside all of the heavy topics that you deal with day‑to‑day?
CA: It's a great question, and I'd offer two points in response. First is I think through the engagement that I have as I get around our Army in the 157 locations that Army people and Army families are in, from the Torres Strait to Tasmania and from Broome and Derby in Western Australia down to Holsworthy, I think it's absolutely in the front of people's minds that I get it, it's a reasonable expectation. We ask a lot of our soldiers, we ask a lot of our families, as I think we discussed last time, it's a genuine team effort, and that old adage, “recruit the soldier, retain the family”, I think is certainly at the front of my mind.
The second point is ‑ and you mentioned it ‑ the comprehensive transformation of the Australian Army, so that whole idea behind using that term comprehensive, it is our concepts, it's our command and control and organisation, it's our capabilities and it's our culture, and as part of that work, it incorporates the things and the people that matter most in our lives, that matter most in soldiers' lives and they're our families and loved ones. Whether that's today with the thousands of people that are serving that have families, or whether that's in the future when, invariably, the very young Australians who are joining us today, move through that cycle of life and have families themselves, it's equally important to raise the profile. And not just for the sake of raising the profile and acknowledging, but then ensuring that the alignment of policy process and its application, so that it's practice, are actually embedded as part of that comprehensive transformation. Good example of that are some of the suggestions and the work that we are championing through the Defence People Group and the Chief of Personnel Organisation to support the great work they're doing in terms of the Workforce Plan. I'm particularly interested in a couple of issues and one, which I think we spoke about last time, is childcare and the other is information and making sure that our families are informed and not relying on our people to be the ones that convey and connect that, and then thirdly really trying to focus on this idea of agency. So, out of policy, process and then their application at the coal face, how do those things actually make a real difference for people?
Military Life: So how does that come in to play when you talk about things like childcare in a practical sense? How does that work?
CA: So in terms of prioritisation of things that are going to be necessary and support the transformation of the Army, particularly as we move more of our Army families in to the north mean that you've got to follow that up with the support mechanisms, with the policy settings, so the policy settings apply to the ADF across all three services. But there are some substantial differences between the services; those differences aren't necessarily right or wrong or good or bad, they're just different so what we are trying to do is advocate for policy that applies principles but is flexible enough to meet the requirements regardless of service or the different aspects of service. Give you a good example; the Army is in 157 locations, most of the Army is above the Tropic of Capricorn, we're in some of the most remote parts of the country and generally speaking being in the north of the country means that our families are separated from their traditional family or friend or community networks which are generally speaking in the key population centres around the country, on the eastern seaboard and in the south of the country, so it's how do we support people in that context and make sure that both policy, resources and practice are aligned to do that in a meaningful way.
Military Life: And I guess we're here talking about, in particular, National Families Week which gets underway in May, with this year's theme being “Lending a Hand to Thrive: Supporting Each Other”, which is obviously what we have just been talking about. The theme is about highlighting the importance of connection, care and resilience within families to help build strong and connected communities. At the core of it all, thriving, which can have many meanings for Defence families, is about feeling secure, valued and supported. What role do you see yourself playing to help Army families thrive?
CA: Number one it's through advocacy and ensuring that it is front of mind and therefore front of our agenda, and the demand signal and the advice that I am accountable for pushing in to the department and the parts of the department that have the policy leaders, the authorities and hold the resources that are going to affect families. So, it's about making sure we are working with them, making sure that I'm an advocate for Army families and some of those differences that we talked about between the services and ensuring that the policies are actually fit for purpose, and making a very clear linkage between those policies and explaining why it is good business to spend tax payers dollars on Army families, on Defence families, and how that contributes to the transformation of our Army, and indeed our ADF, to meet what the government's directed us to do under the National Defence Strategy. And we're very comfortable that we have that logic, we have the evidence to support it, so now it's a matter of continuing to advocate and to look for prioritisation, flexible policy and then the resources to get after the delivery of that policy. We're not waiting until we get given things, there's a whole range of things we can and are doing, one in terms of ensuring that families are informed, but also in terms of the delivery of things that are - programs that are going to make sense. So great example, earlier this year a trial was done up in Townsville in terms of Partner Employment Assistance. I'm keen for more of that, we've got some very good feedback, and as ever, it's the actual feedback from our families who are actually living this experience today that helps us ensure that we get those things right or better than we perhaps have in the past.
Military Life: Part of it as well, going back to advocacy, is as you said, information and communicating with families. Part of that advocacy is communicating the advocacy and the information to families, so that they know that you're in the background advocating for them, so that they still don't have that disconnect of the CEO sitting up here in his office and is disconnected from families. So, it's importantly part of the job of that information communication is letting families know about that advocacy, and I guess, building that rapport with them to let them know that you're one of them, you've got their back, and you're actually in the background advocating for them?
CA: Yeah, look, I mean, families will be the judge of that. I'm part of a family myself, my own family have been serving and sacrificing all of their lives in the case of our young adult children, and for about the last three decades in terms of my wife, and we're still living that today. It's a lived experience, but to wake up and become the Chief of the Army one day. Secondly I think the point about being informed helps with agency and we discussed the Army Families Handbook and the reason why we've gone down that path, and we had no less than 600 engagements or Army families involved in making sure we got more right than we got wrong in the first edition, and going with both a hard copy and the digital copy in an attempt to better connect indirectly with families. Thirdly, and I think the thing that really resonates with me and is the most powerful way of communication, is the face-to-face.
So, every time I travel around the country to see our Army, I always check in with our Defence Members and Families services teams who do a phenomenal job across a whole range of really important services, and that helps to get a sense of what matters in different parts of the country, different demographics and to shine a light. And I always provide my feedback back into the people parts of the Department of Defence and then, of course, engaging with families and all of the other amazing community-based groups around the country. They vary, but it's that face-to-face contact, hearing the experience from the people who are actually experiencing it. And I use those examples here around various tables in Canberra because they're really powerful. When you can say, “I met Beck in Townsville last week and this was her experience”, this is something that is either not working so well or something we ought to be able to do something about quite quickly and often we can help out in individual cases or make an adjustment, a sensible adjustment to policy, to ensure that others don't have to experience it. That, in my experience, is a really powerful way of assisting our efforts of advocacy and meaningful change to policy.
Military Life: You've mentioned previously that as you go up in the ranks and you're higher in command and you're in different leadership positions, you tend to get further and further away from the face to face, you're obviously saying that you see that as important and that you want to stay engaged and connected with families and people on the ground, so you're making an effort to do that even though obviously you're in a position of leadership, and it can tend to, I guess sometimes when you're talking to people, people might tend to think, well he's not really down in the weeds here so I'm not going to trouble him with my issue with my DHA house or this simple thing, but those are sometimes the things that you need to hear because they are the simple things that are really frustrating people that could really make a difference for people and really impact their experience of being a Defence family.
CA: I don't think I've personally experienced that. For a start, Australian soldiers are renowned for being forthright and honest. I think that's a great characteristic, and then what I would say to the great credit of the families that I've had the opportunity and privilege of engaging with is that they're very pragmatic. They understand service, and so they offer an unvarnished account of their experience, but I can't think of anyone who has presented in a negative way. It's just matter of fact. Hey, here is our circumstances. And then you see the resilience and the initiative and the innovation, and this is what we've done about it. Well, I'm focused on what I can do about it. What can the ADF and what can the Department of Defence do to assist and to recognise the value of that attitude to service and that service and make sure that we are honouring and respecting in a way that I think we should?
Military Life: Just on that, on a recent podcast ‑ the Just Get It Done podcast episode with Jim Creighton ‑ you spoke about building a culture of trust with those who are aren't necessarily under your command but are those that you need to work together with in order to achieve your end goal and you said, “Rather than unity of effort through unity of command, it's unity of efforts through unity of purpose”. I would imagine that you would need to have a similar ethos when it comes to Defence partners and families; I mean, they don't necessarily come under your command, but they need to be on board and be unified in a sense?
CA: Yes, everyone thinks the Army is sort of a very hierarchical organisation where you just tell people what to do and they do it. The reality is perhaps a little different, particularly when you're working with allies and partners. But even within the Army, you get much better results if you're all working together and everyone understands the why, that's our purpose, and people come to work to do their very best every day. So, how do you capitalise on that goodwill, that commitment, that dedication in a way that benefits our people and our purpose?
It's exactly the same with allies and partners, where you may not have a clear chain of command, but the chain of command and the authorities that commanders have are there, but if that's all you're relying on, then you've probably got a pretty significant problem.
Now the science of leadership is about people wanting to contribute, wanting to bring their best game and I think your point is a really good one; if families have agency they'll vote with their feet but I think it's one, the right thing to do to recognise and appreciate in practical ways, as well as the more symbolic ways, their commitment to service because it is service, it's just service in a different format. So, really making sure we recognise that is super important and again just listening to what people have to say. Often, there's some missing information which is easy to furnish, or there's something that can be fixed quite quickly, whether it's just for the individual or whether there's a policy issue or a misunderstanding somewhere in the system. Those things you can actually make a fairly quick difference about, and then when you sort of sit down and take a step back and look at across all of those engagements with families and support services, what are the themes, and using that level of anecdotal evidence along with all the surveys that you get done and putting the two together.
Military Life: There's only so much engaging you can do because you've got so many things on your plate and there are lots of different competing priorities and on topic of surveys, another avenue used to grasp what's happening around the country for the Defence community is the ADF Family Survey which takes place every two years. The results of the 2022 ADF Family Survey were finally released late last year, with the next survey now due to be conducted, so there's a bit of a crossover there. The results showed the three most frequently reported challenges for Defence families were lack of control or uncertainty about the future, ADF members time away from home or family, and participants capacity to progress their careers, with two other points to note were that informal social support and family satisfaction had the greatest effect on an individual's wellbeing of members and civilian partners, and I'm not sure whether this is surprising to you but surprisingly, financial crisis is more commonly reported among those in Army families.
How do the results of the ADF Families Survey inform and direct you, I guess, being that the survey is one of the only datasets that we have that's specific to Defence families. How do you balance the need to be informed by data versus that data being timely, relevant and representative?
CA: Look, I think you hit on the term. It's data-informed rather than data-driven, and there's qualitative analysis and quantitative analysis, and I think in terms of how you respond to that analysis, you need to have the balance of both. So in other words is the data that's collected does that actually support the anecdotal evidence and with all the engagement that we do around the Army, both at home and overseas, you get a pretty good sense of whether the statistics that we're seeing are actually reflective, and I think they broadly are. But going back to my point about there isn't a one-size-fits-all, families are people, people have individual circumstances and that changes over time.
So, I think the surveys are good, they're useful, I think the first point that you made, that really illustrates one of the key parts of our first conversation, which was about agency. So that reinforces for me that we're on the right path when we're looking at practical ways of increasing the ways in which families have agency within our system. In terms of things like the amount of time that soldiers spend away from home, well, given the current strategic circumstances, I don't think I can make a meaningful difference in that. What we can do though is ensure that where there are things that matter most, whether it's welcoming new children in to the world, whether it's specific health issues, whether it's specific family events that are really important, that those are factored in, because there are practical ways that commanders can be empowered and accountable for ensuring that those things are prioritised, because they're individual and they matter for families.
Again, I don't think there's any perfect solution that's going to satisfy all the requirements; everything is going to be a level of compromise, but where something is really important for a family, then those are the areas where it's really important to lean in and make a difference. Certainly, in my experience, where we may have let people down, that often becomes the reason or at least the catalyst, for why they might make a decision and say, “Okay, we've done enough here, we're going to move on and do something else that has less of a demand on our family”.
Military Life: That individual support is not coming from a survey; it's coming from command teams building that rapport and seeing the importance in engaging on their individual level. Also being guided by the way that you engage and the way it comes top-down, and filters through to the other command, showing them that there's just as much importance in engaging with families so that when something does come up where there's a health crisis or something that's a bit of an emergency that's out the norm, they have that rapport, they have that trust with the ADF member and their family, and they feel supported through that, as opposed to being disconnected and just looking at, well this isn't a problem in the survey and this doesn't fit in to this strategic review, and this doesn't fit here. Being an individual and actually really connecting with the people that are working with you alongside you and their families.
CA: Exactly right. So, it's leader’s business, it really is at every level. So, part of my job is to make sure that I'm as best I can empowering, informing and resourcing those leaders to do their job. So, one of my recommendations in my statement to the Royal Commission was about establishing what we call health and wellbeing capability bricks at the point of need, so at the unit level. So, these are medical doctors, nurses, medics, their rehabilitation specialists, our PTIs ‑ , physical training instructors, who are phenomenally qualified, as well as people who can assist with the administration, allied health professionals, both physical and mental health professionals, but also someone or some people who are dedicated to engagement with families. Whether that's in the case of families being part of individual welfare boards for our people who may be having a difficult time or whether it's the flow of information, someone to come to at the unit level and making sure we resource it that way.
So we've got a focus on doing that where we're certainly building those teams in the areas where we've got the highest risk, so in our ab initio training, our core initial employment training schools and then some of the units out in the Army, and the idea is to expand that capacity. So it's a real person in that unit that's dedicated to engagement with families, and I think that will also help us not only to provide real support for families that complements what the great work that Defence member and family services does, but also provides us with a very granular understanding of what the requirements that families have are and how they change over time. So, my aim would be to use that as a network and to seek to feed the anecdotal and the empirical evidence, essentially so we get a much better picture of what things are like, and therefore where do we prioritise our effort and where do we prioritise our resources to get the best return on investment.
Military Life: So, how does commander's intuition come into that? Is that something that can be learnt, is that something that you just have in you, like how does that work?
CA: There's three things. One is experience and we invest in our leaders from very, very early in their careers, from Subject One, Subject Two for corporal courses, in private soldiers that we want to develop through our officer training, continue as we seek to develop people, we put a lot of time, effort and resources in developing leaders. And so, as you have experience from small groups through to larger groups and units and formations, you are building on that experience, and of course we're all human but one of the things we like to pride ourselves on is that we are honest with ourselves, particularly in terms of our failings, so what did we learn from experience. And we go through things called after-action reviews, where we review how we did, understand what went well and why, what didn't go well and why, so there's the element of experience there.
The second is in how we train people and ensuring that in the way we train people, they've got the skills, they know what to be looking for, they know to be looking at the soldier in totality, including families. Whether that's a partner and children, or whether that's parents on the other side of the country. You might be concerned about their young loved one, 18, 19 years old on the other side of the country as a soldier. So, the matter of education and training and then applying that through experience.
The third bit, which sort of fits into the education, training and the experience, is that we're all different. So, something that I always found a useful concept throughout my own career has been this idea that if you know yourself, self-awareness is actually the foundation for being able to be a better leader. Now we are all different. Some people are introverts, some people are extroverts, some people take information in different ways, we all have biases and the like, but if you know yourself, you understand yourself, and then you can better apply yourself to the business of leadership. So, I think those three things are really at the heart and foundation of a people-centric organisation, and people includes not just our soldiers but their families as well.
Military Life: Getting very deep there. Know yourself.
CA: Well, I know it sounds a bit wishy washy, but if you don't know yourself, and the foundational level of the army leadership model is lead yourself. If you can't do that, then how can you possibly lead others? And it really is about developing two key leadership characteristics, and whenever I get a chance to speak to our leadership courses or groups of leaders, I always emphasise that the first one is humility, and that is the recognition that you can learn something from pretty much anyone, even people you may never agree with.
Military Life: Yep, even your enemy, as you mentioned in the --
CA: Exactly right, and the other one is empathy, so just put yourself aside and put yourself in the shoes of whoever it is you're engaging with and try and understand it from their perspective.
Military Life: Yeah, I think you mentioned having that understanding of what you can have common ground on, and what is just too far from each other's values and respecting and having empathy for each other's position and just coming together on the things that you can come together on and I guess have common ground on.
CA: Yeah, it's about transparency, expectation management and a fundamental respect. There are a few things where there are perfect solutions, most things are a compromise or will get us a partial kind of outcome. I think if you can build trust through that transparency and doing your best, then I think you do build trust and at least an understanding.
Military Life: I mean, a lot of the time, Defence life is about compromise.
CA: Indeed, yeah, I think our families get that intuitively and they've made choices. My job and my aspiration is to make sure that the Army is doing everything it can to meet that commitment to people worthy of that commitment and to encourage it.
Military Life: The narrative around to Defence partners and families has slowly evolved and shifted in recent years. We're obviously no longer called dependents. We're no longer seen as standing behind our ADF members but instead beside them, and I think the feedback from our last podcast episode was evidence that the Defence community needs and wants to hear from the service chiefs and from command and Craig's real and honest, thought-provoking discussion about partners and families that's not behind closed doors and that they can tune in to. Given that we've just spoken about representation and the ways that you engage with the Defence community, and considering that there are currently no real opportunities for discussion around current serving families as the sole focus, what opportunities do you see are available to, I guess, continually challenge the thoughts around the evolving experiences and challenges and celebrations and the role of the Defence partner in family, and how that relates to and impacts to recruitment, capability of the workforce and retention? I guess, when it comes to Defence as a whole, there are heaps of avenues and opportunities that spark questions or new avenues of enquiry, like symposiums, panel discussions, industry dinners, conferences and keynote addresses. Do you see any opportunities to, I guess, focus in on family and Defence partner issues in, I guess, more of an intellectual way so that we can actually spark avenues of enquiry that people may not have thought about, command teams might not have thought about and support organisations?
CA: That's a great question and I think it comes back to it being aligned with and integrated with our core purpose, which families absolutely are, but making sure that front-of-mindedness, if I can use that term, is reflected in where we prioritise our time, where we prioritise our effort, is it on the agenda for those sorts of fora that you mentioned. In terms of whether or not our intent, our aspirations, actually resonate as being authentic, my view is it's sort of an inside-out approach, so the lived experience of our families is the most powerful way of communicating.
So, if I can shift the needle there, then that is the thing that I think will make the biggest difference. Because the power of the network, the power of network effects is, I think, the most powerful way of communicating, and what I mean by that is each and every one of us we're a node on a whole range of different networks, and so if you can have a positive lived experience through one family or one partner, one parent, as a node on many networks in a community influencing elected representatives, contributing to any of the fora that you have mentioned, then that's a really powerful way of getting an authentic credible message out, because it's their lived experience, it's not ours, it's not a big organisation saying, “Hey, this is how it is”.
So I can describe how I like it to be, based on my understanding, the feedback I get, the data, the engagement with families and other organisations, and I think it's pretty reasonable picture of things, but what matters most when it comes to communicating and feeding in to those fora is the lived experience, and I think that term lived experience is a pretty contemporary one and it describes, you know it's an immediate feedback loop to say, “Well, here's the aspiration, here is the policy, here is the practice, here is the experience”. Does that ring true or not, and really helpful where there's a gap between those two things in terms of where we need then to put our effort into making changes and moving the needle from the lived experience perspective. Then, when you aggregate each of those lived experiences, that's where you start to see the trends and understand whether or not what we're doing is actually working, or do we need to do something else.
Military Life: On that topic, in our last podcast episode, you spoke about the importance around supporting Defence partners to progress in their careers alongside postings and leaving employment and finding employment and we've already spoken about childcare and availability, and how important that is in partners being able to not only secure work but meaningful work. One of the only programs that helps and supports Defence partners when it comes to career is the Partner Employment Assistance Program, and those eligible can make use of up to $1500 in funding to access a variety of employment services. Previously, the up to $1500 was paid directly to the employment service or career experts so that the Defence partner could access that support in the new location, and I guess just talking about how being able to discuss these things and bring in lived experience, there's been a change from this year that the defence partner now has to pay the $1500 upfront and be reimbursed by Defence, as opposed to the other way around, which is not always the feasible thing. What are your thoughts around this change, given that one of the top reported challenges in the ADF Families Survey was related to Defence partners’ capacity to progress in their career, that Defence partners have a higher-than-average unemployment rate, and financial crisis was more commonly reported among Army families?
CA: Thank you for that. I wasn't tracking that, so I am now, and I'll certainly be asking whether that's something we can address. I guess the good thing about that Partner Employment Assistance Program is that previously, eligibility was a one-off payment on posting. Now it's up to $1500 each year, regardless of whether you are posting or not, and I think that's a really good outcome, policy change, the change to the mechanism of upfront and then reimbursement was part of that overall policy change, but I'll certainly undertake to have a look at that.
Military Life: I wonder whether, just going back to the point before that, having more open discussions and panel discussions and workshopping Defence partner careers, different topics like that and actually workshopping them before the decision is made, I wonder whether that may have had a difference with bringing that lived experience in. And I guess the amount of people that may have said, “Well that's actually not going to work for me, I'm now not going to be able to access that support”, or, “We can't afford to be reimbursed”, and all of the different I guess challenges that would have come with that decision especially since the feedback that I've had from the Defence community is that it's going to be challenging to be able to access that.
CA: Yeah, entirely understandable. I think your point about involving people who the policy is intended to assist is a really good one, and that's certainly the approach we took when we developed the Army Families Handbook, which had 600 families involved. Is it perfect? No. Is it better than it would have been if we had just sort of done it ourselves? Absolutely. While I don't own any of the policy, I do have an obligation, and we have a great relationship with the Defence People Group and Chief of Personnel organisation and a lot of good people there who want to make sure we get this right. So that's something I'll take back into them. I know they regularly engage with Defence member and family services to try and understand the experience of families, but I think it's a great idea to actually have ‑ it may not be 600 families every time ‑ but at least looking at different circumstances, it might be group of families at Fleet Base West from Navy, it might be a group of families from our Regional Force Surveillance Group or First Brigade up in Darwin, or Airforce families at Tyndall or wherever. I think that as a principle that's a really good idea.
Military Life: I think previously I've discussed with DMFS about ‑ I'm on the ACT Advisory Council for Veterans and Families ‑ obviously we advise the ACT Veteran Minister, but I had spoken to DMFS about there being scope to have advisory councils made up of Defence families in the different locations so you can get that snapshot when something like that is happening. So that you can straight away get a panel of people that have a variety of experiences to feed that information through, and it may not necessarily change the decision, but it might mean that they were able to communicate the decision better because as it stands it was just these are the changes, no why as to why it's changed, what is the reasoning, and so people tend to not be able to get on board with something that they don't quite understand and is going to impact them. So I guess there's scope for different ideas like that but who tends to lead something like that? Obviously, I've suggested it to the Director General of DMFS, so I have various discussions with people within the Defence community. Who is it that should be leading something like that and saying, we need to introduce something like that, or we need to look at other ideas?
CA: Those responsibilities are invested in the Defence People Group and the Chief of Personnel in terms of who develops the policy and practice. At the end of the day, I'm accountable for what happens in the Army, so I'm the advocate for those sorts of things into the development of policy and practice in the centre. Their job is not an easy one, and it comes back to this difficulty of developing a one-size-fits-all rather than a set of policies that can be adapted in a sensible, common-sense, flexible way. But to your point about using the advisory council for DMFS those are the mechanisms, but I think your point about how do you then connect those networks to get a fingertip feel of what's happening today around the country, I think that's a really good concept ‑ it comes back to that idea of that we were just discussing about having in each of our units, having someone who is dedicated to that engagement, so I reckon that's a way of implementing what you just described.
Military Life: Lastly for those listening who are new to Defence and Army life and I guess probably don't yet have a handle on some of what we've discussed or are just managing to figure out how to organise their first move and DHA and Toll and all those things, what words of encouragement would you offer to those Defence partners and families?
CA: In my own experience and that of my family and many other families we know and that I've worked with over the years, there are just some phenomenal opportunities for being an Army family. I think it's something that delivers some intrinsic values as well, and by that I mean things you can't buy, things that can't be given or bestowed upon you and that's the nature of service, which is putting a purpose and other people before one's health and it's an old fashioned word but I think it's quite a noble thing, and they're the things that you take with you through life. They're part of your experience, no one can take them off you, they can only be earned, and in the same way as soldiers earn their reputation and their service, our families do as well. So, I think that's a really noble thing with intrinsic value in life that we can perhaps make more of and in my experience at least families, Army families get that, the fact that they're there doing it humbly every day is a great credit, and I think it says a lot about our country as well to be honest. So that's the first point I'd make.
The second is there's a whole range of other opportunities in terms of if you have got children, then the experience that they'll get ‑ and again it can be a hard one when you're moving schools and towns and states and countries, but at least in my own family's experience, you get these wonderfully rounded, mature, young adults who have a really good understanding of the world, how it works. They can figure things out in new circumstances. They can build friends, and they know how to deal with some of the challenges that life throws up, so some really resilient children with a good understanding of how the world works and a fundamental understanding that many I think in life never get to which is that not everyone sees the world in the same way as you do. As families, there's some wonderful opportunities to explore. I think most Army families have got at least some sense of adventure, many are great adventurers and see the most in every opportunity they get wherever they're posted. I think that's a wonderful aspect. So, I think all in all, there are some wonderful opportunities but that doesn't mean for a moment that it's easy. Most things in life worth having are not easy, but there's certainly more that I and the department can do that's going to meet halfway, I think, and recognise and honour that service that our families render every day.
Military Life: Chief of Army Australia, Lieutenant General Simon Stuart, thanks for coming on the Military Life podcast.
CA: Thanks for having me back, and just fantastic that you're shining the light back on the Army and Army families as we come into National Families Week.
Military Life: Thank you. Thanks for pulling in the downloads for the podcast.
CA: Let's hope this one is as useful as the last.
Military Life: We'll see what the stats are like.
I so hope you are able to relate or take something away from today's episode. There are definite ups and downs to military life, but let's get the conversation happening so we can see that we are all in this together. We are all just doing our best, so until next week, you got this, let's do this together one day at a time. Thank you so much for tuning in. If this episode has touched you, helped you or given you that extra confidence to keep going to continue to hold down the home front, to continue to do all the things, I would so appreciate it if you could pop in to Apple podcasts and subscribe to the podcast and leave a review, a comment about what you would like to hear more of or just some encouraging words. If you want to suggest a guest, I am always looking for new people to talk to. You can do that by jumping over to the website www.militarylife.com.au and clicking on our podcast page. I would love to hear from you.
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