Standing in front of an audience, Damien Thomlinson cuts an impressive figure with a steely gaze. He is built out of battle, and his philosophy is worth listening to.
The former soldier served in Australia’s 2nd Commando Regiment – Special Forces – and he can tell his audience about how some of the most intense, pressurised military training in the world prepared him and his comrades to survive in deeply hostile enemy environments.
One of his favourite pieces of advice comes directly from that training: “Be comfortable in dropping the ball.”
At first, this sounds simply like a ‘be kind to yourself’ moment, until you think more about the actual wording. In the midst of great danger, in a place completely alien to you, at a critical moment, someone in your Commando unit will drop the ball. Hell will break loose. Your task is to learn to be comfortable in what happens next. As a motivational speaker, Thomlinson shows others how to be a ‘Commando for Life’, to help us cope well with the ‘what’s next?’
Standing there on two prosthetic legs, it is advice Thomlinson has had to follow himself long after leaving the Army. Sometimes he makes light of his leg and brain injuries, but he still needs the resolve to cope with the mental struggles of being a survivor. For there were friends around him who didn’t make it back.
The bomb went o. on the road in Afghanistan in April 2009. The soldiers, and medics who arrived on the scene, had to work hard just to keep him alive, saying it was a miracle he pulled through. He lost both legs. His brain and arms were battered. He was close to death many times in the following days.
A little later …
“My nerves were shattered. My face still felt a bit crap. I kept my teeth, I didn’t break my back. But other critical parts didn’t get blown off, that’s always helpful,” Thomlinson recounts.
“I can remember just thinking, ‘I’m alive. My family are here.’ And you
