‘Just remember, the tactics don’t matter ...’ In this episode, Todd and Jake discuss returning to their first residential course since their Officer Basic Courses to be given all the skills, knowledge, attributes and behaviours to be employed as all-corps captains. The first posting as a three-pip is likely to be as an operations captain, sub-unit second-in-charge or an adjutant and this is the course that completely prepares you.

All Corps Captains Course (ACCC) is the first promotion course for junior officers and occurs at Canungra QLD. It is broken up into two modules, the Command Lead and Manage module and the Operations Module. Most of the war fighters in the Combat Brigades conduct the course in the first or last part of the year and the courses in the middle of the year are full of those that are not participating on the Joint Warfighting Series. It is best practice to scheme with your friends to stack the course you choose to participate in.

In this episode, Jake plays another of his original songs – Goodbye Canungra – written while he was the Deputy Sherriff on his ACCC for the End of Course Function. The Sherrif and his or her Deputy uphold the social standards on a course or in a unit and do so by fining or charging those on the course for social faux pars. They also spend their entire time on ACCC planning the End of Course Function. Jake played Goodbye Canungra live to the course panel of ~80 Army officers bringing some to tears, most likely because the listeners had been voided of any emotions for the last six-weeks.

Subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you don't miss out on Season Two of Live, Laugh, Lead where we give you way more guests, way more stories and if we can work out how to do it, incorporate video into the podcast.

‘We actually had a flea infestation, which really put the icing on the cake.’ In this episode, Todd and Jake talk through their experiences in the privilege of their first platoon and troop command. Many argue that one of the best things that you can be afforded is legal responsibility over a large group of people and that you should cherish that privilege because it is fleeting. This episode is about how we cherished our command.

While you have already heard stories of the culmination of Jake's civil engineering studies with his ground-breaking Honours thesis, unbelievably the first project that he actually designed as a fully qualified engineer went over budget, over scope and over time. We tell the story of that project, fondly called The Deck at 6 Engineer Support Regiment that if it were to be dug up in one hundred years' time the archaeologists would wonder what the crew building it did because Jake singlehandedly quadrupled the amount of concrete in the ground with project mismanagement.

In this episode, we talk through Domestic Operations in Todd ‘deploying’ to Hobart, Tasmania for three-months over Christmas and New Year’s Eve to provide oversight on hotel quarantine for seasonal workers that the state was desperate for. Jake tells the stories of building cyclone shelters and schools in Fiji as part of Defence Assistance to the Civil Community where he made-up the pivotal structural ratio of cane toads to concrete. This is the meaty content where we talk through achieving real things.

Subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode and the last in Season One on the first time returning to all-corps training since RMC-D, the All-Corps Captains’ Course with ~90 of your peers, and another of Jake’s original songs, Goodbye Canungra.

‘Where there is smoke, there is fire.’ In this episode, Zac who is a current serving Adjutant in an artillery regiment joins us to talk through what an Adjutant does and what their expectations of new junior officers is. We talk through demi-official letters of introduction, meeting the Adjutant and Commanding Officer for the first time and how high or low the expectations on lieutenants are.

Adjutants are the most senior junior officer in the unit and technically hold field rank. Apart from being one of the Commanding Officers closest advisers, they are responsible for a unit’s incident management, the discipline and standards of all junior officers in the unit and they are often the first point-of-call for a new lieutenant marching into the unit.

Zac explains how officers marching into their first unit can distinguish themselves in their introductions, what your first day in the unit will look like and how an Adjutant can help you navigate your first command. He tells stories of incident management, phone calls in the middle of the night and the rewarding component of guiding the Commanding Officer’s decision making by being the of the junior officers.

Subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode where we talk about the privilege of command and what we did as platoon and troop commanders for the first time.

‘As funny as this is, the OC is not going to find this funny ...’ This episode is centred on the relationship between junior officers and senior soldiers, a confusing relationship to first negotiate fraught with danger and social faux pas. Jake describes his first interaction with his Squadron Sergeant Major (SSM) as a newly minted lieutenant where Jake confusingly admits to being absent without leave and sends his new chain of command into an absolute spin.

We all assume, and rightfully so, that the hand-over take-over of your first troop or platoon will occur on a massive parade with a brass band and a fireworks show; however, it could not be more opposite. Often is the case that you will meet your soldiers completely randomly and your first address may be in a lunchroom with no more words than ‘I am the new guy, start sending your administration through me.’

It is always a good idea to wait some time before implementing new change as your soldiers will have seen commanders come-and-go and can be exhausted by constant change by people who have grand ideas without the context or understanding. A 360 Degree Review is an excellent way to have your soldiers reflect on their successes and failures and provides you as the new commander with problems to solve or improvements to make. You are there to solve problems, 

In the same way that you will have seen excellent trainee officers and terrible ones, sergeants and warrant officers also exist on a bell-curve of competence. It is wise not to assume that they are all going to weapons and will not need any oversight. The best platoon command and platoon sergeant relationships are built on two individuals whose strengths and weaknesses compliment one-another. Believe it or not, Jake self-admits to being one of the most laissez-faire commanders – sometimes to the point of blatant neglect – and his platoon sergeant balanced that with a more stringent approach to standards and the smaller things which resulted in an incredibly strong command team.

Subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode where we talk to an Adjutant, the most senior of the junior officers at a unit, about what it is like marching into a unit for the first time as a brand-new lieutenant and what is expected of you.

‘Anything south of the 5 RAR wash point is Choccos.’ In this episode, Todd and Jake talk you through what to do when you receive a posting order to one of the two northern combat brigades. The Army’s 3rd Brigade is on Lavarack Barracks in Townsville QLD while the Army’s 1st Brigade is on Robertson Barracks in Darwin NT. There are several other brigades and minor units that are also in these two locations. This episode is centred on what both locations offer but more importantly where you should live when you post in. 

If you are single and moving to a new posting location it is likely that you will get the choice of Live-In Accommodation (sometimes referred to as LEAP), Rental Allowance to help you find a private rental property or Members Choice accommodation which is housing provided by DHA for single members. Although Jake goes through how he again lived life on hard mode, our recommendation is that you spend a brief period in Live-In Accommodation before finding some colleagues to move into a private rental property with and we explain why in this episode. A rental ceiling only indicates how much you must spend to get the maximum tax-free Rental Allowance, it is not a limit as to how much you can spend on rent per fortnight.

Todd has lived with two house mates in a five-bedroom home with 270-degree views of the ocean and Magnetic Island in Townsville and in a huge two-story home in Darwin on the water with an infinity pool and a 16m mariner birth all made possible by sharing with close friends. A good rule-of-thumb for Townsville is that if the house or apartment you choose is inside the scooter zone, you will be humming; however, the best suburbs in Townsville are: (1) Castle Hill, (2) North Ward, (3) Belgian Gardens, (4) Townsville City and (5) Rowes Bay. This rule-of-thumb does not apply in Darwin, where the best suburbs to look are (1) Cullen Bay, (2) Bayview, (3) The Waterfront, (4) Fannie Bay, (5) Parap and (6) Nightcliff.

We stand by the argument that where you live in a posting location will determine how good that posting was for you. Subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode where we talk about getting your first troop or platoon sergeant and how to go about setting up a good relationship to be successful in your first troop or platoon.

‘I talked to a few people, and that was the worst exercise they had ever done in their lives.’ In this episode, Todd and Jake delve into the depths of Mount Bundey Training Area and Townsville Field Training Area to tell stories about what happens when you run on 8 hours of water and 2 litres of sleep. Some field exercises are well-planned, some are not, and this episode has a heavy right foot towards telling stories of the latter.

Whinging about your higher headquarters is a god given right; however, Todd and Jake expose exactly what happens when they became that part of that higher headquarters. Stories about visiting generals being exposed to every harsh element of Mount Bundey, First Appointment Reserve Officers (FARO) being thrust elbow-deep into a complex planning cycle with zero preparation and the Army’s own Bachelors and Spinster’s Ball, the Line Creek Dance.

Jake plays another of his original songs – Rolling up a Ciggy out Field – written in the depths of a 28-day field exercise at Royal Military College – Duntroon called Defensive Operations. They even delve into Capability Management, wondering how the head net for the old Night Vision Goggles (NVG) made it through the tender process as the winner out of all the other options that would not have caused excruciating pain and would have held the NVG in a spot that actually made it functional.

Join us for some of stories of our time on exercise and out-bush and subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode where we give our hot chips on where you should post for your first posting.

‘Will I need my helmet for this sir?’ In this episode, our guest Shetty recounts his foundational experiences as an Artillery Officer. A mechanical engineer by ‘trade’, Shetty chose artillery because ‘he watched something blow up in the distance’ and that was enough to get him into the corps which says far more about our guest than the corps itself.

Shetty recounts stories of accidental Danger Close, the lightning bolts that are sent down a radio when a random officer makes up his own callsign on a safety net and getting his bush hat loaded into an M777 and fired through as an act of admiration or hatred from his soldiers on the gunline. He also talks through a setback at RMC that meant that he had to do II Class a second time, and what it felt like to see his cohort progress while he had to stay at RMC.

The three streams in the Royal Australian Artillery are Offensive Support, Uncrewed Aerial Systems, and Air Defence. In Offensive Support, Shetty started as a Fire Support Officer (FSO), a Command Post Officer (CPO) and then a Forward Observer (FO) in a Joint Fires Team (JFT) and has loved every moment. Most junior officers command troops or platoons of 40+ soldiers; however, in the biggest rort in Army, JFT commanders have a maximum of five soldiers and spend their days in the gym and a mysterious place called ‘The Dome’.

Join us as we cover all things Offensive Support and subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you can don your helmets for next week's episode full of field warries and another of Jake’s original songs.

‘This is where the hard times inspire some really good ideas.’ In this episode, Todd and Jake depart from the chronological order of officer progression and describe some of the legends of the training institutions that they have spent so many years in.

Not letting the truth get into the way of a good story, this episode goes through some of the lighter parts of training and some of the unique aspects that make up training command. Incredibly short holidays with little planning filled with flukes, creative solutions to boredom during COVID-19 and a newly minted lieutenant fleeing to Hong Kong to avoid his less-than-ideal corps selection are all covered in this episode. 

Jake plays one of his original songs – Brekky Wraps – written about the legendary breakfast option provided by the cafe at the Royal Military College – Duntroon, The Groll. Jake talks through the obstacle course that some Civil Engineers complete at the start of their degree, where they need to select an object to pay respect to a shrine made for the ‘Muddies’ and Todd explains how trainee officers skew the statistics about disposable income in Canberra ACT.

Join us for some of the lighter stories of our time in training and subscribe to The Cove Community Podcast so that you do not miss next week’s episode where we have a Royal Australian Artillery officer talking us through a career as an artillery junior officer.