Johns story is filled with risky events, survival instinct, and perseverance. Service in the Royal Australian Navy has taken him around the world on great adventures and to about nineteen war zones or operational areas, but with the benefit of hindsight, none of you would have wanted to live his life.
Johns life as a child was destroyed by the navy. His career as a young adult was destroyed by the resulting psychological injuries. His twilight years were destroyed by the conflict with the Department of Veterans Affairs (DVA) and government investigation and review agencies. These are the two components of this story.
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John Atkins
John Atkins came from a pioneering Australian family, which came by boat in the mid-nineteenth century from the British Isles. They made their mark in many fields, and his parents were farmers.
He won two scholarships, giving him a choice, yet it was family circumstances that decided on a career early in life, and he joined the navy when aged only thirteen years. Early serious child abuse shaped a turbulent career in the navy and later in “civvy street” where, as in the navy, he excelled on occasions overcoming the odds, which were stacked against him.
John’s interests are in the church, his friends and families, and in the peculiar study of opals. He and his second wife, of many years, help others and have continuing small business interests in the opal trade. Desna has stood by him during the worst of times, and together they are looking forward to just enjoying the remainder of their lives in caravanning and travel. They both have a love for rural Australia and the outback.
This story can now be told, after the RAN and the Department of Veterans’ Affairs finally accepted liability and apologised for his treatment for over a decade. John has been proven right all along in his very toxic fight with government.
Paul Evans
Paul’s early life was dysfunctional and marked by great poverty. He entered university, only to drop out in the first year and join a stock broking firm as a telephone clerk. He advanced quickly, and as soon as he turned twenty-one, he became an operator on the Australian Stock Exchange and managed to get his face on television several times during the turbulent eighties.
Eventually, he ended up in England working for the Ministry of Defence and was so impressed by his experience that he applied for and obtained employment with Australia’s Department of Veterans’ Affairs before he had even returned to Australia. While with DVA, he was to work in the office of two ministers, including five months with De-Ann Kelly during the disastrous events surrounding the ninetieth anniversary of Gallipoli
He won the Secretary’s Medal for his performance at DVA. However, despite these highlights, he describes DVA as the biggest mistake of his life and was appalled at much of the behaviour that he witnessed in Canberra.
His primary interests are history and his family.
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