Air commodore john oddie biography of abraham

• John Oddie, retired Air Commodore of the Royal Australian Airforce has penned a book about his experiences on the front line
• Flight Command details the harsh emotional toll his service took, and focuses on the impact that war has on families
• Mr Oddie served in the Defence Forces for nearly four decades
• He saw conflict in two wars and was first on the ground following the Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia
• The book published by Allen & Unwin is on sale now
  

By FREYA NOBLE FOR DAILY MAIL AUSTRALIA

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A boy who grew up on the land in country Victoria and went on to serve in Australia's Defence Forces for nearly four decades, John Oddie recalled the moment that would the set the course for the rest of his life.

He remembers watching the planes flying high and low across his parent's farm but admitted 'I never imagined I could be a pilot or even that it was within reach.'

Then one day, 'I was out in the paddocks just on the tractor and this F (aircraft) nearly took my wheel stack off.

And I thought you know, that's really exciting', Mr Oddie told Daily Mail Australia.

'That person has made a decision and I have not, I'm sitting here annoyed with my life and that person has clearly made a decision to do something about theirs', he said speaking of the plane's pilot.

From there, with the mentality that 'normal human beings do this, I'm a normal being, I can do it' a young Mr Oddie - barely into his 20s - put in an application to join the Defence Force, an application which he says 'changed his life'.

In his new book Flight Command, retired Air Commodore Mr Oddie puts on paper his 35 year career in the military and then the Royal Australian Airforce, but also tells of the emotional impact war has on not just individuals, but their families too.

'The key point here is the families, when we go off we know what we're doing, (but) they've got no idea because we either don't have the time to tell them, or can't tell them, or we just don't think to tell them', Mr Oddie revealed.

'I'm hoping this is the story of the feelings that arise when you do interesting things in remarkable places And certainly my goal is to enrich the dialogue in society about defence and military people.'

From the tough call Mr Oddie made one night when he decided to go to the Gulf War, to the complete and utter devastation which came in the wake of the Boxing Day tsunami in Indonesia, Flight Command is an exploration of the full experience of serving on the front line.

He was in command of the first Australian team to touch down and offer aid after the natural disaster, and said there was no other way to describe the tsunami other than totally and utterly destructive.

'We saw rivers of corpses, bloated blackened corpses, all mixed into the detritus, with new cars and old, building materials and humans.

Children, men, women, everything all mixed up', Mr Oddie recalled.

'We saw, and smelt the ugliness and the consequence of this dragon coming out of the sea and destroying everything in front of it.

'And I truly use the word dragon because when you look at it, you think there's only one thing that could have done that and that's a dragon that came out of the water and just ate the land,' he said.

Scenes like this can be overwhelming and just as destructive for those who are there providing relief, and the retired Air Commodore told of the heartbreaking moment one of his fellow servicemen was unable to cope when confronted with such a horrific situation.

'When we went to the tsunami one of my colleagues was in a moment of intense personal stress and ended up taking his own life, and we found out while we were in the middle of it.

'We had such high regard for our colleague and we were so hurt by the fact that he made this choice and we weren't given the chance to help him through it.'

This emotional toll is one that anyone who serves in the Defence Forces has no choice but to live with - and one that Mr Oddie said can be an enormous burden, and many of the psychological injuries sustained in battle can last a lifetime.

'In every moment, you leave the moment damaged in some way.

And then of that, let's say you walk away with a lump of damage of percent, 80 percent of that will get fixed over time and goes away.

'But there'll be a little bit that's left, that last 20 percent which is left and sort of stays in the background.

You can't ever put that back in the bank, it's damage which goes on forever.'

Over time however, Mr Oddie learned to deal with the burden of this, despite the many pressures it put on his family. And through the horror of war and disaster Mr Oddie said human joy in it's most raw and deep form is always there.

'In the middle of the most dire disaster is always the most beautiful human experiences.

Always you will see the absolute best and absolute worst in those dire moments.

'They're not shallow moments of joy, they're truly deep and meaningful moment', he revealed.

Through having his portrait painted multiple times by Australian artist Ben Quilty, and being confronted by his own emotions evident in the artwork, Mr Oddie decided to tell his story.

He did so with the aim to help Australians gain a greater understanding of their military, and to ask people to remember the immense hardship the families of servicemen and women face.

Flight Command details Mr Oddie's struggle to adjust after he returned from conflict in the middle east to an earlier than expected retirement, and what it was like to come back to a world that so vastly differed from the war torn one he'd just returned from.

John Oddie is the author of FLIGHT COMMAND, published by Allen & Unwin, RRP $, on sale now.

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