Life on the Line

Welcome to Season 7 of LIFE ON THE LINE, Australia's first and leading veterans podcast, from Thistle Productions. In our 7th year, after 6 seasons, 2 miniseries, 261 podcasts, 17 video episodes, 188 veterans and over 1.7 million downloads, Life on the Line is back. We now present Season 7. Our ongoing mission is to track down Australian military veterans and record their stories, from World War I...

Alex Lloyd introduces the WWII video documentary FOR SCHOOL AND COUNTRY, now on  YouTube . FOR SCHOOL AND COUNTRY is a five-part video documentary miniseries, created by us, Thistle Productions. The series chronicles the lives and service of twelve WWII veterans who went to school together and took up arms when war broke out. This production was originally released on DVD in 2015 - the first ‘This...

Veterans of Season 6 share their stories of a Christmas in uniform. Life on the Line tracks down Australian war veterans and records their stories. Veterans of Season 6 share with the Thistle Productions team their experiences of Christmas in uniform, from deployments overseas and back home in Australia. The episodes these veterans were featured in earlier this season include: #123 Nick Howlett Vo...

Alex Lloyd interviews former combat engineer, Paralympian and IED survivor, Curtis McGrath. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Curtis McGrath OAM is a soldier turned sporting superstar. He was a combat engineer in the Australian Army, and lost his legs when he stepped on an improvised explosive device in Afghanistan in 2012. From there, he set hims...

Angus Hordern interviews AATTV veteran Donald McDowell. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Donald McDowell is a veteran of the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam. The AATTV was a specialist unit of Australian Army military advisors, active from 1962 to 1973. It was specifically raised as part of Australia’s contribution to the Vietnam War. It’s...

Sharon Mascall-Dare interviews Timor and Afghanistan veteran Graham Goodwin. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Brigadier Graham Goodwin CSC is currently the commander of 9th Brigade Australian Army. As a Reservist, Graham has had a significant career in the ADF and South Australia Police, including deployments to Timor and Afghanistan, and serving...

Alex Lloyd interviews Australian Army veteran Peter Watt. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Peter Watt enlisted during the Vietnam War. He has been a soldier, articled clerk to a solicitor, prawn trawler deckhand, builder's labourer, pipe layer, real estate salesman, private investigator, police sergeant and adviser to the Royal Papua New Guinea C...

Angus Hordern interviews Australian Army veteran Michael Greenway. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Michael Greenway served in the Australian Army for 36 years. He was in the Royal Australian Army Ordnance Corps, and spent most of his career working in supply. He deployed to Namibia, Timor, Iraq, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan, as part of pe...

Alex Lloyd interviews Afghanistan veteran Sabrina Smeaton. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Sabrina Smeaton is a veteran of the Australian Army. She served in the artillery corps, working as a Weapon Locating Radar operator and a Scan Eagle UAV operator. She deployed to Afghanistan in 2011. Sabrina spoke to Alex Lloyd about her passion for milita...

Sharon Mascall-Dare interviews army veteran Trent Burnard. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Colonel Trent Burnard has worn an army uniform for 32 years. He went from soldier to officer, deployed to Rwanda and East Timor, and worked in Intelligence. Today he focuses on teaching leadership and resilience as a co-founder of Hindsight Leadership.  Ep...

Alex Lloyd interviews former special forces combat doctor Dan Pronk about his new memoir, THE COMBAT DOCTOR. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Dr Dan Pronk is a former special forces combat doctor. He deployed 4 times to Afghanistan and went on over 100 combat missions. In his 7th appearance on the show, Dan spoke to Alex Lloyd about his new book,...

Alex Lloyd hosts a panel on the veteran suicide crisis, with Wes ‘H’ Hennessey and Renee Wilson. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. On 11 August 2022, the Interim Report of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide was submitted to the Governor-General, and then to Parliament. While this podcast sees itself as a veterans storytelling pl...

Angus Hordern speaks with veteran Glenn Kolomeitz about the fall of Kabul in 2021.  Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Glenn Kolomeitz is a veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force and the Australian Army. Among other roles, he’s been an MP and deployed to Afghanistan as a Legal Officer, working to enable Special Forces on their missions. He was o...

Alex Lloyd interviews Middle East, South Sudan and Cambodia veteran of the RAAF, Paul Gebran. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Paul Gebran is a veteran of the Royal Australian Air Force. He joined on April 24th 1990 and medically discharged on April 25th 2017. Paul spoke to Alex Lloyd about his deployments to Cambodia, South Sudan and the Middle...

Angus Hordern interviews SAS veteran of Afghanistan, Ryan Wilson. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Ryan Wilson is a veteran of the Special Air Service Regiment. Over the course of his military career, he deployed to Malaysia, the Solomon Islands and Afghanistan, as well as training overseas. Today, he is the General Manager of Whipper Snapper Dis...

Alex Lloyd interviews World War II veteran Reg Chard. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Reg Chard was an infantryman in the Australian Army in the Second World War. He fought in the jungle against the Japanese in New Guinea along the Kokoda Trail in 1942 for months. Since 2011, Reg has been a volunteer guide at the Kokoda Track Memorial Walkway in...

Thomas Kaye interviews army veteran Gareth Gardner. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Gareth Gardner served in the Royal Australian Armoured Corps, deploying as a driver to Timor-Leste and Afghanistan. He transitioned from digger to officer, becoming a tank commander. Gareth spoke to Thomas Kaye about his military service, his love for teaching an...

Alex Lloyd interviews 2nd Commando Regiment veteran Ant Plater. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Former Special Forces operator Ant Plater served in the Australian Defence Force for 27 years, 17 of which were with the Commandos. He deployed to Somalia, Bougainville, East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, served in the Tactical Assault Group-East, and...

Sharon Mascall-Dare interviews army veteran Mick Burgess. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Mick Burgess has served in the Australian Army and Army Reserve for almost 40 years. He deployed to Rwanda as a young officer, encountering child soldiers and the aftermath of the Rwandan genocide. He went on to have a career in the army as an instructor an...

Angus Hordern continues his interview with Vietnam War SAS veteran Nick Howlett. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. In the second part of his conversation with Angus Hordern, Nick Howlett details patrols and hot extractions during the 1969-70 3 Squadron SAS deployment to Vietnam. Nick tells Angus about his post-Vietnam career, the paratroop jump th...

Angus Hordern interviews Vietnam War SAS veteran Nick Howlett. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Nick Howlett joined the Citizens Military Forces in the 1960s as a commando. He soon left his civilian job as a bank teller and transferred to the regular army and joined the Special Air Service Regiment as an officer. In this podcast, Nick tells Angus...

Welcome to Season 6 of LIFE ON THE LINE, Australia's first and leading veterans podcast, from Thistle Productions. After 5 years, 5 seasons, 2 miniseries, 241 podcasts, 15 video episodes, 174 veterans and over 1.4 million downloads, Life on the Line is back. In 2022, our 6th year, we present Season 6. Our ongoing mission is to track down Australian military veterans and record their stories, from...

Veterans of Season 5 share their stories of a Christmas in uniform. Life on the Line tracks down Australian war veterans and records their stories. Veterans of Season 5 share with the Thistle Productions team their experiences of Christmas in uniform, from deployments overseas and back home in Australia. Featured guests include Chris Oxenbould, Greg Hopgood, Mark Wales , Wes 'H' Hennessey , Comman...

Alex Lloyd interviews Royal Australian Navy veteran Kasey Mumford. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Kasey Mumford was an officer in the Royal Australian Navy. She deployed to Timor, the Arabian Gulf and was on HMAS Manoora during the MV Tampa incident in 2001. Kasey spoke with Alex Lloyd for Season 5’s final episode. For more episodes related to...

Sharon Mascall-Dare interviews Royal Australian Air Force veteran Catherine Walsh. Life on the Line tracks down Australian military veterans and records their stories. Catherine Walsh is a former Air Force intelligence officer and former aide-de-camp to the Governor-General. Today she’s Director of Veterans South Australia. Catherine spoke to Sharon Mascall-Dare about the RAAF, her deployment to t...