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A former soldier who was left wheelchair bound due to spinal and PTSD injuries has told an inquiry her desperate battle to get support from veteran's affairs was so traumatising it felt like she never left the battlefield.
"I swear their (Department of Veterans' Affairs) ethos is to fight, deny, delay and hope you die,' Kylie Reynolds said in her statement to the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide on Wednesday on the third day of its public hearings in Wagga Wagga.
Ms Reynolds, 46, served in the army for 18 years, including deployments as a commanding officer in the Middle East.
Her career, she said, had been "outstanding", and she had never felt discriminated against for being a lesbian: "If my brain had not imploded I would still be doing what I loved today".
But at the age of 36, her injuries had left her unemployable.
Ms Reynolds said trying to get help from the Department of Veterans' Affairs after her medical discharge in 2011 had been like "going to war again".
"Giving up is easier and taking your own life is easier than fighting a war against the OVA (Office for Veterans Affairs) to get the entitlements.'
Ms Reynolds told the inquiry like all soldiers, she had been trained to "keep my mouth shut".
She didn't dare report her sexual assault as an 18-year-old recruit at the Enoggera Barracks in Brisbane.
Nor did she complain when she was subjected to such ferocious bullying from a commander she had been prescribed anti depressants.
She told the inquiry she had kept her deteriorating mental health a secret at the time, for fear that she would be medically discharged. Instead, she escaped, taking up a posting in the Middle East in 2007.
But when she returned to Australia two years later she was suddenly overwhelmed by PTSD symptoms as well as debilitating back pain from injuries during her deployment.
"I started having flashbacks … what I had to do when bombs went off, diving into the gutter, under my bed or desk depending on where I was,' Ms Reynolds said.
"I forgot where I was or what was going on. I was just crying and screaming."
The hearing continues.
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