For five-and-a-half years, Julie-Ann Finney has been channelling her unfathomable grief over the loss of her son David into trying to change the way Australia treats its defence veterans.
Warning: This story details suicide and issues of mental health.
"On the 1st of February, 2019, David took his life," Ms Finney told 7.30.
"On his birthday, the 17th of February, 2019, I begged people not to put the lid on his coffin.
"I begged him to wake up, but he didn't, and the next day, I had to bury him. And I realised in looking it up that I wasn't unique."
Trying to understand what happened to Royal Australian Navy petty officer David Finney, and becoming an activist for change who played a crucial role in the establishment of the Royal Commission into Defence and Veteran Suicide, has absorbed every day for Julie-Ann since David died.
She became one of a group of mothers who lobbied relentlessly for the royal commission, which will hand its final report to the governor-general on Monday.
Its findings to date have been shocking.
The royal commission says that at least 1,677 serving and ex-serving Defence Force members — who served on or after January 1, 1985 — died by suicide between 1997 and 2021.
That's 20 times as many who have died from suicide than those who have been killed in action or on exercises.
Only a portion of those who have died by suicide saw active service.
Based on the evidence they have heard, the royal commissioners say the actual number of preventable deaths could be more than 3,000.
"When I look at all the families that have lost someone, and I take myself out of my own body, it's forever," Ms Finney said.
"Do people understand that it is forever? You might watch me for two minutes ... but it's forever. I've got this forever, and I don't want it. I don't want it.
"I didn't choose to be this face. My son would be behind me saying, 'It's not about you, mum,' but he would want me to keep going."
'David was not OK'
Julie-Ann Finney's witness statement to the royal commission documents her son's great joy at serving in the navy and how, at his passing-out parade and celebratory dinner, his commanding officer said "something like 'We're his family now, not you'."
David Finney was traumatised by the death of his infant son from SIDS in 2007. His mother says he received little support or help from the navy.
His navy work in 2009 was tough, Julie-Ann says.
"He told me about being part of a boarding team that was involved in the holding of refugees on board the ship," she said.
"This was very confronting and traumatic for David. It was something he spoke of in years to come."
There were other incidents, and a navy decision to take David "off his ship and put him in a land job" was "soul-destroying", she says.
David spoke of suicide as early as 2009, and attempted it in 2016.
"Even though I was David's next of kin with the navy, they never contacted me about it," Ms Finney told the royal commission.
"I only found out because I saw a Facebook post that David was not OK."
He was discharged in March 2017 and then put in a claim with the Department of Veterans Affairs amid hospital admissions, including for "worsening PTSD and suicidal ideation".
Julie-Ann told the royal commission David struggled to find a psychologist or psychiatrist willing to take on a patient like him "because of the limited funding and excessive paperwork".
Then came the police knock on the door on February 2, 2019. David was dead.
Catalyst for change
Ms Finney told the royal commission that Defence did not help with his funeral but said it could provide a chaplain to attend and an ensign (navy flag) but she would have to purchase the ensign, and a uniform for her son to be buried in.
Almost immediately, Julie-Ann Finney started to campaign for change, including reviving a petition for a royal commission that would eventually gain over 410,000 signatures.
The Morrison government originally pledged to establish "a powerful, new independent body" to investigate all suspected veteran and Australian Defence Force (ADF) suicides: a "permanent National Commissioner for Defence and Veteran Suicide Prevention".
But instead, then-prime minister Scott Morrison subsequently decided to establish the royal commission in 2021.
Julie-Ann Finney says of her son:
"David was amazing. I'm so proud to be his mum, and he served for 20 years in the Defence Force. He was so proud of his job, and I'm really proud of him, and I'm proud of everyone that serves. We have to remember to thank people for their service. They give up so much to serve. But unfortunately, I have to stick with 'don't enlist until it's fixed', because David died, and 3,000 have died, and we've got to stop this.
"It starts with Defence. It goes through to [the Department of Veterans Affairs]. We've got ex-service organisations pretending to do a good job.
"We've got 3,000 veterans dead, they all have names, and they're all somebody's loved one. They're either a partner or a child or sibling."
Julie-Ann sat through every hearing of the royal commission, and has also sat through countless parliamentary committee hearings.
The thing that struck her most out of all those hours was the people telling their stories, she said.
She says she is not going away.
"I tell you, at the next election, I will be in the communities where people are seeking re-election, and I will be there walking behind them going, 'My son's dead, and you did nothing. You did nothing, and I'm not going away'.
"You are not going to keep your seat, I promise you, unless you start working with the true spirit and intent of those recommendations from the commissioners."
She says the most important recommendation from the royal commission is for an ongoing body to investigate the many complex issues that it raised in addition to suicide.
"We need that because veterans and serving members and families, we have nowhere to go when anything is really wrong," she said.
A mother's wish
The chair of the royal commission, Nick Kaldas, told 7.30 that while the commission was focused on suicide, it did uncover a lot of problems with homelessness, incarceration, and "the traumatic brain injury issue".
"One of the reasons we're asking for this body to succeed us is that there is some work that we simply did not do adequately," he said.
"Certainly, the issue of homelessness and incarceration and TBI or traumatic brain injuries: There's a lot of work yet to be done in those spaces.
"And we would hope that if there is a body that succeeds us, they will delve into that in far more depth than we have."
Julie Ann Finney said: "I wish that someone would just say to me, 'You know what, Julie-Ann? It's enough. There's too many dead. We're going to fix it. You can stop fighting. You can sit down. You can go to the grave. You can grieve for your son.' I would really like that.
"I want to grieve for my son. I want to stop fighting. Somebody has to let me do that."
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