The Cove Podcast

• South Sudan to Line Creek: The Adaptation of Combat Integration - WO1 Chris Sharp

  ‘'[T]here were .50 cal rounds coming off of Technicals that were ripping through the accommodation buildings…’ In this week’s episode, CAPT Todd Lempa sits down with Warrant Officer Class One Chris Sharp, Regimental Sergeant Major of the 1st Armoured Regiment, to talk about Operation ASLAN, getting selected as the RSM of the Army’s first Combat Experimentation regiment and training soldiers in Africa to transforming an armoured regiment at home, WO1 Sharp’s story is one of challenge, adaptation, and belief in people over platforms. He reflects on his deployment to South Sudan on Operation ASLAN, where he served as a Training Warrant Officer embedded with the United States military, navigating the complexities of operating alongside multinational partners in one of the most demanding environments on Earth. Returning to Australia, he learned he’d been selected as the RSM of the 1st Armoured Regiment — a proud moment quickly tempered by peers questioning whether he was going to a “real armoured combat regiment.” What followed was an exciting and fast paced change. He began 2025 watching every armoured vehicle in the compound loaded onto trucks and driven away, leaving behind an empty regiment compound. But by the end of the year, his soldiers had delivered one of the standout performances of Exercise Talisman Sabre 25, using uncrewed aerial systems, armed First Person View (FPV) drones, and automated M113s to outmanoeuvre and outthink the enemy party. The result was not just tactical success — it was a cultural one, with soldiers begging to stay in the unit they had helped reinvent. This episode captures what leadership looks like when tradition meets transformation — how an RSM can build pride, purpose, and lethality in an era where the definition of “armoured” is changing fast. ————————————————————————— Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss out on any of the heavy hitting content we have planned.

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• Command in Combat: Hard Decisions and High Standards – BRIG Dave McCammon

  ‘Nothing narrows the focus more than being properly shot at ...’ In this week’s episode, the host sits down with Brigadier David McCammon, the Commander of the Australian Army Cadets and Head of Corps – Infantry, to explore what it truly means to prepare for combat, be in combat, and return from it. Few senior officers have deployed so frequently at the tactical level. From commanding platoons and companies to leading a battalion and a brigade on operations, BRIG McCammon’s operational experience stretches from East Timor and Kosovo to Afghanistan, Iraq, and the Middle East. He reflects on the lessons forged through over two decades of command: the importance of preparation, discipline, and maintaining standards even when they’re unpopular; the leadership required to make hard calls under pressure; and the enduring truth that combat exposes character—it doesn’t create it. We unpack the “70% solution,” why morale isn’t about keeping people happy but giving them something to fight for, and what it means to be the “first adult in the room” when chaos breaks out. Drawing on his experiences commanding Australia’s first Operational Mentor and Liaison Team in Afghanistan, Task Group Taji, and most recently JTF 1118 during Operation Beech, BRIG McCammon discusses accountability, resilience, and the moral courage required of leaders in war. He offers blunt advice on why he prefers to reign in a stallion as appose to flogging a donkey and what Australia’s next generation of soldiers and officers must do to be ready for the wars ahead, even if there is no obvious deployment date. ————————————————————————— Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure you do not miss out on any of the heavy-hitting content we have planned.

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• Spiritual Toughness: The Big Three Questions – CHAP Gav Keating

  “It would be so much easier to say, ‘hey, I was riding on my white horse on the road to Damascus and I got struck down by lightning... but that’s definitely not what occurred.’” In this week’s episode, the host sits down with Chaplain Gav Keating, whose journey through the Australian Army spans from the 2nd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, to the Special Air Service Regiment, to commanding the 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment and leading Task Group Taji 6 as a Colonel on Operation OKRA—before making the shift to study theology and become an Army Chaplain. Now serving as the padre at 5/7 Battalion, the Royal Australian Regiment, Chaplain Keating reflects on the link between leadership, purpose, and what he calls spiritual toughness. We explore how spirituality—defined not as religion, but as the search for meaning, purpose, and identity—underpins resilience and fighting spirit in soldiers. Drawing on his experience leading troops in combat and counselling them in peace, Chaplain Keating discusses the “big three” questions posed by Rabbi Jonathan Sacks: Who am I? Why am I here? How then shall I live? He uses case studies from his own operational experience and Senator John McCain’s time as a prisoner of war in Vietnam to explore what keeps people going when others are deliberately trying to break them. From the moral component of fighting power to the power of reflection, we unpack how spiritual strength becomes a force multiplier in the profession of arms. Chaplain Keating introduces his concept of a Spiritual Appreciation—turning the Military Appreciation Process inward—and explains what happens when institutions fail to live up to the trust their people place in them. He closes with a challenge: to take the time to write a personal mission statement and define what truly matters in your life. In a world of relentless tempo and external noise, he argues that clarity of purpose is not something that comes easy—but that it’s the foundation of resilience, leadership, and a strong fighting spirit. ————————————————————————— Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure you do not miss out on any of the heavy-hitting content we have planned.

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• The Invisible Front: The Importance of Effective Counterintelligence - MAJ Paul Patty

  'These people aren’t ghosts, as much as they attempt to be or seem like it ...’ In this week’s episode, we sit down with MAJ Paul Patty, an Intelligence Officer in the Australian Army, to unpack counterintelligence (CI) in modern conflict. MAJ Patty is an expert in counterintelligence, and his skills have been relied upon in both the private and government sectors. We open with two stark contrasts: a contemporary case study on Ukraine’s operational planning and the consequences when CI is poorly conducted, set against the UK’s Double-Cross system in the Second World War—a successful approach to turn Axis spies to report bogus information back to Germany. We also examine how Russian services seeded spies inside Ukraine and across other post-Soviet states to run grey-zone deception operations, leaking operational plans back to Moscow and distorting Ukrainian decision cycles before contact. We also confront a hard truth at home: Australians are not immune to recruitment by Foreign Intelligence Services. The classic levers of MICE—money, ideology, coercion, and ego—remain timeless vulnerabilities. Understanding how these levers are pulled, and recognising them early in ourselves and our teams, is essential to preventing insiders from becoming access points into our operations. From there, MAJ Patty lays out what CI is (and isn’t): not just security compliance, but a campaign to degrade, deny, and manipulate an adversary’s understanding of our intent, capabilities, and movements. We explore how offensive and defensive CI intersect—neutralising hostile HUMINT networks, protecting sensitive capabilities, countering technical collection, and planning for counter-sabotage and partner-force integrity—and why CI effects must be integrated into operations from the start, not bolted on at the end. Whether you’re a junior leader looking for practical CI habits or a planner figuring out how to wire CI into targeting, deception, and signature management, this conversation offers a clear, hard-edged primer on how to fight for decision advantage when it matters most. ————————————————————————— Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss out on any of the heavy hitting content we have planned

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• Warrior Ethos: from Non-Combatant Evacuation to High-End Warfighting - WO1 Scott Krum

  ‘Everyone wants the view, but nobody wants the climb.’ In this week’s episode, we sit down with WO1 Scott Krum, the Regimental Sergeant Major of the Royal Australian Infantry Corps, to revisit the Australian Defence Force’s contribution to the Kabul Non-Combatant Evacuation Operation (NEO) and to ask, plainly, what we demand of soldiers and officers in 2025 and beyond. From 14–30 August 2021, a US-led, coalition-supported NEO moved approximately 124,000 civilians through Hamid Karzai International Airport; Australia evacuated over 4,200 people on 32 flights. WO1 Krum takes us onto the ground with the Ready Battle Group—through the North Gate and Abbey Gate—to unpack readiness under pressure, ethical restraint amidst chaos, and how discipline and purpose hold when the stakes are highest. We then pivot to Warrior Culture: what readiness really means (your equipment, your skills, and the reality that sometimes you’re going without), why purpose must be understood and owned at every level, and how healthy competition—especially at a section level—sharpens a unit. We tackle Australia’s tall-poppy syndrome, why a fear of failure (and a candid Black Box Review) is a feature not a bug, and how resilience is built in hard times. We then turn our sights to unit identity and death symbology before WO1 Krum sets a clear standard for behaviour, restraint, and fighting spirit. We close with WO1 Krum’s challenge to the listeners: if you want to win in Army you must get FILTHY — forget what others think you can do, find intrinsic motivation, take the little wins, remember that what we do is tough, build good habits, and remember that only you can do it. This episode is recorded from the Australian Army Infantry Museum in Singleton NSW with one of Australia’s most senior and respected soldiers. ————————————————————————— Subscribe to The Cove Podcast to make sure that you do not miss out on any of the heavy-hitting content we have planned.

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