Mark Wales
Mark Adam Wales is an Australian author and entrepreneur. He gained national attention as a competitor on Australian Survivor, which he eventually won. His earlier career had been as an officer in the Australian Army, where he made ten deployments over 16 years, including four to Afghanistan with the Special Air Service Regiment. On leaving the military he began business studies in the United States, before launching an apparel brand in New York. His 2021 memoir, also called Survivor, documented his experiences of war, PTSD and moral injury''.''
Early life
Family background
Wales' parents met in the country town of Maffra in Victoria, where his mother was a secretary and his father a bank teller, before taking a job as truck driver in the remote iron ore community of Newman, Western Australia. Wales was born here, growing up with older brother Steve, younger brother Dan and very few rules, which were "no drugs, no motorbikes, and always do your best, always."He has written about regional Australia in the 1980s as friendly, happily hitchhiking as a child with his older brother. Trips to visit his mother's family in Cookernup, in the state's south west, were frequent. However, it was here that he and his older brother were sexually abused by a family member on a dairy farm, where he was "utterly helpless against this guy because he was bigger, stronger, could do whatever he wanted." Wales has indicated that choosing a military career had been shaped by a desire "to be in control of my environment—never getting in that situation again." His grandfather on his father's side also influenced the young man, handing him a shin guntō captured from Japanese forces whilst he had fought the Battle of Morotai.
Job moves with Australian Customs took the family to Perth, then Geraldton, then back to Perth, with the family settling in Leeming, where Wales went to high school Wales recalls a moment at school where he decided his future: seeing the front cover of a classmate's magazine which showed black-clad troops storming the Iranian Embassy in London to rescue western hostages. He later said he found the idea of "saving people from hell" compelling. In June 1996, his final year of school, 18 Australian soldiers were killed in a tragic Black Hawk accident; though this seemed to increase his resolve.
Military service
According to his service memoir, Wales took the Oath of Allegiance at an Australian Defence Force ceremony at Swan Barracks in 1997, at age 17. Commissioned as an officer cadet, he moved to Canberra to study at Australian Defence Force Academy which he did not enjoy. He further admits, "I was a disaster as cadet." In one fire and maneuver exercise he led, most soldier cadets became lost. In his grenade training, the weapon was fumbled before exploding, though, remarkably, no one was hurt. Even so, he successfully completed his degree and went on to Royal Military College, Duntroon in 2000. Here, Wales was dressed down by an assessor officer for a catastrophic ambush exercise, along with the feedback that "To my absolute bloody amazement, they followed you. They wanted to work for you. That’s a good thing. You can lead, you have that skill – you just need more technical work." He would go on to active service, making ten deployments, including Timor-Leste, Solomon Islands, Iraq, Afghanistan, Fiji and Lebanon.Royal Australian Regiment
Commissioned as a Lieutenant, Wales was appointed as commander of 5 Platoon in 2nd Battalion, Royal Australian Regiment, known as 2RAR, based in Townsville. Through 2001, he led the platoon on exercises at Line Creek Junction, before deploying to East Timor.Timor Leste, 2001-2002
Leading a infantry platoon of 30 soldiers, Wales served a 7 month tour in Timor Leste to protect locals from pro-Indonesia militias. These involved long patrols of up to nine-days without resupply; and securing Junction Point Alpha on the border with West Timor. Reporting to Angus Campbell allowed him to learn more about the SASR from a former Squadron commander. Only he heard the unit was, at that time, "a menagerie" and that warfare "brings nothing but misery. During Easter 2002, his platoon oversaw the repatriation of 3,000 East-Timorese from refugee camps, which, Wales later said, was the first time he had witnessed real human suffering.Solomon Islands, 2003
To support Operation Anode, Wales' 2RAR unit was sent to the Solomon Islands in to stabilise the country. This included missions on rigid inflatable boats close to where Australians fought in the Guadalcanal campaign of World War II. By the end of that year he was made a Captain, leading exercises for the 11th/28th Battalion, based in Perth.SAS Regiment
After Selection, Wales moved into special forces, where he would complete four tours of Afghanistan between 2007 and 2010.Selection, 2004
Wales was one of 83 candidates who underwent the 2004 Selection for the Special Air Service Regiment, completing the additional officers module after the first week. In interviews, Wales has said this included planning a hostage rescue operation, whilst being denied food and sleep, and a 130 kilometre navigation exercise, on foot, in which he became badly injured. Though he had concerns that his size would impede endurance he completed all modules and was accepted into the regiment and began the one-year reinforcement cycle in 2005.Close protection, 2006
Operational roles in special forces began when Wales started leading close protection teams in war zones. He led protective security detachments for visiting generals and political leaders, such as Lt Gen Peter Leahy, as they visited Baghdad, Basra, Talil, and Camp Victory in Iraq; and Kabul, Camp Russell, Kandahar, and Bagram in Afghanistan. Wales' squadron was called to provide protection to Xanana Gusmão during the 2006 East Timorese crisis, which extended to combat roles later in the year.Timor-Leste, early 2007
After providing security for world leaders at the 2007 Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation, Wales was asked to return to Timor for a third tour, in the role of Operations Officer. At one point, this involved missions to locate and retrieve the fugitive rebel officer, Major Alfredo Reinado, who would die in early 2008.Afghanistan, late 2007
While in Timor, Wales was asked to help form a composite troop within Rotation V, deploying to Uruzgan Province in September 2007. E Troop would be Wales' first troop command; with the task of clearing the Chora Valley of insurgents.On 24–25 October, he led his soldiers in a 12-hour firefight with Taliban fighters in a greenbelt of cornfield and its surrounding compounds. In the action he was supported by Australian snipers, AH-64 Apache attack helicopters of the British Army Air Corps, members of the 1st Gorkha Rifles and MQ-9 Reapers from the 432nd Wing of the U.S. Air Force; here Wales role meant directing fires, coordinating troops and coordinating medivac. The unharvested field enabled an ambush by the enemy and, very early in the action, Wales' sergeant, Matthew Locke was shot in the upper chest by a PK machine gun, and pronounced dead after extraction. In the reporting of the battle by Chris Masters the soldiers were said to have "fought like mongrel dogs." Wales was devastated by the death of his sergeant, giving himself tough criticism for being insufficiently aware of the dangers of the greenbelt.
On 1–5 December, Wales led the Australian force element in support of an attack on the enemy stronghold of Musa Qala in Helmand Province. Whilst cutting off Taliban reinforcements at Deh Rawood, an Australian long range vehicle became stuck in the Helmand River, with Taliban fighters approaching. Wales' unit soon came under mortar fire but the Taliban effort was repulsed by heavy weapons, artillery fire from a long range self propelled Panzerhaubitze howitzer and B-1 Lancer bombing runs, dropping 500 pound munitions. By the end of the tour, Wales had developed PTSD and depression.
Lebanon, 2008
In what became known as the 7 May clashes, Hezbollah took over parts of Lebanon and was fighting with the Lebanese Army. Wales was given a task to enter the country within 24 hours, in a discreet reconnaissance mission, planning a possible national evacuation operation.Afghanistan, 2009-2010
In 2009, while in a liaison role with Australian operators, Wales noticed "something here wasn't right" at the Australian base. Facilities had been greatly improved, but use of alcohol during the day was now open, and interest in violent combat had become "dark." He took on the role of Executive Officer of 1 Squadron, leading combat operations from Camp Russell, Tarin Kot, in the northern summer of 2010, during what became known as the troop surge. This involved planning operations, including air packages, the rotary wing, counter-insurgency and targeting force commanders.By the end of 2010, Wales saw strategic, operational and moral problems in Operation Slipper. Strategically, he began seeing the conflict as an "aimless war" with no discernible objective. This gave the enemy an advantage that could not be overcome: "The arrogance you have as a Westerner with hardware, satellites etc. We think we can be beaten and it is such a shock to learn somebody incredibly motivated with a cheap weapon and a willingness to fight you at close range can nullify all those advantages." Operationally, Wales believed that, in contrast to American forces, Australian missions were poorly resourced. He has expressed "frustration that we're not, at the national level, understanding that."
Personally, Wales had begun drinking heavily, had difficulty sleeping and his "moral compass" was slipping. He found that his view of the Afghan people had changed. “I lost trust in the population. I was like, ‘you are all against us, until you prove otherwise’. I just assumed that anyone in the population could be out to kill us.” Surrounded by men who had done "six or seven tours with heavy combat" he came to the conclusion that "a war like that will turn good men bad, and bad men evil." Even so, the journalist Masters came to describe Wales as one a small number of SAS officers who was "admired for assured application of intelligence and integrity within an anarchic a sometimes soulless environment. When the Brereton Report found evidence of war crimes in the regiment, Wales expressed that he was shocked, but unsurprised, telling Neil Mitchell that a cohort of soldiers had been exposed to combat for too long, such that “your sense of what is normal gets warped".