Warrant Officer Melissa “Shorty” Campbell is everything good that should make us all proud of our Military. Not just for the job she does but also for what she has achieved in the last few months. On January 7, in Hobart, at age 42.2 years she ran the 42.2 kilometres of the Cadbury Marathon. Her first marathon….. and most likely her last. She ran it to honour the memory of her best Army buddy Heather Anderson who took her own life in late 2022. Like Shorty, Heather loved sport and played Aussie Rules at the highest level. She was a member of the Adelaide Crows Women’s team which won the premiership in their inaugural season. They had talked about running the marathon together so Shorty decided she would run it anyway. And she spent 12 months training. She steadily increased the distances she could run until January 7. By then she was ready.

About six months ago Shorty rang Tony Dell. They had never met before but they had a connection. Tony is a life member of Defence Cricket and Shorty is Captain of the Australian Army Women’s Cricket Team. Shorty wanted to use the marathon bid as a fund raiser to help the many thousands of soldiers and Veterans who are hurting as a result of PTSD. The timing was perfect as we are in the middle of a Royal Commission looking into this problem. It has come to light that there have been up to 1700 suicides in the past decade or so. And that’s just the ones we know about. And the log jam of 40,000 unresolved claims at DVA is totally unacceptable.

The race is run but the ads will continue and donations can still be made via the donation page on www.standtall4pts.org.

A month or so before Christmas Shorty’s Army Team played in an inter service cricket competition. When Army won the final of the competition Shorty was 47 not out after coming in to bat when the result could have gone either way. It really was a true Captain Knock. We absolutely need amazing people like Melissa “Shorty” Campbell to act as role models in these stressful times. My everlasting memory of this race was when I got a breathless phone call from the finish line when she said “TONY I DID IT”

What a lady!!!.