Ashley Semmens was blown up, shot at and hunted on the battlefield during the War on Terror in Afghanistan. The Channel Within: The Ashley Semmens Story tells the story of an Australian Navy elite clearance diver – a national hero who served his country with distinction and who cheated death and disaster at great personal cost. But he also waged his own internal war with trauma and mental health – an issue experienced by 1 in 5 Australians.
Ashley tackled the most perilous job in the Navy as a bomb disposal expert and faced repeated unimaginable trauma during 18 years of service – fighting shadowy Taliban bombmakers and battle-hardened enemy fighters in a seemingly never-ending foreign war; hunting ruthless foreign drug traffickers on the high seas. He also faced the threat of predatory killers of the ocean – sharks.
Every time Ashley dived in the water, he waged a war within and battled a morbid fear of them. Joining the Navy at 18, Ashley lived his life, stoic on the outside – while inside struggling with other insidious enemies – of cumulative trauma and a harsh military code of silence and suicide.
Five Navy colleagues took their lives during his time of service – Ashley nearly became the sixth casualty. And many more have committed suicide since he was medically discharged from the Navy on mental health grounds. Veteran suicide continues to be a major social/health problem in Australia with a suicide rate among ex-servicemen 42% higher than in the general male population. Women who served are 110% more likely to die by suicide than women in the general population.
Ashley walked to the edge of a cliff literally and figuratively – but found the courage to step back from the brink. Now in The Channel Within, we see a world first attempt with Ashley ‘finning’ – Navy Clearance Diver style (on his back just kicking his legs) – across the English Channel, labelled the ‘Mt Everest of Swimming.’
