Last year, Mr Krul, his wife and their five children made the move from the United States to Mangalore.
He said Australian culture had always compelled him.
“Steve Irwin I really loved, I really brought into that ... I felt like that spirit — of not being afraid of snakes, or the weather, or anything — that’s what I thought being Australian was like,” Mr Krul said.
“I grew up with that and AC/DC. I’m a huge AC/DC fan — a super fan.”
With his dad being in the military, Mr Krul grew up moving around often, the likely cause of his nomadic tendencies.
Finishing Year 9 in the US, Mr Krul moved to Europe and undertook the GCSE in the British school system.
He later went on to join the US Marine Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan two years later.
Upon return, Mr Krul poured much of his time into studying, obtaining a PhD in psychology.
“My passion project was figuring out veterans’ health and mental health,” he said.
“Especially because I realised how few people had the combat perspective that I did. So few people actually went on range, and even the ones that did didn’t get shot at.”
After meeting his wife in 2019, and going on to have five kids, Australia began to look more and more appealing to Mr Krul.
“Australia offered a lot of freedom. You can do whatever you want in Australia, there is a way to do it,” he said.
What brought his family, who now live in Mangalore, to the region wasn’t just its proximity to Puckapunyal Military Area, the central goldfields and a baseball team in Broadford, but also the feel of the country lifestyle.
“It’s what I picture when I picture Australia. I want farmland and gum trees. I don’t like packed in, modern, developed suburbs of people going through the motions,” he said.
He said the sometimes unforgiving landscape was also a major drawcard.
“People in Australia needed to know how to make Australia work for them because the land isn’t inherently a welcoming place,” Mr Krul said.
“Things don’t grow, they burn. There’s lots of floods. People had to make it work for them.
“That’s the sort of grit I want my kids to grow up with.”
To Australia, Mr Krul has brought with him a love for wrestling, currently working as a promoter for PCW Professional Championship Wrestling in Ferntree Gully, as well as a love for traditional media.
Earlier this year, he became involved with community broadcaster Seymour FM 103.9, hosting The Randy Roth Show, a program that runs every Friday between 10pm and midnight.
He said he was very proud to be involved in the community and to call the Seymour region “home”.
“Australia hasn’t disappointed me, it really hasn’t,” he said.
Having been to 85 countries, he said he had found that happiness came from appreciating the place you called home.
“Love where you live. It’ll come to you — the whole world will come to you,” Mr Krul said.
“It’s easy sometimes for kids in a country town to dream about what’s outside of it, but you can make all that here.”
