dancertodefence

Ever since high school I always had a fascination with army lifestyle (and army boys 😉 ) growing up in Singleton, on a Thursday evening was when the infantry soldiers from the Lone Pine Barracks would come to town. I was always talking about them and my mum often said she thought I would end up dating a guy in the army, which I did for a little while, but maybe we’ll save that chapter for another day.

My neighbors that lived across the road were a military family, the father, I’m not exactly sure of his role, was in the Army. On the odd occasion we would see him dressed up in his formal wear or would see him leaving all dressed up on ANZAC Day, I thought it was the coolest thing.

Fast-forward a few years to October 2015. I was in Brisbane and had just unsuccessfully attended an assessment day for Cabin Crew with Emirates. Due to not completing year 12 I was not eligible for a visa in the UAE. I was pretty disappointed until my cousin (who is enlisting this month) said “You know you can be Cabin Crew in the Air Force.. ”, I had no idea! That’s when I started researching and discovered the world of opportunities that ADF have to offer. There are so many jobs on offer and a lot only require completion of year 10.

It took me 2 months of thinking about it before I actually phoned Defence Recruiting to book in for a YOU session. At the time I was dating a guy who had just started his training, when I would tell people I wanted to join they would say “oh are you doing that because your boyfriend does?” which was frustrating after hearing it a couple of times. I definitely wasn’t interested in a career in the ADF because I was dating a member, though it was great to have someone help me with taking the first few steps.

Currently I have attended a YOU session, specialist testing and am waiting for my Assessment Day date. I have two jobs on my preference list, Loadmaster in the Air Force and Cargo Specialist in the Army. I found it difficult to decide which jobs to put on my preference list, I ended up taking Crew Attendant off my list after hearing the waitlist for job openings and being told how many people were already in line for the job.

Anyway, back to my reasons for joining, serving in the ADF is something I can be proud of and at the end of the day I think the opportunity to be paid for training and to be guaranteed a stable job with a generous salary, benefits and travel is an opportunity not to be missed. I have spent the last year and a half exploring different parts of this great big world and now i’m more than ready to begin a career I will never regret.