Danny Blomeley - Enlistment

Transcript

I was born and raised in Ballarat, Central Victoria or Western Central Victoria. So from about the age of 11 or 12, I was always going to join the army. So it had just appealed to me, the lifestyle outdoors, the physical side of it. So as soon as I turned 17, completed year 11 and then joined the army just after turning 17.

Yeah. So pretty well, Ballarat was my area of growing up… my  grandfather served in World War II in New Guinea. And I suppose something quite silly, but we all grew up watching The Sullivans. And of course The Sullivans, the boys were involved with the military. So I always had a fascination and then of course the movie Gallipoli came out. So I just had an interest and the lifestyle just appealed to me.

And so yeah, from age 12, thereabouts that's what I wanted to do. And then of course, being fairly active as well, playing sport also seemed to fit in with the defence force lifestyle… I  ended up becoming an armoured crewman, so in the Royal Australian Armoured Corps. So yeah. Look, I went in eyes wide open, not knowing, just general enlistment, so didn't really know what I was going to do.

So it was either engineering or engineer, sorry, or armoured. I certainly upon joining the military, I wanted to do something army-like. So for me that was something frontline in my view was if I was going to join the army, I wanted to be doing something army-like, so Royal Australian Armoured Corps certainly fitted that bill. So that ticked that box early on for me.