Influences before enlistment
I actually was born and grew up in Western Sydney and Villawood. I was very familiar with the local migrant hostel. So I had a very broad range of friends from different backgrounds. When I was a teenager, I think it was about 13, my folks decided that they were going to move to Melbourne and so we moved there. I went to high school in Victoria. It wasn't such a happy time as It was such a transition from early teenage years going from Sydney to Melbourne at that age. So I completed high school, completed year 10. And then basically, had no idea what I wanted to do with my life. But one of the things that really, that I've clung to all of my life was when I was very little we grew up, as I said, we grew up in Western Sydney, both of my grandfathers were in the military, and one in particular, Poppy Hogg,. he had always used to tell us stories about his time in the army. He was in Burma. He was in the British Army, but he was in Burma. So he served alongside the Gurkhas. So he had a lot of military equipment, you know, that he was allowed to bring out when he emigrated. So I was very familiar with the kukri and all the medals that go with that with the Second World War campaign. But he also had the most fabulous greatcoat that I used to sleep under when I was a little kid and I remember that, the smell of that coat, the brass buttons, everything about it. So I had some quite romantic ideas about being in the military. He also was in possession of the most fantastic medals that you could imagine. So being a small child all these shiny things that Pop used to bring out at Anzac Day. And there were a couple of medals in particular, that really stood out for me that I learned about later, which was Boer War and South Africa medals, one of them had four bars, and the other one had two. And then there were other World War One campaign medals. So that was going back. That would have been his, I think it was his uncle that served in those campaigns. So from that that really piqued my interest, I think, in the military. And he used to have the most fantastic stories about his time in India in the various forts and so that, I think was where the seed was planted. So when I discovered after I finished high school that I really had no idea what I wanted to do, and at that point there was a lot of unemployment. And I guess I kind of defaulted back to thinking about going to the military. And it really started from there. It took a long time to get in, I think it took me three years of applying. And I was eventually accepted in 1979. And I was given basically 24 hours' notice from the time I got to ,they tracked me down and I got the phone call to actually be in at the barracks or at the recruitment centre in Sydney before going to the WRAAC school at George's Heights. So I had to pack up my life in 24 hours, which was, It was so exciting. And I had no idea what to expect. So that's really my story, I guess, at the start of my military career.
A good option
After I left school in 1975 I actually just floated around. I was quite, I guess not itinerant but just unsettled. Had no idea what I was really looking for in life and, and the employment situation in New South Wales and Victoria at that time were pretty dire, probably Australia wide. So, options were very limited for someone who'd only gone to year 10 and then only just really scraped through. So the army was, I guess, a good option for me, it gave me structure. And that's what I was looking for. I was looking for structure and I was looking for discipline. And recruit training gave that to me in spades.
Recruit training
There was lots of PT, which was fine, because I was always a sporty kid. So lots of PT, things like bushcraft, you know, learning how to pack a pack properly so that you're not going to tear your shoulders apart with the weight and things like that. Learning how to march, which is funny, because I kind of already had an idea because, you know, playing, I was one of four children and, you know, Pop used to play soldiers and make us, you know, play like soldiers and whatnot, in the backyard. And just marching around. So it was kind of, it felt very, very familiar. But at the same time, some other things were very, very different in particularly living that communal living. We lived in quite rudimentary barrack blocks in George's Heights, which is in a lovely part of Sydney. But yeah, it was strange being sort of shut away from the rest of the world for that period of time until we were allowed, I can't remember how long it was but we were eventually allowed to go out and re-join society for a little while before we all had to come back in. So that was recruit training.
Broken leg changes career
We were asked to put down some ideas about where we wanted to go. So I wanted to do something a bit exciting, but then quickly realised that at that point, in 79, women weren't really employed in any of the arms and the army, I guess, at that stage was transitioning about how it was going to integrate women into the broader defence force. And so we did lots of, I guess, things that perhaps earlier recruits hadn't done. Probably more so a little bit later on when I went off to school, but basically, being told I was going to be an administration clerk was not so thrilling. So the minute I went from Mosman, it took from George's heights to my initial employment training, which was at Bandiana in Victoria, on the border of New South Wales and Victoria, went there, I started my clerical course. And then it was such a big school that we ended up meeting a lot of people from other walks of life that were going to be doing other things within the Army and one of them was parachute training or parachute rigging to be exact. So packing parachutes. So I thought that sounds a bit more exciting and up my alley. So while I was at initial employment training, I actually applied to do a parachute course. So that meant doing an actual jumps course, which I did. But in the meantime, that all sort of takes a few months, my first posting was actually here to Canberra to a psychological research unit and that was doing data entry. I was a key punch operator or something like that and registering mail. [For people that don't know what a key punch operators is] Oh, it's this clunky old machine that you used to, was like cards. All I can remember it was like this card, this is pre computer days, so it was just like a card that had a series of, I think, numbers or squares on it and you just input that into this machine. It was not glamorous, I thought this is really not what I saw myself doing so after a short time when the parachute course came up, I jumped at it. They said, yes, I could go. So I went and did my parachute training course and the jump after my fifth, or the jump after my qualifying jump, so that I'd get my wings, my parachute wings. I broke my leg. So that was that. That still has long term effects on me now. But anyway, so I then realised that I would never be able to be a parachute rigger because I wasn't able to, I was told I couldn't keep jumping, parachuting anymore. So that meant I had to change direction.
Officer training
I decided that I was going to apply for officer training and because I'd left school, high school, quite young, not so yet not so much so young but in year 10, I didn't go through to matriculate. I discovered that I had didn't have the education that was required. So the army put me through a six-month education course and I came out with basically HSC, I think you'd call it now HSC and from there, I was, then I met the education requirement to do the officer training. So I did, in 1982 I did the officer training course for 12 months, once again, back at WRAAC school in George's Heights, back in the same old blocks that we were recruits in. And from there, it was just, it was, I still have friends from that period. When you live with someone in such close quarters, they're lifelong friendships and I still keep in touch with a number of those girls these days. So it was a fabulous time, not without its challenges. We did, once again, a lot of physical training, we did a lot of work running with a pack, a heavy pack in full, you know, boots, greens, simulated rifle, or weight that you would consider would be the weight of a rifle. So we used to run through the streets of Mosman in formed ranks. So that was really when they were looking, I guess, the army was looking at how are we going to move from being a women's training establishment to integrating the women into the males at RMC, Royal Military College. So we also started doing a little bit of weapons training then so we would go on the range, for example, the rifle range and we would fire a number of weapons, like a submachine gun, a nine-millimetre pistol, 7.62 SLR which was quite a big rifle, very big, all of those. The submachine gun and the pistol were fine for me but the, being quite short, the handling of such a large rifle as a SLR really presented challenges for me. But yeah, I really enjoyed being on the range. We also did a lot of tactical exercises, you know, going out bush again, as we used to call it doing navigational exercises and training for, you know, quite a lengthy period of time. But you could see it was just how are we going to move this? What the army was going to do with us, how we were going to move and transition. So there was one year after mine that did Officer Cadet training, Women's Officer Cadet training at George's Heights and then the following year, so from 1984 I believe was the first integrated course. So it was a very, it was peacetime so there was not a lot of military operations going on at the time.
The Falklands War: A stark reminder
One of the things that had a lasting effect on me though was the Falklands War. When I was doing my officer training, the Falklands War was on at the time and that had, that really, I guess, gave me an understanding of, well, you know what, this is not just about running around the bush, you know, playing soldiers or whatever, with no disrespect, but this is serious. So that was really something that I had to process, even though it was a long way away … I didn't think we'd get dragged into the Falklands but it was just a stark reminder that that's what war was. It was a very different sort of war. It wasn't, there was a little bit of a land war but it was mainly aerial and the ships. But yeah, so that that had a lasting impression on me.
A wonderful period of time
When I graduated from officer cadet school, I'd graduated into Transport Corps and that was brilliant because it, actually, I was then my first posting was actually to Singleton Transport Unit and we used to support the infantry centre. So I got to meet a lot of, even as a young officer, I got to meet a lot of Vietnam veterans, infantry veterans, you know, fabulous people that, you know, had the most hair-raising stories about Vietnam. So as a junior officer it was a fantastic opportunity for me to hear and see how it was for people who actually served in times of conflict. So that was wonderful. And from there, I'd spend a little bit of time in Puckapunyal doing training, doing more transport training, being about how to be a logistics officer. And then after that, I ended up going to Sydney, to Liverpool Transport Unit and that's where we supported the brigade, 1 Brigade at the time. That was, once again, very logistics focused, you know, moving them out on big exercises up to the northern parts of Australia. That was a, you know, fabulous time. It was just all about learning, it was learning, you were learning all the time, you still did all of those things that I did in training, like going to the range to re qualify for, you know, weapons, your weapons training, lots of physical training. It felt a bit strange being in a capital city and being a soldier, I was an officer by then but, you know, just being in that environment, you just think about people in the military being out there. And then shortly after I got married when I was at Liverpool Transport Unit, and I married a fellow who was actually a Warrant Officer, so that was a kind of a bit of a no, no. Officers, a commissioned officer marrying a non-commissioned officer. But we're still together. It's been, yeah, he's great. So following that, I then went into the headquarters, I was promoted and went into the headquarters in Victoria Barracks in Sydney and that's when I saw the other side of being in the forces where it was really about being in a desk job. And I wasn't so keen on that, but that's what happens. I was a captain then, I was promoted to captain at that point and organizing logistics but on a much bigger scale. So you know, looking at plans of the HMAS Tobruk, for example, and doing load plans for that or parts of load plans for that, and writing movement in stone. options for the movement of large bodies of troops. So it was it was very interesting. And once again, I had a very experienced senior officer around me who I was learning a lot from. And then I was posted to the water, Army maritime school over on Middle Head. So George's Heights was just above us, I was very familiar with the area, we were hugely lucky and managed to get a married quarter on Middle Head Road in Mosman, which we were very fortunate to get and life was fantastic. And I had my first child there, Thomas, and it was just a wonderful period of time.
An army and civilian family
My husband was posted to Melbourne so I followed him to Melbourne and it was another headquarter job. And I thought, "Oh, here we go again." And at that point, having a young child who was not the best sleeper, and I was constantly tired, and whatever, I just discovered that being a military mum is a little bit difficult. I think nowadays, there were just not the supports in place that you have nowadays. But then, how I reflect on that is that I don't think that I had the pressures that modern military mums have now with the places they go, the expectations, so I think it must balance itself out. it was difficult for me because I was so committed to the army and I loved the army. But my family came first. So I had a little bit of a wobble there, I guess, and decided, "What am I going to do?" And then number two comes along, my daughter, Susie. And shortly after Susie was born, I thought "No, I'm going to leave the service." With real sadness because it's such a family, being in the army. It was such a family, and very supportive. But in those days, there was also, the recognition now that like mental health and things like that, it was very difficult to be an officer where you were expected to be on top of your game all the time and not have any wobbles. There were no allowances for that sort of, I guess those feelings at that time. So I mean, I probably put more pressure on myself, but I felt like I can't serve two things 100%. So army will have to go and I will just focus on the family, which ,in hindsight now,, where I work now where I'm constantly around, you know, veterans stories and military history and the tales and it's just, I love it. I feel like I'm gaining something back from what I missed out on.
Peacetime service
Peacetime was very interesting. So we were sandwiched between Vietnam and Gulf 1 and there were a few natural disasters. But I always seemed to be on a training course when there was a natural disaster. So we had the big fires in Victoria in 1983 and I was on training, so I didn't get to, you know, help out with that. And then there was some big floods, I think, in Nyngan, where I was not able to go. So it's interesting how the role of the defence forces is changing over time. But I don't regret for one minute joining the forces. I am in awe of what people do these days, how they juggle things.
A transitory stage
It was a different time too, with the male female, how that dynamic was working. I always had a good time. There was never any tensions around those sorts of things. I did see a little bit of it, but they've never impacted me manifests, just being overlooked, sometimes for certain things, actually there is one situation that I remember, I was desperate to be a committee member on the mess in a particular area I was in and it was traditionally something that went to a man, and it did but that's okay, that's just how it was. It's a different time and I think it felt very transitory though I think I was in the military in a time when we were just working out what we could do with women, or why should women be restricted to this or that. And the policies at the time, I really don't know that, while they had done a review etc, about women, I really don't know if there was any huge, not interest, that's not the right word. The take up of some of the recommendations may not have been carried through. There was the will to do those things but it happened very quickly after that, from that point, then it seemed to be very quick. Women are now doing everything and I think it's fantastic. I love to hear their stories. I think they're incredibly interesting and capable and worthy of praise.
Corps identity
I do have a lot of women friends, who … were from that pre integration time. And they liked it how it was, not necessarily not doing some of the different roles but I guess it was just, we were our own Corps. When I first finished recruit training I wore a WRAAC badge on my cap or on my beret. I did not wear my Corps badge. And it was that sense of being part of something that was very special. And the nurses too, the nursing corps. It was. sometimes it felt great to be that little bit different and special. And then when I finished my officer cadet training, I wore a transport badge. So they had moved at that point and that to me was highly symbolic of the way the integration was going to go. We were now identified with a corps and not a women's corps.
Love of operational and leadership roles
I loved operational roles. I felt I was better at those roles than doing purely administration work. I love the challenge of leadership both male and female. I loved, you know, that side of being an officer in particular .. I loved the leadership roles that the army offered me, it taught me how to get people to do unpleasant things that had to be done or the task couldn't be completed. I learned that it built my confidence in doing that. But it's, while you don't have to know every intimate detail, you had to understand what you were asking someone to do. And if you had an understanding of that, you can get soldiers to follow you and that was a massive revelation, I guess, for me, is that just understanding people's drivers and how to get people to do things that they really don't want to do, but they'll do it because they know that you know what you're asking them to do and they know that it is imperative to the task that that task is completed for the greater benefit. So integrity, definitely, and leadership, those things that I was able to do and they may have only been little things, but one of my bosses said to me once, she said, "I always give you the hard things to do, because the troops will do them". And I guess I just had an affinity with people at the time and I loved what I did, I loved it.
Public service
The reason we got married was we realised that they were not going to always going to post us together. So that was another reason, while they accommodate you as best they can, I mean, that's just how it was. If they couldn't make it work, well then I realised that there would have been a separation and that's not what I, you know, that's not what I wanted. The army, it's a wonderful family but it has to have limitations on what it can do, what it can provide, by the nature of it. Everyone who serves in the army or in the military is basically the ultimate public servant. Public service is what it's all about whether it's in our role as, you know, as part of a peacekeeping force or whether it's part of a military operation, they put themselves behind their needs, behind the needs of the greater good and if you understand that, that's why, for me, the army was going to be a career for life, not something that was just going to give me the skills to move on with and I think that's a very, that's probably a very old fashioned view. It was something that I learnt, probably from my grandfather. He was so committed to the military but ultimately my family was going to be the most important thing for me and I don't regret, I don't have any regrets about that, I made the right choice. I just wish sometimes that things were a little bit easier.
Non acceptance of women
I think I probably missed out on the pointy end of the stick. Definitely. There were a couple of girls I know that wanted to go into Armoured Corps. The closest they got was being engineers and some of those, it didn't work out so well. There was a general non acceptance of women in those roles. But I personally didn't have that because logistics was one of those things that was, logistics was largely seen as something that that women could very easily be integrated into. If you're going to do some kind of transition, they're the obvious ones that you start with. It's funny, I still think there's a lot of grappling going on in the services about women, but it's, we try just as hard as the blokes do.
Driving a Mack truck
The happy days for me were probably in my young officer days when you didn't have to fly a desk all the time, when you're out in the field, or you're out in a, you know, convoy of trucks. I remember I learned how to drive a Mack truck and I learned how to drive a Unimog and I'd never driven a manual car before I did those things. It was just an effort to get into the Mack truck, couldn't see over the bonnet but that's probably more about my physical stature. I can't remember, I think I just sat right forward on the chair and ended up with massively sore shoulders but I remember the controls being very heavy. So put it this way, that was just knowing, you trained as a transport officer, you got that training just, I think to give you an idea of what the troops are going to be doing.
Anzac Day
I've marched as soldier like as when I was in the military, you know, did Anzac Day parades and whatnot, but I tend not to now. I find I'll do just do quiet reflection. I've watched the march, the Sydney march. I watch. I don't do the dawn service. I just feel I would rather reflect quietly on it. And, yeah, that's just how I feel. I've been to the battlefields, haven't been to Gallipoli. If ever there was a sobering reminder of the futility of war, you only have to go to Western France and you see it laid out there in all its stark reality but I think it is important that we remember those feats, that sacrifice but I prefer to do it in a more quiet way.
The Infantry Centre
The Infantry Centre really was an eye opener for me because I remember I was tasked with doing some parade announcements when we had the anniversary of a battle and because the infantry centre had so many people passing through there from different units, so it was quite a regular thing. So they'd have a big parade and then I'd be, I guess a bit like the MC or reading about a battle. And, you know, I had no real concept of the Vietnam War, other than watching it on the television, of course. I remember, you know, watching the bombings and things, car bombings by the US and whatnot but not fully understanding what it was to be a soldier in those times. So the infantry centre was fantastic because it really gave me, I got to meet those crusty, old blokes that had a terrible time but you know what, they just went about their business. And so it was, Infantry Centre was a real eye opener for me. Look, I got to learn about some of the battles. As I said earlier, my grandfather used to romanticize about his time, I'm sure it was probably pretty bad in Burma and then my other grandfather was, he was an anti-aircraft gunner on the cliffs of Dover. So I guess I've had that, that exposure to veterans throughout my life.
More about parachute training
So parachute training. So there were two bits to be a parachute rigger and pack someone's parachute, you had to be willing to jump from a plane. So me thinking that this was a great idea when I was on the initial employment training as a clerk, that's when they were canvassing for people to do this. So I thought, "Yeah, I'm gonna put my hand up" but it took a long time to get there. So I had to do, in the lead up to the parachute rigging, you had to qualify on a basic parachute training course, which was static lines, so no free falling. So I thought, "Yeah, I'm gonna give that a go." So lots of PT, running around as a soldier. I was posted to Campbell Park to the psych unit and we had, fortunately we had Duntroon and we had Mount Ainslie, so you know, running around there training for this basic parachute course. So when I got there, I'd be able to be, you know, ready for it. Anyway, I thought there was another girl that was going to do this course with me and she wasn't able to so I ended up being the only girl on this parachute course and it was like, "Oh, what have I done?" Most of the fellows that were there were from Delta Company, of 6RAR and 6RAR were about to go airborne at that point. I think it's changed now. But I think at that point, there was some idea that they would be, Delta Company we're going to be the parachute company. So there were a whole bunch of infantry soldiers on the course and there were a whole bunch of SAS trainees, cadets, all the support people for SAS, they were also on there. So I'm thinking, "How did I find myself here?" Anyway, so parachute training was very physically demanding. It was frightening. I'm actually afraid of heights. The parachuting, it wasn't the bit that I was most frightened of. You do training exercises out of towers, there was a thing called the Polish tower and the exit tower if I recall. And it was, so you could see the ground. It was very, you were aware of how high you were whereas when you're in a plane, you know you're high, you just lose all sense of reality, well I did. So anyway. It was frightening, that side of it was frightening, physically demanding and then, so when we started doing our actual jumping out of the aircraft, it was out of a Chinook helicopter. So I think there were about 44 of us and so I think it was a few weeks into the course that was our first jump. And, of course, I was the only girl on the course. So I was pretty much up the front of every stick that went out of the aircraft because what bloke was not going to go out after a female had gone out, after a girl had gone out of the aircraft. So it was hugely noisy. I remember the Chinook was hugely noisy and bumpy and we did this up at Saltash in just north of Newcastle at the RAAF base, RAAF Base Williamtown. And so I remember standing on the ramp of that Chinook just thinking, "What am I doing?" Then you just, you know, you do the shuffle step down towards the edge of the ramp and then you see the green light and then you just get tapped on the shoulder and it's, you just don't hesitate, you just go because if you don't, you're going to have, you know, 40 other people coming over the top of you so I just jumped and it was an amazing feeling. So I did four jumps out of the Chinook. The fifth jump was out of a Hercules and that was out the side of the Hercules and that was supposed to be my, that was my qualifying jump. And that time I had to jump with full equipment, so that meant a pack, a rifle, and the way you're sort of rigged up, where your pack is, etc, for me, being short was very hard to walk all together, I almost had to be lifted onto the lip of the back of the HERC to get on. It was so heavy and I just shuffled into my spot. And I went out of the aircraft, I will, you know, went up and I went out of the aircraft. And so I qualified and then the following jump it was windy, it was a bit touch and go whether we'd go and, you know, it was decided, yeah, we can, we're good, we're good to go. And I got blown slightly off course and landed slightly off the drop zone but it was enough to, the ground was very uneven and I broke my leg in three spots and that was the end of my glorious parachute career. So it was a very physically demanding course. So I have to say it actually told me the limitations of being small and having all of this equipment on, which is exactly what you'd have if you were jumping into battle. You'd have all of these things, you know, your pack, possibly a radio, depending on what your job was, what your role was and a rifle and it was going to always be hard for me to consistently do that. I think it was, you know, it was fine while I was on training but in reality it probably would have been too difficult … I felt like I achieved something, put it this way, I got to wear a set of wings on my arm for the next little while. And until I, you know, couldn't really qualify but I got to wear those parachute wings which I have to say raised a few eyebrows. It was highly unusual to see a woman in those days with a set of wings. But it got the blokes talking and, yeah, it was, despite the bad accident, it was fun … It was so static line. It's hooked up to the actual parachute. So when you come out the minute you come out of the aircraft, it's on like a bungee strap, it's on like a, what I call a big elastic band and then it breaks the, I guess there must be a toggle or something on the parachute. I can't remember to be honest and it breaks. The static line stays in the aircraft and it deploys your shoot but you're far enough away from the aircraft for it to actually deploy and they were not very, that was the other thing probably why I didn't, I was trying to steer like mad to get up because I could see I was going to come off the drop zone. I was steering this thing like mad to try and get on to the drop zone but the more you steer the more you're robbing your canopy of air and so you go faster… I knew I was going to, like when I let go, not steer because to try and sort of get a bit more air into the shoot. It was like ,it's too late. Now just remember your drills because that's all drilled into you, how to, you know, bend the knees so you're not landing on straight legs. All of those sorts of things kick in, but I knew I was going too fast and it was too windy. was way too windy, so I hit trees, a few low sort of trees, bushes and whatnot.
Respect and trust
Managing as somebody who had not managed people before, it was enough as a starting point.[And you didn't get any resistance as a female officer?] I had some resistance from some of the, you know, senior NCOs but generally, once they got to know me, it was fine, you know, they were respectful once they knew I wasn't there, just there as you know, some social experiment, they were fine. I did my job. They respected me. I think they liked me, by and large, although it wasn't my job to be liked but they liked me and they trusted me and I trusted them. So it was very, it's a mutual relationship with soldiers and most of them would go above and beyond if they were asked. But yes, there was a little bit of resistance. Some of the fellas had had some pretty rough times in Vietnam or whatever or maybe not even Vietnam, maybe they just had some difficulties accepting that and I 100% understand that, it was all, you know, I guess it was a bit of an experiment still. I said earlier that we were trialling some camouflage uniforms. We were the first, this week I remember we were given these uniforms to trial and then, lo and behold, at the end of the course we gave them back, at the end of cadet training, we gave them back and lo behold, they were rolled out, the one that we said was the most comfortable or whatever, they ended up being pretty much rolled out. So before that, it was starched green, you know, the full dark green uniforms, you know, drill uniforms in jungle, like what you would have seen with Vietnam veterans. That was pretty much what we were wearing when we started but by the end of it we were in camouflage equipment. We loved those because we didn't have to iron them.
Army Maritime School
Army Maritime School was fantastic. I had my first Officer Commanding there, his name was Jack Peel and he was, I believe, l he was in small ships in Vietnam. So he was such a character and so there was Jack, Captain Jack as we used to call him and Jack moved on not long after I, you know, a little while after I was there. The school is actually located in Chowder Bay in Sydney on Middle Head. So, my office looked straight out onto the harbour. So when the bicentennial was on in 1988 when I was there, you know, I had front row seats pretty much. So that's a lighter side of it. But it was a very interesting place because, you know, you'd see all sorts of people come through there. It was where we used to have the landing craft there that you see now, I think it was the AB 1066, the old landing craft LCH. And we had the larks that used to go to Antarctica, the amphibious vessels. So it was a really interesting place. There were lots of things going on there and the other thing that was really one of the highlights there, was they did the Australian launch for Good Morning Vietnam at Army Maritime School. One of the senior NCOs there, he was our QMS, Jimmy, he had one arm, he had suffered terrible injuries in Vietnam and he had a prosthetic and he was pretty, you know, beaten up and he was a lovely bloke. And so they used Robin Williams, from Good Morning Vietnam, for the Australian premiere, was bought across from the Opera House to the school and that's where they did the launch of Good Morning Vietnam in Australia. And so, got to meet this, you know, Robin Williams as he was coming around. He was so funny. It was just one of those things that you just think, I mean, the army, "What am I doing here? There's a Hollywood guy just there." Yeah, that was that was crazy stuff. But it just, I think about those characters like, you know, Jimmy, that was like, so beaten up from Vietnam. We had all sorts of people who've been to Antarctica, who did the rotations, you know, we did the training there for anybody who went to Antarctica from the army. I mean, so it was, yeah, it was just a fabulous, fabulous posting, and I was the administration officer there.
