I would first like to say thank you very, very much for taking the time and
effort to make me a laundry bag. To be honest, I think it is far too nice
to use for dirty washing. I have no idea what I’m going to use mine for
but it won’t be for that. Maybe I’ll hang it up when I get home. I
was surprised when they told us that we could fill in a form and someone at
home would custom make us something! I had never heard of anything like
that before. I think it is an excellent idea!
I was born in Alice Springs, but my parents moved to Katherine in ‘82, which is
where I stayed until I joined the RAAF in 2000. I had a fantastic child
hood; learning to drive a little car that looked like World War II army jeep
but smaller, and being trusted to take it out bush exploring with just my mate
when I was 9. Having a cat who would try and fight the little donkeys as
they wandered too close to the house. Getting lost numerous times, and
not being allowed inside to eat my cold dinner until after I had hosed myself
down out back, hours after it had gotten dark. Not having much of
anything until after I had a job and could buy things. I grew up on a
river with crocodiles and barramundi in it. Learning to swim, fish,
canoe, drive a boat and how not to get eaten pretty much all at once.
Apart from Darwin, I hadn't seen a city until I was 15, when my mate’s
parents shouted me a trip to Surfer’s Paradise for helping them move their
motor mechanic business form one side of town to the other. That was my
first time on an aircraft and the first trip I had taken outside of the
Territory.
I joined the RAAF pretty much on a whim. Mum suggested I have a look into
it and the next thing I knew I was in Adelaide, out of the Territory for the
second time, at rookies, freezing, and wondering why the sun was still in the
sky at nine o’clock at night! I remember my first weekend off base.
We were driving past a field full of sheep and I got excited! Sheep
don’t do too well in the tropics, and I had never seen that many before, that I
could recall. Everyone in the car had a good laugh at the
boy-from-the-bush excitedly pointing at sheep!
From Adelaide I moved to Wagga Wagga for my aircraft technician trade training,
which lasted a year. It wasn’t really the first time I had lived away
from home because I never spent much time there anyway. I could be
staying at a mate’s station for months on end, or in the caravan in the front
yard. It was however the first time I had lived in a fancy house with a
garage, but I only had a motorbike so I didn’t really have much use for it.
Wagga was another lot of firsts for me. The first time I’d seen
thick fog. The first time I’d seen hail. The first time I had to
driven in a big city! I joined the local canoe club and went for a paddle
with them. In Katherine, I would just drink the river water when I got
thirsty. The local paddlers in Wagga were aghast when I took a sip out of
the Murrumbidgee! I didn’t know what all the fuss was about! It
tasted fine to me!
After Wagga, I moved to Ipswich, near Brisbane to work on Caribou aircraft as a
Black Hander. Those old aircraft were so much fun! They were World
War II technology, from a Korea War vintage, purchased in the Vietnam War era,
and were still flying for nearly ten years after I got there! They could
take off and land from a very short, semi-prepared airstrip and carry loads
higher than a helicopter. Because of that, they were perfect for the
mountainous conditions of Papa New Guinea. Some of the flying we did over
there was incredible. Landing on ridges that were no more than four wheel
drive tracks in the Owen Stanley Range or flying through valleys, dodging
clouds trying to find a way out was quite exciting! I missed out on East
Timor, but I was lucky enough to get deployed to the Solomon Islands with the
Caribous in 2004. I was very fortunate to be working with a great bunch
of people, doing something that we loved and having so much fun doing it.
Another aspect I loved about the Caribou was that it had no auto pilot. When
the pilots got tired and wanted a break, one of them would climb down from the
flight deck, see who in the back was awake and chuck them up front to steer
while they revived themselves in the back. I can’t sleep on an aircraft
anyway, so more often than not I would find myself up front flying to wherever
it was we were going! Flying over the Solomon Islands would have to be
some of the prettiest flying in the world. The greens of the jungle, the
blues of the sea and corrals and the whites of the beaches were picture
perfect. Very similar to flying over the Whitsundays, but better!
And a lot of World War II relics to find and explore. It really was
paradise.
I’ve now lived and worked in the RAAF in Ipswich, Tindal (just outside of
Katherine), Townsville and Richmond, near Sydney. My fiancé (who I will
be marrying when I return to Australia) and I also took a year off and lived
and worked in London. She is a primary school teacher so I thought I
would work in a school for a change as well. I worked as a teacher’s
assistant in a year three class in South West London (Wandsworth) and Nat
taught a year six class somewhere in East London. I mainly worked
one-on-one with an autistic boy, but I helped everyone else I could as well –
not only in my class, but I ended up doing a lot in the school from talking
about basic electronics to fixing a boy’s motorised wheel chair, to dealing
with problem children, putting up displays, fixing the plumbing etc. It
was a massive eye-opener for me. I had never worked with children before
but I learnt so much doing it - about kids and myself. But never again!
Give me a plane to fix any day! One of the girls in my class
brought me a present for the end of the year (they all did actually!) and she
told me it was an Australian Bear. I thought to myself “But we don’t have
bears in Australia, I wonder if she means a koala. Don’t these Poms know
not to call them bears? That’s what makes them angry and drop on you from
out of the gum trees!” She said I couldn’t have it until after class, so
I thanked her, told her she didn’t have to get me a present, and forgot about
it. After school her mother came over to me and gave me a six-pack of
Fosters! Oh! Australian BEER! Now that was a thoughtful
present! They really were good kids!
I’m now currently deployed to the Middle Ease working on C130J-30 Hercules
aircraft. We are based at an air base called Al Minhad which isn’t too
far from Dubai. I thought it used to get hot in the Territory, but over
here it’s ridiculous! It was quite pleasant when we got here in May.
The weather was very similar to what I’d left in Sydney. And it
even rained several times too! Now however, every day is around 50 deg C
and it’s still getting hotter. And it’s very, very humid, which I still
find weird. All around us is sand. There are little saltbush type
plants here and there, and grasses, but mostly just sand. But at night,
when the sea breeze is blowing and the temperature is still in the mid to high
40s, the humidity kicks in to the point of fog developing! The
condensation rains off the buildings – it’s incredible! It is certainly
not what I was expecting. We are very lucky to have air conditioned
buildings over here including a hangar big enough to fit a Herc into.
We are supporting both the Australian and ISAF missions. We fly into
Afghanistan often moving people and cargo around the Middle East to where it
needs to go. As a maintainer, we are always flying with the aircraft in
case it breaks and needs fixing. There are so many different countries
involved. The other day I was in a French restaurant eating a hamburger
with my rifle and cams on a military base in a Southern province in
Afghanistan! Very surreal! The bases are like little towns with
KFCs, post offices, banks, heaps of shops and lots of people on them. The
bag you made for me has been on a couple of missions now to different places
around the Middle East and Afghanistan, with some photos I’ve taken of it
attached to this email.
The time and effort you have put into the bag for someone you’ve never met
humbles me. It’s laying on the bed beside me as I type this.
Instead of just saying thank you, I thought I would tell you about the
person the bag has ended up with. Again, thank you very much.
.JPG)
.JPG)
