Me and the military....a year later

It's just over a year since I got the letter back from the SMO in Canberra that my second appeal to join the military was rejected. The letter was nice enough, two pages, explaining that I was too much of a medical risk for them to accept me. It pissed me off because their MO down here didn't even look at me. They made the decision based on positive feedback from my GP and my specialists, saying that my fitness was above average and I didn't pose any risks. The military wouldn't do their own health and fitness assessment - something I'd worked on passing for the entire year. They just stamped their letter 'permanently unfit for service'. I hate that phrase!

A number of things made me upset. I had wanted to join years earlier, but never had the guts to go ahead. At the time, I didn't even know of my heart condition (nobody had diagnosed it), so I could've gotten in and if something had happened it wouldn't have been 'pre-existing'.

The day I took all the tests (IQ, mathematical, literacy etc), there were a couple of hundred people, all testing for all services. I wasn't the first to finish, but I did answer all the questions in the allotted time and I did achieve the highest marks for the day. I was the only one to get a one on one interview in an office with a recruiter. He told me, going by my testing, that I could pretty much have whatever job I was interested in. I said I wanted air crew. I wanted to be in the Air Force. I wanted to fly. But I didn't do physics in high school, so I was competing against fit teenage boys who had and he said it'd be unlikely I'd get in. I didn't want to just enlist. I wanted to be an Officer. So he suggested Royal Military College, Duntroon (RMC). The thought terrified me, but I'd prepared myself and knew it was what I wanted to do. My second preference after air crew was intelligence. The next, combat communications. I spent an entire year studying everything anybody could possibly need to know about every facet of the Australian military. Wanna know something? Ask me!

I decided I'd go to RMC and become an Army Intelligence Officer. It was all underway. I was good to go. All that I needed was to pass a physical. The physical I never got to have.

Joining the military was the single one certain thing in my life that I truly knew I had to do. Until then, I didn't have any real direction. I didn't know what I wanted.

You probably wonder what took me so long to decide or what finally prompted me. Well, like I said, I never had the guts when I was younger. I didn't have the confidence in myself. Then, shortly after I left my ex, I went to Bali with my girlfriends and met some guys in the Portuguese Army who were on rec leave from East Timor, where they were part of the peace keeping contingent. Young guys, 18-23. Boys who already had physical and mental battle scars, who'd seen far too much in their young lives. Boys who were making a difference. I met them in the Sari Club on my 30th birthday. It got bombed just a few weeks after we left. One of their friends didn't make it home.

Then people started shipping off to Iraq. And I was at home doing nothing, but desperately wanting to make a difference somehow. I know it sounds all too noble and idealogical, but that's what I felt. I still do.

So a year later, I'm back to wondering what direction to take, with an ever increasing need to do something. I can't join ASIO coz you need a degree (something I was going to get through RMC). I applied for a simple job with the DSD in Canberra just to get my foot in the door and work up. Yes, I was willing to move to the most boring place on Earth and do a menial job. Guess they thought I was over qualified or something. I applied for the AFP, but they're not recruiting for another 18 months, plus they have the same fitness criteria as the military.

And here I am. I need to do something. I just don't know what.