Living in the grey

I mentioned in a recent post about the talk by General Peter van Uhm: Why I chose a gun, this has made me reflect a lot about my time in the military, particularly in relation to working out my why. I haven't put a lot of comments onto the TED site, it may surprise you all to know that I don't usually like to open myself up to criticism from strangers :-) but for this talk I couldn't help myself. You can read my comments here.

In particular, this has made me think about why I joined to military and what it gave me, what need it satisfied in my life. It has also made me think about the things that I didn't like, the things that I had issues with in that organisation and ultimately the reason I decided to leave.

This is the third time that I have rewritten this post, there is so much that can and probably should be said about all of this, and trying to get it into a blog post has been a bit of a challenge. What I wanted to say though is that I think what drives us changes at different points in our lives. Life is not black and white, it is a varying shade of grey based around the compromises that we have made at any given point in time. My time in the Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) was a classic example of this, and the compromises made during this time helped me realise the values that are really important to me. The funny thing is that I had never thought about it in this way before, I had never realised the conclusions that I had reached - which is why I'm having trouble writing it.

Best job ever

I should point out that the Command Systems Information Manager (CSIM) position I held for almost five years was the most fulfilled I have ever been in a job. It had a lot of positives, a lot of things that made me feel proud of what I was doing, respected in my contributions and like a felt I was part of something much larger than myself.

And even when I had to send my troops over to set up systems for the Iraq deployment, I did so with a sense of confidence that we were helping the decision making processes and we were helping to keep our troops safe. I wasn't happy about our involvement in the war, I had joined the Australia Defence Force and war was not something we did at the time I joined. But I was a committed part of the team and in the murky greyness of the competing emotions at that time (otherwise known as life), I felt that staying and supporting our people in doing their job was more important.

But on the flip side

So if it was so good then why did I leave? I should point out that I had a very strange RAAF career, the posting into the CSIM position was only my second posting and I stayed in the role for almost five years. They were willing to let me stay in the position for longer if I wanted to, but at the end of my short service appointment I decided not to extend.The reasons for leaving are quite simple and boil down to one thing - life became the wrong shade of grey due to a shift in the culture of the team I worked in.

I was used to being the only woman in the room, and as a junior officer I had to earn respect, this didn't worry me. But once people worked out that I knew what I was talking about then I had a voice and my experience and knowledge were respected - until one posting cycle changed enough key people that the culture shifted as well. For some reason my knowledge was suddenly not as good, it was regularly questioned and I was marginalised from all decision making around training courses, which I had designed and delivered for the previous 18 months.

And the problem was that once the culture shift started I began to notice other inequities and subtle discrimination. That staffing change started a process that made remaining in the military no longer an option for me. I no longer felt like I was a valued and contributing member of a team that was having a positive impact on the operations of the RAAF. I no longer felt that I had a voice and could effect change.I guess that, seeing this in writing, I can see how that then made it unpalatable for me to remain in uniform as we continued to send our members off to war. Whilst I felt like a valued and contributing member of the team it was important for me to stay to support that team, as those feelings were undermined I didn't feel like I had a commitment to remain part of the organisation.

If you are a female thinking about a career in the military...

Just a last little comment about some the negativity above, I would never discourage any females from joining the military. It was an amazing experience and I have absolutely no regrets about being an air force officer. I just think that you need to remember it will be hard and be willing to leave if it gets too bad. Above all else, you need to be willing to speak out about actions that are not acceptable, a lesson I learned the hard way as I didn't speak out about an incident I continue to carry around with me - but that's another story altogether.