combat catering

The mission: to establish and maintain law and order in the fictional country of Nesos Mikros, whose government has requested the help of the Australian Defence Force. Two local tribes (the Lenevians and Balmerians) are in conflict over the alleged poor treatment of Balmerians by the Lenevian-led national government. The RAAF is sending approximately 80 members of 381 Expeditionary Combat Support Squadron to set up an Aerial Port Of Debarkation (temporary air-strip) that is expected to operate for up to 30 days.

They say half the fun is getting there. In order to replicate the travel required to get to the Pacific nation of Nesos Mikros (which I soon discovered was merely the relabelled south island of Fiji), and for some members of the unit to get in some much-needed convoy practice, we drove from Williamtown to Tamworth (286km), and then swung back to Taree (333km). This is just over eight hours of ordinary driving, but you can pretty much forget about that timing when it comes to a military convoy’s pace. A particular highlight for me (apart from sneering at the Golden Guitar at Tamworth, for although 12m is quite large for a guitar, it’s not as big as I remember it to be) was stopping by the now defunct Leyland Brothers World.

It took about twelve hours for our packet to reach its destination, with minimal toilet stops, and wonderful opportunities to catch some fresh air and open the less bus-friendly bits of our ration packs to eat. Gotta love digging into a stone-cold pack of salmon mornay and pasta while there’s a McDonald’s and a Subway within smelling distance! Oh yeah, due to ‘not being able to ingest local food’, we had to get by on rat packs for the first few days. Fortunately, at Taree’s Army Reserve Squadron, where we were camped whilst doing force preparation, our rat packs were supplemented by cooked breakfasts and dinners thanks to The Salvation Army. Bless. Judging from the desperation that our troops dug into the fresh rations after only 12 hours on rat packs, there was no doubt going to be some pressure on Catering to set up our kitchen ASAP once we got out bush.

Luckily, I got as much sleep as I could during the convoy, because as soon as we landed at Taree, we got straight into force prep. This involved various ground defence lessons for most of the day, as well as two sets of piquets (guard duties) during the night – let the sleep deprivation begin! It seemed kind of pointless to sit and watch a bus with weapons locked in its hold, and then to rove the perimeter for a further hour, when we didn’t have weapons in our hands to actually guard the weapons with. Who said the military was bursting at the seams with logic, though? The real kicker about doing force prep was finding out that despite having to sleep on the ground in mozzie domes, we weren’t going to get field allowance for the privilege!

By the time we made it to the site of the APOD in Salt Ash (about 15 minutes away from Williamtown), we were wishing for an increase in field allowance. The land was once an orchard, with a north-south downwards slope that undulated with troughs of poorly cleared plant matter. Just perfect for building pits from sandbags, and setting up a nice level kitchen on! There was something about the location which must have appealed greatly to mosquitoes, ticks, and leeches, because they certainly didn’t clear out just because we arrived with our industrial insect repellent. Medical was kept busy with the steady stream of tick-victims, and progressively filled a jar with a still-twitching collection of the parasites. I joked that the person with the most ticks pulled out at the end of exercise should win the jar – either that, or they should start a guessing competition to see how many ticks would be in the jar by the end of ten days, but if the prize is the jar, no one would want to win that contest anyway…

I’d heard rumours that Catering always gets reamed out bush, no matter what the scenarios, but I wasn’t expecting to struggle before anything even started. Seems that we were a target for plague as well as pestilence – in the first couple days we lost our Sergeant to a mysterious illness, as well as an extra Corporal (a Physical Training Instructor that was tacked onto Catering) to indigestion or perhaps strategic dehydration. Our kit wasn’t even set up fully yet, and we were two men down, from a ten-man section! It was up to the remaining Corporal to step up to the plate, and a surprise 2IC to also jump into the mess headfirst. We also copped it on the first night of major contact, because one of the cooks had an unlawful discharge, so he didn’t have a weapon for about 12 hours.

Here’s how we got screwed by some of the scenarios:

• I shot the Padre (but I did not shoot the deputy). This was an ‘authorised unlawful discharge’, where I was meant to pretend that I was cleaning my weapon and accidentally shoot the Padre. The scenario was meant to test the response of Medical, Security Police, and also the follow-up checking of my weapon functionality by Ground Defence/Warehouse. Oh, and the Padre was also meant to be relieved by another Padre, so this was just a more dramatic way of doing a changeover, I guess. I was taken out of the kitchen for a couple hours while the Padre got treated and medevaced by helicopter (your taxes at work!), and while I got questioned and counselled. Turns out my weapon was borderline unserviceable anyway, so it was a good thing I shot the Padre!



• One of the fridges was taken out by a bullet. No major drama, just requiring a quick reshuffling of produce from one fridge to the other. The funnier thing was that for authenticity’s sake, someone drilled a hole in something that they probably shouldn’t have, because after the scenario was over the shot fridge actually was shot. It didn’t become serviceable again for another couple of days.



• A fridge-worth of rations got delivered while we already had one full fridge. Another exercise in prioritisation. Some of us tried to argue that various items such as eggs, fruit, and certain vegetables didn’t require refrigeration, but our frazzled Corporal ignored the points we were making about what gets shelved versus fridged at Woolies, and insisted we cram as much as possible into the one remaining fridge. I would have laughed and said I told you so, if the sole fridge then decided to pack it in due to being overstuffed.



• Intruders entered the Area of Operation ten minutes after dinner was ready to be served. Base camp could smell the steaks from anywhere, but someone higher up the hill must have forgot to keep track of the time. Even though we had dinner all ready to go and waiting to be served to the troops, it all had to be thrown out because the scenario went on for so long, it was no longer safe to eat because it was just sitting in hotboxes and not the actual servery.



• Airplane crash during lunchtime, requiring 22 extra meals prepared for delivery to the personnel sent out to help at the crash site. Our own lunches were sacrificed for the cause, to make the delivery that little bit speedier. We ended up going hungry and raiding the fridges later for refreshment. Fortunately there were still enough rations to go round at that point. It got trickier to pull extra meals out of nowhere as the days went on, and sections grew, or other scenarios requiring emergency/unannounced hotboxes continued to crop up. Things got a little desperate when we ran out of coffee and biscuits, and we had to put on a morning tea for a realtime affair – local VIPs and media.



• One of the Military Working Dogs got shot, and the body had to be stored in one of our fridges until it was picked up. Despite our Corporal arguing that once a dead body went into our now-working second fridge, we weren’t able to use it for food even after it was emptied once more, higher-ups decided that preserving a dead dog’s body was more important than maintaining the capacity to feed fresh rations to the remaining living troops. For some reason, shoving a dog’s body into a shipper with ice seems a little cruel. Not as cruel as letting the unit go back onto rat packs until we get another fridge sent to us, obviously!

A typical day in the life of Catering could include:
4 hours general ground defence duties (sandbagging, maintaining pits/camouflage, cleaning weapon, clearing patrols and stand-to periods)
2 hours Vehicle Check Point duty
2 hours day shift piquet in section Alert Pit
2-4 hours night shift piquet in section Alert Pit
8 hours preparing/serving/cleaning up after three meals per day

Sleep happens whenever and wherever possible. I don’t think I slept for more than three hours continuously for the entire time we were out there. The only things that managed to keep me awake and alert whilst on piquet were actual contacts – when there are people firing at you from the treeline 100m away, you suddenly forget you’ve had bugger all rest and your body finds its urge to survive.

I got cranky. I got dirty. I got delirious. I hallucinated. I swore like a trucker’s wife at anything and everything that frustrated me in the slightest. I probably managed to piss off each and every member of our crew at some time or other, but also turned around at other stages to motivate each and every one of them to harden up and push on. There’s something magical about going out bush – I imagine it’s something akin to childbirth – despite the pain and trauma of it all, what you get out of it by the time you come back home and the dust settles far outweighs all the crap that happens to you out there.

No one would believe me when I said it, but I’m glad I actually went. It was an eye-opening experience for sure, and it highlighted a lot of bullshit that I imagine goes with the territory of military exercise (or general practice, for that matter), but I’ve learnt a lot in ten days that I probably wouldn’t have found out any other way.

like being raped with the unpleasant end of a rake

Hindsight is a marvellous thing. I should have printed a copy of this off and kept it in sight whilst I was applying to be a RAAFie cook. Things might have turned out quite differently! For better or for worse, I've still yet to decide. :) I figure I've been writing this blog long enough to have a flashback episode. I remembered the other day that I had once vowed never to work in a kitchen again, and then tried to dig out what I'd written from the archives of the internet...

From an old journal entry written on November 23, 2005:

Fuck me.

Actually, that's already happened. Up the butty and around the corner. This shit'd put Mary Magdalene to shame. Screwed over by the kitchen, by the customers, by the waiters in a hospitality bukkake. Grinning maniacally at the end of it, fighting the urge to sing.

From the first to the last docket, everything simmering, riding high on two lattes and a Red Bull. Nerves bundled up like cancer in my belly, shoulders tight and forearms already feeling the burn. Not enough spoons, too many bowls, what the fuck is that bacon doing there and not on the steak sandwich. What was the secret to Lin's perfect poachies at Pancakeland two years ago? Do I remember how my Mum cooked rockling, let alone how Marino did it yesterday?

My head spins and I keep having to remind myself to breathe. And reminding the larder kid what goes into a side salad. Yes, it's the same as the last one you made. Lettuce, no, not the cos lettuce, the mixed lettuce. Tomato... cucumber... yeah, and the onion. The spanish onion. The purple shit. I resist the urge to grab the plate off him and do it myself, because there's stuff on the stove I should be paying attention to. The fourth docket comes in and I'm still not sure whether to laugh or cry.

More water in the pots, spray some oil there on the grill. Shit, there's no bacon, of course, because Marino automatically preps it every day so it's never on the actual prep list. I want my brain back. I think I dissolved it with the second coffee of the day. No sugar. Got enough bacon for two pastas. Haven't you made a pizza before? Read me out the ingredients of the express pasta sauce. Fuck it, I'll make it up as I go.

You've got chips down for a burger, right? And that steak sandwich? Do you know how to make a caesar salad? Bacon bits, croutons, cos. Yeah, you gotta chop that up. Well, if you run out then wash some more from the coolroom. Throw it into a silver bowl and mix it up with some of that dressing. Shit, dressing on the side for that one. Cut up enough for a normal salad bowl. One of those.

I've got chicken for that, now cut the egg in half. Shit, lengthways not sideways for the next one. No, I only need one. Hang on, I'll fix it. What docket is that for? Have you got fries down for that? Jesus. Fuck, the pollo's burning. Get some garlic bread and bruschetta going. On the ciabattas, yeah? You're going to need some garlic butter... butter's right there, grab the garlic, some parsley and go.

I feel like I'm about to induce a seizure, forcing my personality to split between being buddies with the larder and kitchen hand, to mortal enemies. Nothing seems to be going right and in the heat of the moment I realise that I can't do this right without them, even though it's excruciating trying to do anything with them. I need a robot and a third fucking microwave. I want Marino back. He said if I freak out about anything just call, but it's like calling an ambulance if you've already sliced your leg off. There's not much you can do about it by that point.

I'm going nuts trying to keep track of what's on the grill, what's in the oven, how long the pasta's been in the water, whether there's enough chips in the fryer, if I've got enough salad plates or any prepared at all, whether Gaz is going to shut up or keep continuously asking me if there's any dishes to be done. Han jumps in every now and then when tables outside are just waiting on their food... trying to be my second brain and organising the boys to help and not hinder. I lose count of how many times I say fuck.

Six hours after I step into the kitchen, I emerge, a battered soul. Coated in sweat, smoke, and a slight spattering of napoli, I feel sick to my stomach. Han gives me a hug, like I'm a wounded soldier in need of support. The egg on toast that I had for breakfast churns away in protest, and I'm not sure if it wants some company or it's complaining about the view. I don't feel like eating at all. After dishing up some pastas for the staff, I swallow a couple mouthfuls of lemon squash, tell Meke to finish up cleaning the floor and get on with the ordering so I can skip out of there.

I stare at the prep list for tomorrow, forcing my brain to process with what little power remains in it. Seano opens a Becks and offers it to me. I take a good, full swig of that cold liquid gold and feel it travel down my throat to greet the remains of the egg on toast. It's good. It's all I need, after more than a month without beer, it hits me sweetly. I make a couple phone calls and get the fuck out of dodge. I remind myself again to breathe. I tell Han I don't care what happens to Marino next time around, it's in Lou's best interest to get a real chef in, because even though we made it through the day, I'm not going to forget the experience for a while.

Someone point me to this entry the next time I get the urge to be a chef!

Strangely enough, reading this all over again, so many years later, it actually makes me miss working in civvie kitchens. About the only real pressure we get is whenever we do function work, and we have to pump out/plate up multiple plates within a short space of time, having each dish look the same and tasting great. Functions only happen every once in a while, with the day-to-day work being a-la-carte breakfast cookery and bulk cooking lunch for anywhere between 50-300 troops.

Being pushed out of my comfort zone by function work gives me greater respect for people that do this sort of stuff all the time. I don't think RAAFie cooks that haven't worked in civvie kitchens have any idea what it's really like on the outside. Even after a few years out of civvie kitchens, I did manage to forget what it was like, enough to sign up as a cook, anyway!

on women in combat corps

From a discussion board I couldn't resist posting to on Facebook:

I think the point here isn't that women are more likely to be incapable of physically or mentally taking on a combat role, and therefore should be excluded by default. I figure that if it is a job that you are capable of doing, and you have the determination and desire to do it, then by all means, find a Force that will accept you in that position. I hope that by thinking about what is at the core of what you really want out of life, you'll be able to find somewhere in the ADF that can help provide it.

The argument regarding ADF is that being an equal opportunity employer, any female that has the correct attributes for a position should be allowed to apply for it. However, attributes cover more than just mental and physical. In general, I believe that women have more capacity for mental toughness than men, whilst men have more capacity for physical strength. I'm not being sexist here - this is just how the world is skewed!

It's hard for any male to bring up the point of menstruation without it seeming like a clumsy attempt at pointing out weaknesses. There are of course multiple ways to safely stop a woman from menstruating - but they probably cannot be legally forced upon a female as a workplace requirement. And might I point out here that safety doesn't equate to reliability when it comes to birth control, hormonal in particular - I knew a number of women in recruit school who had trouble with their menstrual cycle due to stress. I can just imagine what might happen if any of those women were in an actual combat zone!

James said:

hey um not trying to sound sexist or anything but women are not normaly as strong as men. they would probably want different places to got to the toilet. they would possibly be raped by someone. they might slow the squad down simply due to the differences in stamina and things.

Perhaps it wasn't well articulated, but James does have a point here about the different needs of women. When I was doing field training with my cooks' course, I was the only female out bush, and they asked if I wanted a tent to myself. I told the boys not to bother putting it up, and apparently most of the time the females on course will actually ask for their own separate tent. But just because I don't care whether I sleep, eat, shit, and shower amongst a bunch of guys doesn't mean all women are cool with it, nor are all guys cool with a female being 'one of the boys'.

Even though it seems like the government has a double standard regarding sending out men on the front line but keeping our women somewhere safer, can you imagine the shitstorm that would result if a female troop were to get captured by the enemy, raped, tortured, and possibly killed? We haven't got rid of enough of the patriarchy for even the possible image of that happening to be acceptable.

Keeley said:

Along with the fact that if a woman is introduced into such an already male dominated role, the dynamic of the group itself could change, possibly causing division within the group itself between those who take a liking(non romantic or otherwise) to the female/s within the group, and those that dont.

I've seen this happen in a non-combat situation, while I was the only female on my cooks' course. Kayla Williams wrote about the Queen For A Year syndrome in her book 'Love My Rifle More Than You', where the attractiveness of a female being a minority amongst testosterone-fuelled men on deployment increases, while the normal perception of how attractive women are in general decreases. Face it, we don't live in a utopian world where women are seen as being equal to men - that won't happen for as long as we are two different genders. There is no denying the undercurrent of basic instincts that come into play when there isn't a balance between the genders within a group. Our course was told repeatedly that if there were more females within the class, the dynamics would be quite different, and most likely find it easier to settle.

Jes said:

My degree was social sciences. This is a fact of life. Dynamics change. Combat soldiers need to be immune to this - it is an integral part of their life/work. This can happen with different men in the units also.

I don't have a degree in social sciences, but I would argue that despite dynamics changing (it's what they do best, I hear), the essential nature of humans will not. You can't expect any large group of men, highly-trained combat soldiers or not, to act the same way whether or not there is a female present among them. Much like you wouldn't expect a large group of women to act the same way when there's a minority of men present.

Basically, you can sit and wish you could be treated like one of the boys as much as you want (heck, there are some days when it comes close to forgetting you're not, that's the kind of mates you make in the military though), but for as long as you've got the requisite bits that make you female... you won't *be* one of them. You never will be, and that's no fault of the ADF or other Forces with similar lines of thought.

truck rolled over on the F3

Well, it made me laugh. I'm glad I have other people who read and forward emails all day to sift through all the crap, in order to find me the really good stuff! Saves me having to do it, anyway.

Speaking of sifting through crap... or perhaps thinking of wasting time on the internet, one of my many avenues of online escapism (such as looking at rental properties, used scooters, cheap cars, international flights, interstate hotels) is now poking through the Defence Force Recruiting website. I'm sort of toying with the idea of either remustering and being a bit of an ACW of all trades, or maybe switching to Reserves if it's actually possible to go there from here (a lot of people do it the other way around), or chasing a commission and going for an officer role in logistics, intelligence, or education.

The newest campaign on DFR's website is a flashy looking extreme questionnaire with the banner - COMPLETE THE TEST AND DISCOVER IF YOU'VE GOT WHAT IT TAKES TO BECOME AN OFFICER IN THE AIR FORCE. Of course there's the fine print that says that the online tests 'do not have a scientific basis and are in no way a literal representation of the actual Air Force or broader ADF officer aptitude tests. Therefore any results obtained cannot be used in, or referred to, as part of any applications to join the Air Force or broader ADF.' So basically, anyone who knows how to read grey print on a black background can figure out that it's going to take a little more than an online test to determine whether they're officer material, and by doing the test they are signaling to someone in a government department far, far away, that percentages and pie charts with a bit of glossy marketing can indeed pique the interest of the internet punter.

What's all this got to do with a truck rolled over on the F3? Well, the funny thing is, yes DFR, I have wondered if I have what it takes to become an officer in the Air Force. I'll believe for a moment (or two, if needed) that by taking the Air Force Skills test I'll gain a better idea of my own talents and abilities, as well the key qualities that contribute to becoming an officer in the Air Force.

So go on, find out if you’re accomplished.

I would, DFR, trust me, I would... if the 'Take The Test' button actually took me to somewhere other than a blank page! Or perhaps this is part of the test, and clearly anyone who's officer material would be laughing their way through the thing right now, as opposed to laughing at getting thwarted at first click? Not feeling so accomplished now.

things bulk cookery won't teach you

A handful of LACs and AC/Ws got to spend the week at Hamilton TAFE, brushing up on skills that may potentially be shown off as part of a Salon Culinaire competition. Before we even make it that far though, we had some plates casually judged by a Flight Sergeant and a Sergeant, and we're going to have an on-base cookoff of sorts next month, presenting the same or similar dishes again.

On one hand, it was great to be back in a school environment, learning things in a dedicated education zone, as opposed to sucking all the knowledge that you can while you're on the job and treading water. On the other hand, it actually made me miss working in proper restaurants, where you get the thrill of the chase... that rush of service, and the simple pride from putting out plates of individually presented dishes. We get to do a bit of that when functions are on, and there's a little more freedom (and budget) to play with. I'm seriously considering getting an outside hospo job once I move off base, just to stay in touch with the real world. Even if it's only serving food, it's good to be in a slightly less homogenous working atmosphere.

Fortunately, unlike Chisholm where we couldn't take photos of our work because we weren't allowed to take valuables such as phones and cameras to TAFE, I had my camera along for the ride. Unfortunately, I was mostly busy cooking or helping to plate up dishes in our four-person team, so our tutor had to take photos for us, and I didn't go into much detail over how to use my camera properly. Some pictures are better than none at all, I figure!



Scallop and blue eyed cod boudin blanc served on baby spinach with a seafood reduction and balsamic dressing. I didn't realise that there was another way to have sausage on the menu without all the bad connotations that the mere word 'sausage' brings. I think we all got sick of the taste of this by the end of the week, it's basically white fishy mush with a bit of dill, cream and Pernod that's gone through enough steps to look like a sausage. About the only thing it's got going for it is that it's not your typical snag made with random intestine or questionable skin/contents! To me, a dish like this just doesn't scream anything amazing. Actually, it seems like the yuppie food equivalent of mutton dressed as lamb.



Roulade of Atlantic salmon with shiitake mushrooms and beurre rouge on a bed of rocket. This was actually quite tasty in the end, after a few modifications we made to the original idea. Version one involved rolling the salmon fillet around a farce, which was some of the boudin blanc mix from above. We thought that diners should get something more surprising (read: different to the first course) when they got to the centre of the roulade, so a bit of baby spinach was rolled into the middle for contrasting colour, texture, and flavour. The beurre rouge looked dramatic on the plate (you can't really tell from the photos), and tasted fantastic as well.



Duck breast filled with apple and raisins on buttered zucchini noodles and carrot confit. This was by far my favourite dish that we made. I'm guessing that the adjective 'stuffed' is another one of those clumsy menu words, even though we all know what it is and what it means. Duck is always something special in my culinary world, and this is probably just a result of me being psychologically tuned to know that duck doesn't come into one's life very often, so when it does, one must definitely take time to appreciate it. Even the zucchini and carrot were tasty, and they were just there to boost the duck!



Braised ox-tail wrapped in crepinette on soft polenta and petit legumes. I've been a fan of ox-tail ever since being brought up on my Dad's ox-tail soup, which seldom failed to make me feel better whenever I had it. Seeing how it all came together in the crepinette was interesting too, as I've only ever seen crepinette used on a Marco Pierre White video, if I recall correctly. So I thought it was crazy out-there fancy French stuff, and it probably is, but now that I've seen it done and tasted the results, it's actually simpler than it looks. I've never loved turning vegetables, and don't see the point in turning them, no matter how cute they look... just think of the wastage! This dish has to win the quiet achiever award... it seems quite unassuming, but is actually packed with flavour. Slow cooking does indeed have its merits.



The dessert plate was actually a trio of vanilla bean pannacotta, mini corella pear tart, and milk chocolate 'millefeuille' with honeycomb cream, but we were a bit rushed getting it out, and the camera was somewhat forgotten by then. I think the coolest thing about desserts was seeing honeycomb get made (Mister Hart, what a mess!). We spent most of a day playing with chocolate and made moulded chocolates, as well as filled chocolates. The above is a shot of my chocolate sculpture, made from simple shapes and the assistance of some rings and silicone/rubber 'noodles' used as moulds. I think it looks sort of like an obscure awards ceremony trophy. You can't really tell, but there's a heck of a lot of chocolate there - the base is about 2.5cm thick with a 15cm diameter, and the whole thing stands around 25cm high. Those curvy bits are around 2cm thick, but the balls are more like Easter egg thickness. Consider it an award for Most Amount Of Chocolate Eaten In A Single Week Without Being Physically Ill!

We'll see if it makes it through the weekend. :)

I love the smell of career limiting moves in the morning

Say you're wanting to write a book about your experiences in the military.

You come across an award whose prize includes $10,000 cash, guaranteed publication, royalties on book sales and editorial support to develop the proposal into a finished manuscript.

All you need to do is submit a proposal comprising a one-page description of the work, a table of contents, an author bio, a comment on target readership and two sample chapters. An indication of proposed word length should be given (40K min and 90K max) - final word length is subject to negotiation with the publisher.

In the event that you win, do you:
a) conjure an untraceable pen name and cackle with glee each night after work whilst tapping away at a no-holds-barred account of aforementioned military experiences
b) write conservatively under your real name and hope that no one in the military that reads you will find you
c) write what you want under your real name, and if the military finds out, include the aftermath in an added chapter to the book
d) take the $10K, change your name, go AWOL overseas, and write whatever you damn well please

on patisserie

too many sweets and
too many syllables to
know where to begin



(More news at eleven.)

jousting sticks!

Times like this, it's a good thing I live on base. That means there's a cubic metre limit to how much I can own whilst still being able to make a path to my bed and desk, as well as open the doors to my wardrobe. There's also a limit to how much wall space I can take up with furniture shoved against the sides of my room, considering one length has my desk and wardrobe, the other side has a fixed wall heater, and the other two walls have a window, above-bed light, and a full length mirror.

I've just discovered the holy grail of intranets. It's the public For Sale folder for the base. Where every man and his dog can buy and sell from people they may or may not know and trust - other RAAFies and APS, or whoever else is cleared enough to access the Defence Restricted Network. With the amount of people posting, deploying, buying, renting, upgrading, etc. there seems to be no end to the amount of stuff people are trying to get rid of. Oh yeah, that's the other thing... the classic sign that you've got too much disposable income is when you've suddenly changed your circumstances and it's time to liquidate your newfound assets at a crazy price.

So what am I currently interested in on RAAFbay? A Bontempi organ.


I haven't played in years, unless you count a rather drunken dabble in the back of Madame Brussels last year or maybe the year before... I don't even know if I have room on any of my walls for an organ! But this guy's moving house, and I'm kind of doing him a favour, and I get to have a musical instrument in my life again (they're like pets and plants really, I miss them until I realise that they require more effort than I think). Oh, and I can finally annoy my noisy neighbours with MY bad taste! Everybody wins.

I think Project Pimp My Room is going to be improved dramatically by the joys of hand-me-downs that have been subsidised by other people's impulse purchases and throwaway wages! I'm sure the For Sale section will also help once I make it off base, what with the rent ads, furniture, whitegoods and even vehicles I've seen so far. It's like an incredibly parochial Trading Post, but for once, I'm automatically part of the exclusive shopper list.

things corporals will forward via email

The media (accidentally?) missed this one!

The troops overseas would like you to send it to everybody you know.



Don't know whether you heard about this but Denzel Washington and his family visited the troops at Brook Army Medical Center, in San Antonio, Texas (BAMC) the other day. This is where soldiers who have been evacuated from Germany come to be hospitalized in the United States, especially burn victims. There are some buildings there called Fisher Houses. The Fisher
House is a hotel where soldiers' families can stay, for little or no charge, while their soldier is staying on base, but as you can imagine, they are almost filled most of the time.



While Denzel Washington was visiting BAMC, they gave him a tour of one of the Fisher Houses. He asked how much one of them would cost to build. He took his cheque book out and wrote a cheque for the full amount right there on the spot. The soldiers overseas were amazed to hear this story and want to get the word out to the American public, because it warmed their hearts to hear it.





The question is - why do:
Britney Spears,
Madonna,
Tom Cruise
and other Hollywood fluff
make front page news with their ridiculous antics and Denzel Washington's charity doesn't even make page 3 in the Metro section of any newspaper except the local newspaper in San Antonio?





This needs as wide a distribution as we can create... share it!

---

According to Wikipedia, Washington made a 'sizable donation' to the Fisher Houses, so it seems that this story is mostly, if not completely true. I sometimes wonder how far information can travel via the virtual rabbit warren that is military forwarded email. I'm not sure where half the games, jokes, pictures, surveys and trivia come from, seeing as most 'fun' sites are blocked on the Defence computers, so how would people find any of this stuff to be able to send it through a work computer in the first place? Obviously there must be connections to and from the outside, somewhere along the line.

Sure, it just might be my paranoia that Big Brother is sifting through every joke email that goes against our basic equity and diversity training, recording the amount of times particular messages get forwarded around the network. Heck, if I was in charge and I wanted to catch people in the act, all I'd have to do is collect a week's worth of junk mail and look through the headers to see who's been forwarding to whom. Even if stuff is particularly funny, I just practice good netiquette and save other people's inboxes from the junk that will no less get forwarded to them from someone else if I choose not to.

It's frustrating sometimes to take a couple days away from the computer and have to go through piles of irrelevant email from well-meaning friends posted all over the nation, as well as the odd message from the Secretary of Defence. I haven't had to deal with this many dodgy jokes since I was at uni, and that was back in the nineties when joke emails were actually all the rage (well, there was no Facebook yet, what can I say). What's wrong with the odd bit of actual correspondence from old recruit friends? Do people really count themselves as your friend when they forward along a schmaltzy powerpoint presentation telling the moral about the cookies at the airport? Someone actually asked me the other day if I was getting their emails, because I hadn't seen them in a while, and hadn't responded to any of their forwards! I just don't have the heart to tell people that when they send me a 'real' email, I'll consider taking the time out to reply personally. Or perhaps I should start replying personally to each forward I receive, in an attempt to find out what's really going on with the lives of my military cohorts.

Maybe I'm just jealous of the fact that so many people I know seem to have all the time in the world to read and forward such blatantly non-work-related email. I mean, the above story is a quite effective warm and fuzzy one, so I suppose ten points go to the corporal for getting sucked in enough to pass that one on (it is interesting what kind of spin US as well as Australian media is willing to put on celebrity, as opposed to military... and as for celebrity military, well look out!). I find that by the time I've been at work for nine hours, I simply can't be arsed reading, let alone forwarding, any junk mail, no matter what the quality is. Technically we get paid 24/7 to serve the country, so I'm bitching about people wasting company time while I'm still on company time, but that's not the point. Maybe I should start blogging from the kitchen again!

the buddy system

I'm about to do my annual weapons shoot this week, out at Singleton, around an hour away from here. Coincidentally, it's going to be at the Army base where Private Kovco trained as a rifleman at the School of Infantry in 2002. Why is this a coincidence? Well, first of all, does anyone even remember Private Kovco? There was a bit of a kerfuffle about it, because he died from a gunshot to the head, despite him being thoroughly trained in the use of various weapons (being in the Infantry and all).

On the civvie side of things, Kovco's mother wasn't convinced that her son could have shot himself, intentionally or not. A conspiracy theory was bandied about regarding the government having something to do with Kovco's death in order to detract from the attention that the Australian Wheat Board scandal was getting. Does anyone even remember the wheat board scandal? I never really understood much of what was going on in the first place, and was more drawn to Kovco's story than anything else that was going on with Australia, Defence, or the Middle East at the time. So maybe if this conspiracy theory is true, it does have some ability to work on hapless members of the public.

We all love an intrigue, really. It's a sad and spooky tale of sorts, if you read through the details. The Wikipedia page alone seems to make Kovco's mother out to be little more than someone grasping desperately for another answer, an alternate reason, some kind of justification for her son's death. On the other side, there was Brendan Nelson (former Minister for Defence) trying not to fuel the fire of speculation surrounding the circumstances of Kovco's death, and meanwhile, everyone else in the Australian Defence Force was soon to be introduced to The Buddy System.

Now, I'm not too sure what existed before The Buddy System, (much like your average tabloid reader probably remembers Kovco more than the AWB shenanigans) because I did my weapons training post-2006. Basically, the The Buddy System means that whenever you clear a weapon (eg. before handing over to someone else, entering a building, picking up a weapon for the first time) you need to do it with someone else that is qualified on the same weapon. In the event of an unauthorised discharge of the weapon, both parties are to blame, not just the holder of the weapon responsible.

I can see the sense in The Buddy System, in terms of safety and ensuring that people are accountable for not only their weapon but that of their mate's. However, during much of recruit training (we carried around Steyrs for six weeks straight), The Buddy System turned out to be more of a pain in the arse than anything else. Our weapons weren't loaded except when we were out on field exercise, so for the times we were on base trying to madly get changed from PT to cams, or cams to service dress, or just to drop off some equipment before going to the mess, the thing that became an equivalent of road rage for us was The Buddy System.

The moral of Kovco's story (and the reasoning behind endlessly clearing known empty weapons during recruit training) is to always be mindful of one's weapon. Even when we popped into the shops to buy a magazine and came back to a weapon that was piqueted whilst it was resting on the ground, untouched by the person on piquet, we still had to go back to The Buddy System. The problem with initiating such repetitions of seemingly unnecessary actions was that much of the process of going through The Buddy System became autonomous, and not a conscious thing. People argued about how ridiculous the idea was, that a trained infantryman would or could not be aware that his weapon was loaded, let alone do something like point it at his head and pull the trigger. But wouldn't someone from infantry be even more tuned out to the precursor of The Buddy System than the typical Defence schmoe that only has to deal with weapons handling once a year?

Even with my understanding and respect for weapons, The Buddy System has begun to lose its effect on me. At recruits, we weren't told that The Buddy System came into place after the events of Kovco, but we still had it drilled so deeply into our minds that even though we know what it is and what it means, it's so much a part of our knowledge that we gloss over it whenever revision comes around. It's like catching planes on a regular basis - as soon as that safety brief begins you've done up your seatbelt and started reading a novel, and in the event of an actual emergency you probably won't remember what kind of aircraft you're flying or how to get to the lifejacket. But someone else would have paid attention, or you'll be able to figure it out from that information that's buried deep in your mind somewhere, surely?

Defence logic suggests that if The Buddy System were in place, the circumstances leading to Private Kovco's death would never have arisen, and therefore he might still be alive today. I worry that The Buddy System has already become a lullaby of sorts for higher-ups and the lower ranks alike, because when people go through the motions, there is always a risk of danger. Complancency(sic) kills, as stated during a Powerpoint presentation on Airside Awareness I attended earlier this year. I just wonder at the true effectiveness of The Buddy System as anything other than a hypnosis trigger word for most of the Australian Defence Force today.

happy anniversary to me

3 July 2008 - The final day of their current tenures for the Chiefs of Navy, Army and Air Force. The new Chief of Air Force, Air Vice Marshal Mark Binskin, currently Air Commander Australia, will be promoted to the rank of Air Marshal this morning to begin his tenure. Outgoing CAF, Air Marshal Geoff Shepherd will officially handover his title at a dinner and ceremony at RAAF Base Glenbrook.

3 July 2007 - The first day of the rest of my RAAFie life. That's right folks, somehow I've managed to survive a whole year of being enlisted, without even seeing what a Discharge On Request (DOR) form looks like! It seems fitting that Air Marshal Shepherd is stepping down on the same day that I feel like I should step up to the position I've found myself in.

It's been a month of ups and downs at the Sergeants' Mess, with my three weeks service there being a wild mixture of getting accustomed to the ways of a bunch of different staff, improved management style, chasing up various medical appointments and Individual Readiness (IR) related training, and of course, a whole new kitchen to work in. Overall, I think it's been pretty good for me - I'm working with some great staff, serving Warrant Officers, Flight Sergeants and Sergeants, which makes a
change from indecisive Cadets, snotty Gap Year kids, and bitter Airpeople, and learning a lot.

My biggest achievement for the month of June has been my patisserie turnaround. I'm not sure whether it's a relative thing, because I was struggling with tackling savouries for lunch, and to everyone else in the kitchen it seemed I was cruising through sweets bay. Maybe because I was working mostly by myself, and was so paranoid about falling behind
and drowning in sweets that I was extra organised and thorough with my work plan. It could just be a fluke that I managed to get through all of my tasks whilst avoiding all manner of patisserie-related disasters.

Perhaps because sweets bay is tucked away in a corner on the far side of the main prep area, no one noticed me back there having my own minor nervous breakdowns. I've still found that no matter how much you stare willingly at an object in an oven, it's too late to do anything about it if you've somehow put it together the wrong way. There's just far too much faith in chemistry going on with patisserie - I'll probably never be able to trust it and myself fully to feel completely comfortable with it.

However, whatever I managed to produce this week was enough to impress myself as well as the rest of the guys in the kitchen. I've now been tagged as one of 'those' people, one of the golden children of pastry, as if I have somehow been touched by an angel of the bake lords. Apparently some people get sweets, and some people don't, or just can't seem to get a knack for them as easily as they do with other dishes and styles of cooking. I tried to tell others that sweets and baking were my weak point in TAFE, and have been a mystery to me for most of my life, but no one seemed to believe me. I feel like I've won something, because I certainly don't think I've learnt how to do sweets right! I wonder how much longer I can ride this luck for, though?

Despite blitzing sweets this week, there was a bit of a comedown point when I had to rock up to dental to get my teeth attacked. Well, attacked in the good way, seeing as sweets were probably to blame for them being attacked in the bad way. I have a history of shoddy teeth and dental-related problems, I guess it's much like the golden sweets child thing, I think you're either born with teeth that'll give you strife, or you win with a set that leave you alone for much of your life. People in this day and age generally have the same or similar oral care practices - flossing, brushing at least once daily, drinking water and milk, eating apples, avoiding sticky/sugary food and drinks. I just lost out on the dental lottery in this lifetime.

It's been a while since I've had dental work done - I used to pride myself on having bazillion dollar teeth, because of all the work that's invested in there. An old running joke I had was that one thing I escaped in my youth was braces, because my brother had them twice - when he was ten, and again at eighteen or so. Unfortunately, my civvie days weren't the end of dental torment, as I needed three fillings and a check on my existing root canal at last check. I've since had two fillings done, and I remember now how unfun it is to 'talk' about working in sweets and watching Ramsay on Thursday nights when you've got a half-numb face, wads of cotton and gauze stuffed in your mouth, oh, and an array of tools and hands popping in and out.

I just keep thinking, at least I don't have to pay for any of this. Sure, it might be a pain in the butt (or the mouth, you never know your luck with 'free' dental) getting my root canal done again, but when the alternative scenario is being stuck in the middle of some war zone and requiring some emergency dental work, I'm willing to take my chances here on base. One good thing is that I don't find local anaesthetic being shot into my mouth as painful as I used to - it was more uncomfortable getting my back molar x-rayed, while I was biting down on a bit of plastic that cut into my mouth and tongue!

There's a lot of staring at the ceiling while at the dentist. I would have thought that on a RAAF base they could probably put some model planes up on the ceiling. I know I would appreciate brushing up on my aircraft identification skills whilst I can't have a real conversation with anyone else in the room, and could do with a distraction from the ungodly events going on in my mouth. Somehow, I don't think that the dental section has a suggestion box. It's amusing enough that someone seems to have taken the one from the Airmens' off the wall where it used to be. That's either a really strong suggestion, or management has
given up on taking them, ey.

more RAAF junk mail

A guy is driving around the "back of Burke" when he sees a sign in front of a broken down tin roof house: "Talking Dog for Sale"

He rings the bell, and the owner appears and tells him the dog is in the backyard.

The bloke goes into the backyard and sees a nice looking Labrador retriever sitting there.

"You talk?" he asks.

"Yep," the lab replies.

After the guy recovers from the shock of hearing a dog talk, he says, "So, what's your story?"

The Lab looks up and says, "Well, I discovered that I could talk when I was pretty young. I wanted to help the government, so I told ASIO, and they had me sworn into the toughest branch of the armed services ... the SAS. You know one of their nicknames is 'The Devil Dogs.'

In no time at all they had me jetting from country to country, sitting in rooms with spies and world leaders; because no one thought a dog would be eavesdropping. I was one of their most valuable spies for eight years running, but the jetting around really tired me out, and I knew I wasn't getting any younger. So, I decided to settle down.

I retired from the Corps (8 dog years is 56 Corps years) and signed up for a job at airports to do some undercover security, wandering near suspicious characters and listening in. I uncovered some incredible dealings and was awarded a batch of medals. I got married, had a crop of puppies, and now I'm just retired."

The bloke is amazed. He goes back in and asks the owner what he wants for the dog.

"Ten dollars," the bloke says.

"Ten dollars? This dog is amazing! Why on earth are you selling him so cheap?"

"Because he's so full of bullshit," answers the man. "He never did any of that stuff. He was in the Air Force!"

sponsor a baseling

Around the country, there are many RAAFies still living on bases, in accommodation built around fifty years ago. The best way to change their lives is to change the portion of substandard, asbestos-filled, undersized cells in which they live. And the best way to do this is to help them become self-sufficient. This is what baseling sponsorship does.

How baseling sponsorship works for the baseling and block community
Baseling sponsorship helps to provide long term benefits to a sponsored baseling, their immediate neighbours and on-base community by funding vital in-block work such as:
-providing electric kettles for boiling water
-providing basic groceries so they can have enough food to eat without being dependent on the mess
-upgrading bedding so they do not have to rely on the two sheets and blanket provided by accommodation
-the chance for baselings to go to school (by correspondence)
-improving access to hot and cold running internet

Baseling Sponsorship helps provide whatever on-base RAAFies need to ensure they grow up in a healthy, non-homicidal environment with opportunities for the future.

How baseling sponsorship works for the sponsor
When you sponsor a baseling, your support allows us to work with the block community on long-term development projects. Your contribution of $43 a month is pooled with that of other sponsors. So you are helping not just one baseling but hundreds in need.

While your money is not sent directly to your sponsored baseling, you do have the opportunity to form a relationship with your sponsored baseling to see the changes you are helping to make in their lives.

Every day, too many baselings are suffering from malnutrition, boredom, parochial attitude problems, and exposure to the elements (including asbestos) without the opportunities we take for granted. Sponsoring a baseling is a way to make a difference.

six impossible desserts before breakfast

Patisserie has never been my strong point. There's too much to baking that sort of requires an extra level of faith, which I don't think I quite have. You can weigh out your ingredients, mix the right things, monitor the times and the degree to which things are combined, but when you put it all into a pan or tray in the oven and close the door, all you have left is hope. Hope that you read the recipe right. Hope that
the recipe is a correct and reliable source in the first place, even if you did follow it to the digit. You just can't be the slightest bit of a cowboy in the pastry section - some things work well, some things don't work out like you expect, and you've just got to take it in stride. There's little room for improvisation, which I think is the
main reason why I struggle.

It's like baking is this fine art that I just don't think exists in my genes. When I was growing up, I didn't even realise until I went to other friend's houses for parties that had baked goods, that there was a whole section of the stove/oven that my parents just never used. My next door neighbour was a frequent baker, having got the official Aussie Nanna certificate in producing banana bread, cupcakes, biscuits,
cocktail sausage rolls, fairy cakes, tarts, you name it, if it was baked and she dropped it round, it would be devoured within a day. The sheer mystery of putting raw ingredients in and pulling tasty treats out of that hot box in the kitchen was a source of awe for me as a child, and some of that wonder still does exist for me now.

After a week in the Airmen's doing patisserie, I think I've made at least a thousand desserts. Probably more, considering making a cake or something similar that gets sliced up turns into about fifteen serves. There are usually two options for cold dessert, and a hot one as well. That's for lunch, and then for dinner there are meant to be two different cold desserts on offer. Because I was doing my crash course
in sweets, I wasn't allowed to rely on slicing up the frozen desserts for backup except for when I was making platters for the weekend. Yup, things had to be done the slow and painful way! No quick mixes, microwave fixes, everything made from scratch so I could learn, and I guess appreciate or make the most of shortcuts later on in my career or something like that.

Choux pastry, 3/4 flaky pastry, swiss roll, chocolate swiss roll, trifle, coffee gateau, mixed berry cheesecake, lemon and lime cheesecake, strawberry bavarois, passionfruit pannacotta, pavlova baskets, fruit danishes, bread pullaparts, apple strudel, apple pie, apple crumble, fruit flans, chocolate cake, vanilla slice, cream
puffs... That's what I can remember. Things were a bit of a blur towards the end of the week - whenever I thought I was on top of things, I was pushed to do something different; something more. It's hard to focus on getting a heap of sweets cooked and/or assembled and plated up, garnished and out in the fridge in the middle of the mess en masse. I'm looking forward to making desserts for less than fifty when it comes round to my turn in the Sergeant's Mess.

Just like any other stint in patisserie, I have renewed my respect for anyone that voluntarily works and excels in that section of the kitchen. I think it's one of those subsets of hospitality where you do truly have to be mad to work there. It just asks for a level of meticulousness and care which I find incredibly draining by the end of the day. The one great thing about pumping out large numbers of dessert day in, day out, is that all I do is crave savoury food by the time lunchtime rolls around. It's also good to be able to plate and garnish items individually - at least there's some room for creativity and visual presentation to feed the closet artist within.

I think if I ever get into a kitchen of my own, I'm going to have to put myself through a proper baking course. Just go through recipes systematically, from bread to pastry and beyond, so I can feel more comfortable with the idea of being thrown back into patisserie. It's like how sometimes if you're sitting on an aeroplane in a window seat near the wing, and if you think about it too long, it suddenly seems incredibly unnatural to be able to fly. After a good couple of decades without knowing the truth behind the mystery of the oven, I am gradually figuring out its power.

such a lovely base

On a New South Wales highway, cool wind in my hair
Fading traces of fuel dumps, can be seen in the air
Just a bit past Fighterworld, I saw a shimmering light
My heart grew lighter from excitement within
This was my stop for the night
Said hi to security;
And asked if he was well
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be heaven or this could be hell'
Then he fired up the car and he showed me the way
There were voices on the radio, I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to RAAF Base Williamtown
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely base
Plenty of room at RAAF Base Williamtown
Any time of year, you can find it here

The room is kinda lacklustre, it could drive me round the bend
No block common room, so hard to make or find a friend
But they smoke on the balcony, or cross paths in the toilet
Some faces I remember, some I want to forget

One night it got too loud
Mentally I began to whine
There has been asbestos in the ceilings since nineteen sixty nine
And still that music keeps thumping from far away
Wakes me up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the RAAF Base Williamtown
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely base
I'm livin' it up at RAAF Base Williamtown
Hornets in the skies, what a nice surprise

Strange marks on the ceiling,
Rattling window pane - nice
Someone said, 'We are all just servicemen here, of our own device'
And in the Airmen's Mess,
We all gather to feast
Cooks still have to pay for their food
RAAF just can't make ends meet

Last thing I remember, I was
Looking for the form
I had to find the application
To live once more like a norm
'Relax,' said the CO,
'It's a simple five step process I believe
We can evict you any time you like,
But you can never leave!'

this mess we're in

It's strange coming back from a week of leave and feeling like everything's all new and strange again. There have been some courses coming through base, which has meant a slightly increased tempo for the Airmen's Mess - catering speak for busy-ness, I guess. Some of the crew from the other messes have been jumping in to help us out, but I think I'm lucky to have missed a whole week of hotboxing three meals a day.

One would think that once you get to the stage of cooking for two hundred people, it isn't too much trouble to cook for a hundred more. It should be like when you cook a decent spaghetti bolognese or stew - you can always stretch it out to feed a few more people. Sadly, it doesn't work that way when it comes to doing what is essentially a
takeaway service on top of the regular eat-in meals. For one, the hotboxing takes place in between the regular meal times, which means not only extra prep time that you have to squeeze in somewhere or somehow, but also a chunk of the time you'd be spending getting normal dinner ready, is actually spent cooking and putting a whole other set of dinners out.

After doing back-to-back early to late shift, and having to hotbox meals for dinner and the following breakfast, I'm already over the novelty of it all. I actually did think it was fun to hotbox meals out field - it feels like you're actually doing something remotely tactical, and closer to the glorified version of feeding the troops. Still, it gets tiring being part of a process line, even if you do get the end job of slamming all the foil box seals shut!

I'm just into my eighth week here, which means that quite soon, I should start getting things signed off in my comp log. Unfortunately, I'm still technically lacking a mentor, as I'm about to be shifted over to the Sergeant's Mess starting next month, which means there isn't much point assigning me another Corporal. The one that I thought I was losing to a potential deployment is staying here, and I've found out
that nobody's going to Pitch Black after all.

I've spent a couple days catching up on medical appointments, training, and the biggest pile of emails in the universe. Why is it that so much appears to have happened in the mere five days I had off? Anyway, as much as I wanted to just get back into the swing of things, I haven't quite been able to, due to having to jump in and out of the kitchen. Next week I've been rostered on sweets as well, which is definitely out of my comfort zone - I'm hoping there'll be someone to guide me, otherwise it could all end in tears! I'm wondering if it's a fitting send-off from the Airmen's Mess... just when I thought I'd learned a thing or two since the start of April, I'm going to leave here feeling possibly more clueless than when I started!

I'm not sure how long my adventures out of the Airmen's Mess will last, considering one of the guys that just moved from here to the Sergeant's is coming back when I go over there. It's like some mixed up exchange student program, or something. However, I will be definitely seeing my Sergeant and Flight Sergeant again in the future, as I've signed up to be a participant in the Willytown team for Relay for Life. It's an
overnight run somewhere local, where I think the idea is to have a team of 10-15 people that clock up as many laps as possible, to raise funds for the NSW Cancer Council's various support networks. Should be interesting... oh yeah, and fun!

Speaking of fun runs, the Mother's Day Classic in Brisbane went without too many hitches. I got warmed up by about the halfway point (4km) before my right leg started to feel sore along my ITB, then the side of my knee, then my ankle, then I got a little paranoid of injuring myself whilst on leave (free medical is kinda useless when you have to hobble your way to it?) and took it easy for a stretch. I finished okay, but I think I could have done better. I like 8km as a distance - I can finish the race and still feel motivated enough to walk around for the rest of the day, as opposed to the usual post-race feeling of needing to eat half a chicken and take a nap until dinner.

I'm still leading in my age group for the 5km fun runs on base... however, this isn't too much to get excited about as I only have one competitor so far, even though the numbers for the runs have been on the climb. Fortunately, it seems that females in my age group are either few and far between, or have better/other things to do than run on Friday mornings! Not to get too cocky and wonder about what the prize might be, but I know I'm running faster than the existing competition. Gotta love being ahead by default!

flights and field kitchens

Here's a new one, even for me. I should be cleaning my room, sorting out clothes, and packing for my flight to Brisbane this afternoon. However, my chosen mode of procrastination is hunting down cheap flights to Melbourne!

I'm mildly concerned at making the check-in time for Tiger flights, which I'm assuming is saying two hours prior to flying in the instance of international as opposed to domestic flights. Otherwise my genius plan of scooting out of early shift and jumping onto a plane probably won't work out so well... it helps if they're willing to let you onto the plane. Anyway, if boot was good for anything, it has taught me a sense of urgency and also how to get changed from one uniform to another within six to eight minutes. I hope I can make it.

This could be one of many semi-impulse flight purchases. I say semi, because there was some minor consultation with the voices inside and outside of my head, and I did have to sleep on the decision (because I didn't have my credit card on hand to buy straight away!) so there was some thought involved. I'll see how I go with Tiger, seeing as I
haven't flown them before, and it seems like their rates are as competitive as Jetstar's despite departing the airport at odd times of day.

So if this random foray into Melbourne at the end of the month doesn't work, I know I'll definitely be back in town on the weekend of 13 June. I even have the travel requisition and pile of cab charges to prove it! Turns out that my Next of Kin travel did get approved, even though I didn't hear anything about it directly from my Sergeant or Flight Sergeant - the first I knew of it was getting an email from Customer Service saying that there was a Travel Order ready for me to pick up.
Hooray for adequate communication channels.

I haven't been in any Hornets yet, but I've come to the realisation that there's probably going to be a heck of a lot of flying around in my life for the next few years. Since I've been enlisted (last July) I've been on eight flights, including international to Thailand. In the next month (including today), I'll be taking five more flights. Shame that not all of these flights will be clocking up frequent flyer points!

I think I'll try to ground myself a little more after I get back from NoK travel. The sooner I settle in here, the sooner I can con other people into grabbing a cheap flight up to come and see me! It's hard to resist a $40 fare though, considering I usually have to spend at least that much in order to get into town, let alone out.

It's been a good but tough six weeks so far. I can remember getting to this point in recruits and feeling good about getting through so much without dropping out or completely losing my marbles. Week six was all about getting through field exercise Tarakan Dawn, more commonly known as Murray Fridge, five days of learning, fighting, and freezing our collective nads off. But it seemed like the home run after that point, seeing as exercise Tommy Irvine was only three days in comparison.

My room feels like a good place to be - now that I've set myself up with computer, Nintendo, TV/DVD, plenty of books, and a subscription to Quickflix which means I have movies and TV shows on tap (although with a base library full of war porn and Ramsay on the telly three nights a week, I've got it pretty sweet). I think I've got enough going on that I can amuse myself for as long as it takes to save up for transport, a
house, and some furniture essentials.

Work is going pretty well - it hasn't been too extreme a learning curve, and I'll be moving to the Sergeant's Mess next month, a month earlier than I expected to be escaping the Airmen's. Not that there's anything wrong with this Mess in particular, I've just found it annoying to have to work in it for most of the days of the week, and then come back to it for all my other meals in my time off.

Field training was quite interesting, considering I had no real idea how Gucci some of the Air Force equipment was, compared to the stuff we were hauling around at Latchford. I'm not sure if the Army just doesn't have the budget, or they've worked out somehow that they can afford to get grunts to move around all the equipment with sheer brute strength instead of using forklifts and containers like we do. I couldn't
believe how easy we had it - all we had to do was set up camouflage nets and a few tents, lay some tarps down... while a handy supplier used a forklift to drop containers with stovetop/oven, deep fryers, tables, and other essentials into place.

Don't get me wrong, there was still some dirty work left to do with just the set-up of the field kitchen. And we didn't have our time sucked away over the two days by having to cook anything. We still got our share of dust, of hurry up and wait, of being stuffed around by people who didn't know what they were doing. But considering what we had to accomplish amongst a bunch of people who didn't really know what they were doing (it was a training exercise after all), we managed to do it within two days.

There's a big RAAF exercise coming up called Pitch Black (I wonder why our training exercises get cooler names than the real ones, such as Operation Popewatch), in June. I doubt I'll be involved in it because I'm too new here, and knowing my luck, my leave is probably going to happen smack bang in the middle of it. But I'm actually looking forward to going bush with RAAFies and cooking the real deal. It was really tough going for me out at Latchford because I was quite out of my comfort zone, but the more I see and help make things happen in a field kitchen environment, it doesn't seem too far removed from working in a proper kitchen.

military junk mail example

Top this for a speeding ticket......

Two Hunter traffic patrol officers from Newcastle LAC (Local Area Command) were involved in an unusual incident while checking for speeding motorists on the F3 Freeway. One of the officers used a hand-held radar device to check the speed of a vehicle approaching over the crest of a hill, and was surprised when the speed was recorded at over 300 kph. Their radar suddenly stopped working and the officers were
not able to reset it.

Just then a deafening roar over the treetops revealed that the radar had in fact latched on to a Williamtown Hornet fighter jet which was engaged in a low-flying exercise over Wyong, approaching from the Ocean.

Back at police headquarters the Local Area Commander fired off a stiff complaint to the RAAF Liaison officer at Williamtown.

Back came the reply in true laconic RAAF style:
"Thank you for your message, which allows us to complete the file on this incident. You may be interested to know that the tactical computer in the Hornet had detected the presence of, and subsequently locked onto, your hostile radar equipment and automatically sent a jamming signal back to it.

Furthermore, an air- to-ground missile aboard the fully-armed aircraft had also automatically locked onto your equipment.

Fortunately the pilot flying the Hornet recognized the situation for what it was, quickly responded to the missile systems alert status, and was able to override the automated defence system before the missile was launched and your hostile radar installation was destroyed.

Thank you for your enquiry."

you're fat - I'd sugarcoat it for you, but you'd probably eat that too

There's nothing more sobering than having to do a military medical checkup. Part of being in the service is being deployable, and the umbrella of requirements that enable an Airman/woman to be of such status is called Individual Readiness.

This morning I was due to chase up an Annual Health Assessment, which apparently has now been changed to a five yearly check, as long as things are on track and nothing has to be monitored during periods shorter than that time. I like to think of myself as being relatively in shape (I can always improve, but I'm definitely feeling healthier and fitter than I was back in Cerberon), and generally in good nick,
healthwise.

However, there is one sure thing to get me down about military health checks, and it comes down to three letters of doom: BMI. For those not in the know, the Body Mass Index is meant to be a rough guide to how much physical space one takes up, compared to how much one probably should. You figure it out by getting your weight and dividing it by your height squared. Then you look up whatever number you get on a specified chart, and hope that you've got the winning number.

Now, I realise that BMI isn't the be all and end all of whether someone's not within a healthy weight range, because it doesn't account for body types, muscle mass, particularly short or tall people, etc. But it still embarrasses me to be an active human in the RAAF (supposedly some of the fittest people in the country?!) and still
register as obese or overweight according to BMI. Even when I was at my lightest, just after finishing boot, I still would have been classed as overweight. Fortunately, there were other measurements that could be taken of me in order to get enlisted, and for BMI not to be a life sentence or anything like that.

However, something that struck me this morning, was answering the question which was one of the indicators for further discussion with the medical officer - 'Have you experienced any significant change in weight?' And I realised that I have gained almost 10kg in the six or seven months since recruit training. On one hand, I was bound to regain some weight lost from boot because I was eating so little and doing so
much compared to normal, but on the other hand, I haven't been eating that much puff pastry since I left Edinburgh.

I told the medical officer that I was changing over my contraception method to see if it's just a bad case of wacky hormones, seeing as I haven't had major weight gain/loss problems when taking oral contraceptives. I've also lost some weight since posting in here, probably because I'm eating proper meals whenever possible, snacking less, and a decent distance from junk food. I know I've been more active here than at Cerberon, but I haven't been anywhere near as hardcore as I was during boot, so who knows.

Apparently on base there is a weight clinic, where I guess it's like a ghetto Weight Watchers, having to weigh in regularly and get advice on weight loss and maintenance. Considering I used to work for WW and I know that being accountable for food intake and energy expenditure, as well as having the support from something other than yourself and non-interactive resources, all helps you get to where you want, but
still. It hasn't been that long since I accepted the body I'm living in - I'm not sure I'm ready to get really angry with it again.

See, I'm not one of those people that can detach the psychological bent from food and weight. I guess I'll always have these food demons within me festering away somewhere beneath the surface, but for the most part, I try to not let food control me. I can let myself get stuck into exercise to any point of obsession, but when it comes to food, I could never be one of those eat to live people. I just enjoy it too much. I
think there's nothing better to take the fun out of food than by counting calories, keeping food diaries, and being completely anal about what goes into my mouth.

Don't get me wrong. I understand that an awareness of what one eats is as essential as knowing what physical training to do. Treating food like a numbers game just bothers me. Almost as much as technically not being fit enough to do my job (wherein I am employed to be deployable). I can still remember the sinking feeling in my gut when at my pre-enlistment medical, despite being measured up to be acceptable for entry, the nurse tut tutted and said that I could get in the RAAF, but I should still work at losing some weight.

The paradox for me is that the more I try to concentrate on losing weight, the more emphasis I place on what the numbers on the scales say, the worse I seem to be at actually shaking it off. The times in my life when I have lost the most weight successfully have been when I was busy doing other things - like the first time I juggled two hospitality jobs and literally worked my butt off waiting tables most of the week, or the more recent example of boot camp where I was more focused on keeping my weapon and boots clean than what size my pants were.

So I'm kind of conflicted. I don't know whether to bite the bullet and get as much help on hand as possible to get rid of this weight once and for all. Or to do what I'm doing (I've been on a losing streak since I got here), hope that hormones had some part to play in it, and see how I go over the next couple of months. I know so much of this is a pride thing, but I'm no longer in denial about the situation.

I was telling the medical officer about everything I've been doing, and even on paper it seemed to her like I wasn't doing anything obviously detrimental to my health or weight loss plans. I think I'm headed in the right direction, but I'm not sure that I can handle anyone else giving me advice that I've already heard (and given myself!) before.

soup of (future possible) champions

This morning was the first of hopefully many weekly 5km fun runs (use of the word 'fun' is totally the PTIs' fault) on base, which I've been able to go to. Apparently we get to collect points towards an age group championship - thankfully you get 1 for turning up, 1 for finishing, and then 3, 2, 1 for finishing first, second, and third respectively. Fortunately, because I'm the only female in my age group, and therefore
technically only competing with myself until more people join up, I may be the winner in my division by default! Or at least come third, if only two other chicks start coming along, heh.

Anyway, it didn't go too badly, and I only finished last by a couple minutes (behind one of the other cooks!) in 33 minutes. Today was basically meant to be benchmarking day, seeing as I've barely done any running since I got here, so hopefully things will be on the improve as the weeks go on. It was rough going on some parts of the track that were lumpy bits of grass on the oval, but I guess it's hard to clear a path along the roads of the base just for a bunch of pesky runners. The tracks might change over time, so we'll see what happens.

I came back from a lightning quick shower, to dive into making the best soup ever. It seriously eats like a meal, and even though I was just asked to come up with a soup to use up some leftover chicken bits, I gave myself the challenge of making something that I actually would like to eat (as opposed to whatever's on the cyclic menu, or whatever other people want me to make up). I knew I'd be running this morning, so I
took my inspiration from Survival For The Fittest, The Australian Institute of Sport's cookbook. I was also a little cheeky because we don't have to pay for soup if we have it for lunch (or a snack if it's ready by morning break time), and it's just as good as a full breakfast, it has that much stuff packed into it!

The Sergeant saw me in the midst of making it, and said he was going to grab some for his lunch; he loved it. Awesome. I'm giving him a copy of the recipe, with notes of my bastardisations. I think if I keep on successfully muntifying other people's recipes based on the supplies available, I could probably write a little ghetto cookbook of my own. Sometimes when stocks are down, it's like the inverse Iron Chef - the secret ingredient is just whatever's left in the pantry/fridge, and we're called upon to do as much as possible with it!

Here's the recipe I yoinked:

Hearty Vegetable Soup (serves 4-6)

Ingredients:
Spray of canola or olive oil
1 onion, chopped
2 teaspoons minced garlic
2 carrots, chopped
4 stalks celery, chopped
300g peeled and chopped pumpkin
1 large zucchini (courgette), chopped
1 litre (4 cups) MAGGI® Vegetable Stock 400g can chopped tomatoes
1 teaspoon dried oregano
1/2 cup macaroni
300g can butter beans, rinsed and drained
2 tablespoons chopped fresh parsley

Method:
Heat the oil in a large pan and cook the onion over medium heat for 3 minutes or until soft. Add the garlic and cook for 1 more minute. Add the carrot, celery, pumpkin and zucchini and stir into the onion mixture. Add the stock, tomatoes and oregano, and bring to the boil. Reduce the heat and simmer, partially covered, for 10 minutes. Add the pasta and cook a further 10 minutes or until the pasta and vegetables are tender. Stir in the butter beans and heat through. Just before serving, stir in the parsley.

Here's what I did with/to it:

Hardcore Chicken and Vegetable Soup (serves 60+, I'm not kidding!)
Ingredients:
Lashings of vegetable oil to get the party started
7 large onions, diced
1 bulb of garlic, finely chopped
20 smallish carrots, diced (our last vegie delivery didn't include the typical mutant sized carrots from Mars we usually get)
4 stalks celery, chopped (we were down to our last two bunches)
3kg roughly diced pumpkin (the chunks get small and soft by the time the soup's done)
7 large zucchini, cut into half-moons
14 litres (approximately) water
400g(?) leftover roma tomatoes (helped myself from the fridge!)
500g(?) tomato paste (again, it was an impulse steal)
50g(?) white sugar
1kg small spiral pasta
800g four bean mix, drained
1/2 bunch chopped fresh parsley
2kg(?) leftover chicken tenderloins and bits, cut into small pieces
Masterfoods Tuscan Spice mix (which I think is just salt, pepper, parsley and rosemary)

Method:
Acquire the biggest pot in the universe - we cook with these things called squarebashers; I think they can fit about 25 litres in them. Heat the oil and get the garlic and onion happening. Add all the other vegetables and stir whilst panicking about how large the soup is going to become. Deduce that most of the vegetables are what would be used to make a vegetable stock anyway, and seeing as AC/Ws aren't meant to be using boosters or stock powders, I might as well use water and see what happens. Pour in the water, bung in the tomatoes and tomato paste, chuck in the sugar and oregano for good measure. Leave it to do its magic and hopefully turn into a ghetto vegetable stock of its own! Meanwhile, toss the chicken bits through with some of the Tuscan Spice mix and stir fry so they are ready to add to the soup towards the end.
Throw in the pasta after the soup has had some time to boil, turn the heat down and let the bad boy settle. Add the chicken and beans once the pasta has cooked; garnish with parsley before serving. Eat for life.

training, leave, and smart cookies

Just when I was wondering what to do this weekend... It turns out that Saturday is a working day for everyone in the unit! Apparently there's some evacuation handling training going on, and therefore there'll be enough people around to warrant a regular shift happening in the Airmen's. All hands on deck, or whatever the RAAFie equivalent is meant to be.

The interesting (or perhaps not) part is that we've been asked to bring a set of civvies, a small backpack, and a water bottle. In the event of what, or for the purposes of what, I do not know. Chances are, because someone has to stay back and cook for people, we're not going to be involved in anything cooler than working on a Saturday, but I can only hope that evacuation handling means some of us might get chosen to bugger off from shift.

I'm sounding crankier than I am, really. It's just that usually on a Wednesday I feel like I've broken the back of the week and it's all smooth sailing (I've been at Cerberus too long, clearly) henceforth... But the reality is that today is more like a Tuesday, if Saturday is truly my Friday. And I just worked a real Tuesday yesterday! It's like Groundhog Day or something. It also means that I have *eight* more working days until I leave for Brisvegas, not the sweet sounding *seven* that I thought it would be by now.

I shouldn't complain, though. One of the ACs was called back to work tonight for the late shift, after he'd started with me on an early. I'm not sure if he's working tomorrow as well, but still. Things can always get worse. That's one thing I've learnt from the military - no matter how bad you think things are, you can always think of a situation that's even suckier. Or come across someone who's actually in that situation!

Actually, I just remembered that I have two days of training on field equipment next week, which means that I technically have six more working days remaining. That's much better! I don't want to dwell on the fact that doing field phase at Latchford could possibly have been pointless if the RAAF uses better/different equipment (apparently we dig in for longer at locations, so we don't have to rely on being as mobile and thus basic/antiquated as the Army). It's always good to be versatile, you know?

Even though I'm about a week off going on leave, I'm going to try and sneak in another leave application before I go. This time it's to use up my free Next-of-Kin travel, which is basically my annual entitlement to fly 'home' to wherever that address may be. Seeing as I've been in Melbourne for the duration of initial employment training, I haven't actually used up my free flight, and it has to be claimed within the
financial year or it will be forfeited.

Hopefully it doesn't look like I just want to get out of work (I'm sure someone will say to me that hey, I only just had a holiday!), and more like I'm just using whatever benefits I can, while I can. I guess technically speaking, the powers-that-be can decide against giving me leave (although we might not be as short-staffed by June), but I'm hoping that because I can't use my NoK travel otherwise, and because it's only a long weekend that I'm wanting to take off, it'll be approved.

Just when I thought I got a reprieve from homework and work history/comp. log stuff, it seems that every Corporal and his dog is being hounded to give me taskings whenever possible. Which is meant to mean every shift, and prior to any shift I'm meant to be told what I have to prepare recipe-wise for the next day (as opposed to looking at
the board first thing in the morning and then trying to figure things out for myself).

Don't get me wrong, I like having an idea of what I'm going to be doing before the morning of the day comes around. Sometimes I'd just rather tune out and do salads and vegie prep instead of trying to juggle five different things on all sides of the kitchen. I know I've got to get used to multitasking, and not expecting people to help me out or keep an eye on what are essentially my dishes, but it's been stressing me out when in a typical day on shift, I keep getting advice, requests, and orders, from pretty much everyone else in the kitchen... all while trying to do what I need to get done.

I can't wait 'til I'm no longer the new kid. I'm sure I'll feel better once someone else comes into the kitchen and cops everyone else's handy tips and interventions. I'm willing to listen to and learn from other people, I guess I'm just not used to hearing so much from so many people at once. I think it's bringing out the inner autistic in me; I've forgotten how to filter out the unnecessary information and stop taking
absolutely everything that everyone says and does on board.

Sometimes I wonder what it is that gives people the impression that you don't have to be smart to be a cook. Other times, I wonder what it is that gives people the idea that I'm *too* smart to be a cook. All too often, I come home from work and it's like my head's about to explode. Strangely enough, all it takes is a good war movie, reading about intergalactic battles, studying knife skills, doing a workout of some
kind, or having a cup of coffee, to make that feeling go away.