Introduction

I am now 65 years old, I live in Sydney, NSW the biggest city in Australia and still work within the Defence Organisation of the RAN. Apart from a 9 year period in the transport industry, a major gas utility and the iconic Sydney Ferries my life has been entwined with the Royal Australian Navy.  

Perhaps the hardest questions I feel compelled to answer are “what was the navy like?” and “why did you leave?” Not because they are difficult questions, but because you need to live the life to understand them. The question “why did I leave?” is strongly linked to “why did I serve?” and indeed wrapped up with that impossible question “what was it like?”

The closest answer I can give is I left the navy because it was time to leave but I served our navy because that was my love. A poem called “Why I love the navy” has a line “I was a sailor once, I was part of the navy and the navy will always be a part of me, that’s why I love the navy.”  I would go further and say that you can not be part of the navy without loving it. Not if you have shared rough nights with other sailors, not if you have trained for war with other sailors and not if you have worked a ship up, lived and loved her crew then calmly left her for the next posting.

Perhaps that is the most amazing thing about a naval life. You form strong bonds with the men and women of the crew, work together to mould a ship into the fighting unit she must be, trust these people with your life and hold theirs in your hands. When the job is done and the posting completed, we part with little more than a handshake. Yet if we meet in later life, the bonds are renewed in an instant.

 A naval life demands much of the sailor but demands even more from the extended family and from those who come into his life. I also hope that fellow sailors both past and present can identify and remember the unique experience of serving in Her Majesty’s Australian Ships.

I joined Bill Whittle because the collective wisdom in your presentations is hard to refute. I also believe that too much blood has been spilt by the free men and women of this world to give way to the poor insights and simplistic theories of the selfish left. Thanks for you efforts and I’ll support you as I can.