Defence life has prepared you for this situation
I recently met up with a veteran who has been separated from the ADF for a short while and has started to miss some of their old Defence community.
The usual daily banter with like-minded individuals has made them think about their loss of identity, because in the Army/ Navy/ Airforce you have an identity.
You are someone, and in the ADF, your mates have your back. On deployment, you know you can trust your life with your oppo, and they can with theirs.
In the “civvy world” they have come to the realisatition that it is a dog-eat-dog world out there and some of their new “teammates” won’t really go out of their way to help anyone else.
They also said about how they can’t really find a way to deal with some of the bullshit they have to get through in their day-to-day work to get to their ideal end-point.
As we were talking, they came to realise that the ADF (Army) teaches us throughout our career to handle this all the time.
I asked them what their end goal, when I asked them, “what would you do if you never had to worry about money again?..
I mean after you have toured the world, partied and came time to settle, what would you do for free?”
They knew straight away, it was the job they were currently training and preparing to do in their spare time.
I said that was good, you know have your end goal, so you have your Situation, and you know what your Mission is on the Macro-level, so…
Then they realised how we do this every time we go Outside The Wire, or any given job within the usual Defence taskings. We do a set of orders, we use SMEAC
- Sitaution
- Mission
- Execution
- Admin & Logistics
- Command & Signals
We talked through what the end goal of the mission (or the Commanders intent) after we established what the current situation was.
Then we talked at length on how the plan was going to be executed, and we then got onto the Admin & Log talking about the finances.
We were also covering the lack of community feeling they have now that they have discharged and moved to another/ old posting locale and don’t have many of their old close mates around.
We were talking about what they wanted to get involved in, and if they knew of anyone in that field locally. Where they can go out, find and meet up with people who do that activity then slowly become involved with that community and make friends with other like-minded people.
You too can go to meetup.com and find others who are interested in the same thing and create or join a new community.
Your true Defence mates will always be there, they’re just a phone call or message away.
G.