“It must of fucked you up.”
“Is it like the movies?”
“But you're a girl?”
Yeah.
“Have you killed anyone?”
No.
Not everyone’s at the pointy end.
You know you see people’s eyes and they want to be told, “Yes.”
They light up.
I think that is a bit of a psychopathic thing to ask, to be honest.
So I’ve been asked this question normally in a bar.
Or do they want you to say, “Yeah 3,000 mate.”
It’s just…
Normally preceded by, “Oh you’re in the military?
That’s so cool!”
Dot, dot, dot.
When any kind of subject like that actually comes to, you know, like we speak about it,
the guys are like nearly in tears.
I actually asked that question to someone before I was in the military.
It might trigger off a lot of bad memories for people.
You never know what people have gone through.
Yeah.
It makes sense though that we’re the ones that get asked that question a lot more because,
I mean, we bare firearms.
That’s exactly it.
Yeah.
You wouldn’t go up to an armed police officer and say you know, “How many people have
you, you know, popped off this weekend mate?”
“You must be a control freak.”
It definitely brings out your impatient side.
Yeah.
Try and put tights on in one minute flat.
Being disciplined isn’t a bad thing, is it?
No.
I don’t think it’s a bad thing.
No.
I’ve put tights on before to be fair.
I’m not going to ask.
She emailed us and said, “Right yeah let us know what you want to happen,” and I
was like, “Right, okay.
I’ll do a spreadsheet.”
I do have spread sheet for my weekends.
Yup.
And she emailed back and she was like, “Oh you can tell you’re in the army.” and
I thought, “I’ve overdone it, haven’t I?”
I need to know what’s going on.
Oh dear.
“But you’re a girl!”
That is correct.
And that should not be a shock to anyone.
I see myself as a soldier, first and foremost.
Some of the best engineers that I’ve worked with have been girls.
...not as a female soldier.
People don’t expect our girls to be engineers.
“Oh you must all be lesbians.”
or you know, “You’ve got long hair, I don’t under… but you’re in the army.”
It is more difficult sometimes because in training the women proportionately are carrying
more than the men The army’s just put exercise, what’s it…’Ice
Maiden’ and it’s 6…yeah… 6 women who crossed the Antarctic.
That was amazing.
I don’t see a problem if you can do the job as well a guy then…crack on.
“Oh my God, it is like the movies?”
Er no.
“Is it like Call of Duty?
You run around and…”
In the movies they don’t show someone…you don’t show you get up in the morning and
the first thing you see is your mate’s ass crack.
It’s not like the movies for you?
Oh man.
Definitely not like the movies.
Not for me, sorry.
No.
It’s not the same.
Oh hairy, hairy blokes and…talking about you, Jake.
You almost go stereotype bingo and you tick them off, that doesn’t happen.
You can see us all running to like the aircraft with the Top Gun soundtrack like in the background.
But also you’ve got your stereotypical drill sergeant who gets in your face and shouts
at you.
Yeah.
Am I surrounded by Tom Cruise look-a-likes?
No I’m not.
Do all the pilots think they’re Tom Cruise?
Yes they do.
Maybe more like Jarhead than anything else.
Have you seen that one?
Where nothing happens and they’re all just waiting.
They probably count in the movie the ‘cleaning toilets’ part.
Yeah you know, you don’t film them ironing, you don’t film them polishing their boots.
At the moment my weapon is my keyboard, unfortunately.
Yeah, it all seems quite glamorous on screen but they can all step away and get their brow
mopped.
That’s not something that our guys can really do.
“Violence is not the answer!”
I agree.
Yeah I agree, peace and love.
No one wants to be waged in a war.
In a perfect world there wouldn’t be any violence.
Absolutely, yeah.
And it’s got to be done…
It’s about being appropriate.
And not abusing the fact that you can use that force.
You paint yourself a target nowadays I think if you got out in public in uniform.
Yeah.
You do get stared at like you’ve got a TV on your head or something.
Yeah.
You’re walking around backwards or something.
There was one woman who was like so angry,…
There was talk of like someone’s organising a protest against it and actually we need
to make sure that people are lining the route.
Because she is on the other side of the fence, she pulled her trousers down and pooed through
the fence.
And that worries you because we’re all just people at the end of the day, putting on a
parade.
That’s how like she felt about the…
The military?
Yeah.
Us.
You know, they’re building something or they’re helping people whose houses, in
this country, are flooded.
The humanitarian aspect is actually the reason I joined the RAF.
In the military, I don’t myself choose what country we’re going to go to, you know,
that’s usually by the government you know, who we voted for, who they’ve probably voted
for you know.
No.
Yeah exactly, who the country voted for.
“It must of fucked you up!”
I don’t think I am fucked up.
They seem to think we’re taken to an underground bunker, you know, secret experiments are carried
out on our heads and stuff.
The things I’ve been exposed has actually not messed me up and made me more rounded.
In reality I’ve probably developed in character more by being in the army.
Yeah.
But for people that I’ve known that are like in the infantry, I think they do get
tarnished more with the stigma.
Some people have been away a lot and would have seen some pretty nasty things.
And at the time, you know, your training gets you through it, you’re on autopilot, you’re
looking after your mates and you know, you’re getting from A to B.
Yeah if anything you probably talk to people more, when you’re away, about your feelings.
Yeah.
And I think you’d be abnormal if you came back from somewhere and you didn’t have
thoughts and feelings about that.