My name is Tracey Thom and I joined the Air Force at the age of 17 in 1984, straight out of school and living in a small sugar town in Far North Queensland. The reason I joined was one: to get out of Far North Queensland and see the world, and secondly: my grandmother was in the Air Force and so was my grandfather. My grandmother was really proud of her service. I loved how proud she was and that she served the country.
I’ve done two stints of service, the first was from 1984 - 1991. Through life circumstances I left the Air Force. Not because I didn’t love it, it was how my life was turning out at that point of time.
I was an extremely naive 17-year-old and I didn’t realise the enormity of the decision I had made to leave home and leave my family and end up in Adelaide in winter. You had 90 days from when you joined that you could voluntarily discharge. I remember I would reverse-charge phone calls to mum to ask if she would let me come home. Mum tells me it was for almost the whole time I was there. She said no, and that I had to continue on. It was really hard for her to say no, but she knew it was the best thing for me. I think a had a couple of weeks left in that 90 days when I had my first posting to Williamtown. There, a girl told me to ‘toughen up princess’, and I did. The next time I rang mum and she asked how I was going and I said ‘really good’ and she asked if I wanted to come home and I said no! Mum has loved that girl, now a woman, ever since because she was the one person who pulled me into line and made me realise I had an amazing opportunity.
The highlight during my first lot of service was my posting to 5 Aviation. I had a lot of autonomy and although I had a supervisor I was the only one in the library. That was great, as well as getting to fly in Black Hawk and Iroquois helicopters. Who wouldn’t love that as an option when you go to work?
At the end of 2004 I was looking at doing some work that was flexible so I re-joined as a reservist and started my time again. I did reserve work for quite a while. Then I started to do CFTS – Continuous Full Time Service. I did four stints of six months each, my last being a deployment to the Middle East. That was amazing for me because back in 1984 there was no opportunity to deploy.
Life on deployment is like living in a bubble, at least for me. We had a compound where we worked and a compound where we slept. I was pleasantly surprised I think, because I didn’t know if I’d be sleeping in a tent or what life was going to be like. As it worked out we were in a demountable, two to a room and the air conditioner ran 24/7. I was amazed at how well the Americans deploy, because there was Pizza Hut and Burger King. I was pretty lucky, it was certainly different and not what I expected.
The whole time you’re over there you’re really aware of where you were and what you were doing, you weren’t allowed to travel by yourself, particularly as a female you had to have males accompany you. You had to be really careful about what you did, where you went, who was around.
My ‘life’ in Australia continued on without me despite speaking or having video calls but it was like I went on pause for six months and had a life away and they continued on. It took a bit of adjustment being back here. Before you go you do ‘Force Prep Training’ and back then it was a lot of lessons about what would happen if you get caught, or attacks on the base. Fortunately, nothing bad happened and we weren’t attacked where I was, but when you come back you’re still hyper vigilant because of how you live for six months.
After my deployment I transferred into the permanent Air Force and was posted to Canberra in 2009. I’ve been in Canberra since 2009, minus a posting of three years in Wagga.
Hands down my favourite posting was to Maritime Border Command, it’s tri service and multi-agency (Border Force). I travelled to Darwin, HMAS Cerberus and I did a trip over to Christmas Island once. I loved the people I worked with and the bosses were brilliant. I worked with Navy and Army, I was the only “RAAFie” and we had a lot of banter. I was sad when I finished my posting there.
I medically discharged on 27 July 2022. My mind was willing but my body was a little too broken to continue on.
Good, bad and ugly?
Good … I love the organisation. I think across the three defence services it’s a wonderful organisation. Nothing’s ever perfect and it’s a lifestyle.
The bad … that it takes over your whole life. I struggled with that as a Career Manager, influencing the lives of the wife, partner and children with posting, especially when they didn’t want it.
The ugly … I guess there are still some people who can go through the recruiting process, get recruited, and because we have the assumption that only good people join the defence force, it’s really disappointing when they slip through the cracks and they’re actually not good people and they do bad things.
Elements in the photo… The photo I’ve included is me when I joined at 17. I look at it often and go wow she’s a very different girl now. I’d only left North Queensland once up to that point and then I landed in a big pond in an organisation. Me holding it, it’s a now and then moment. My medals are long-service signifying 25 years of service and my deployment and active service medals. Then on the left are my grandmother’s medals. I really wanted them in the image because she was a big reason why I joined up.
This is the story of Tracey Thom as told to Carla Edwards.
