They have a want and instinct to serve our country and those in need that goes above and beyond their own basic safety and happiness. It's not a 9am to 5pm Monday to Friday job — that's what makes it so exciting, but so incredibly challenging. When he's home, it's not unusual for my husband to work a hour day.
He rarely knows what time he starts work until a text message comes through late the night before. Without knowing, he's gone to work sometimes with the clothes on his back, no more, and hasn't come home for a week. Or longer. Training trips are frequent, and I guarantee you, the leave date is forever flexible and he's never come home on the day he's set down to do so. Throw in the fact they have dangerous jobs — that every day, just at home on base, has a risk because of the equipment they use, because of the uniform they wear and because of the current climate we live in — and as a family, we live in a permanent state of anxiety and uncertainty.
That's our normal every day when he's home, never mind when he's deployed. I'm not complaining. Ten years ago I would have. Now, though? It's just life. Every day is uncertain and up in the air.
Every day carries with it a risk. Every day, the job has to come first — whether, as a wife, a daughter and a husband, we like it or not. It's what you sign up for when you join the military.
There are plenty of blessings and perks along the way to help make our family life easier. Still, it's tough. Bloody tough! Mark had been on overseas trips before, but never like this, and never before as a Dad. Five months overseas, training Afghanistan airforce soldiers to man machine guns on Blackhawk helicopters.
He came back with a profound level of respect and admiration for those Afghanistan crews, something I've never heard and seen from Mark before. Every day, flying out of the base not sure if they'd come home. Their families? We don't ask about them. We just know they don't see them and we know their families probably aren't safe," he'd tell me over the phone.
Afghanistan is still a war zone; we don't hear about it any more, though. The number of Australians troops on the ground has dropped dramatically, and that level of danger and death is just reality in their country. Life for Mark and life for me on the other end of the phone took some serious adjusting.
Regular rocket sirens in the background while we spoke, warning the base of rocket attack. Once a month, there would be a green on blue attack on one of the coalition bases.
An Afghani soldier who they were training and teaching and trusted would turn and open fire with the weapons our men and women gave them and taught them how to use. Men Mark worked alongside were injured and killed on the base that was their home, where they were suppose to be safe. Then there were challenges at home. Our three-year-old Rose missing her Daddy terribly and not understanding where he was or when he was coming home. But that same three-year-old wouldn't sit still for two minutes when Daddy finally dialled in on FaceTime.
Mark sometimes called at the absolute wrong time of the day — not his mistake — in the middle of a tantrum, a fight over vegetables on the dinner plate, or a stand-off in the bathroom over washing her hair. I'd try to make that phone call work because we were never sure when we'd speak again, but in the end we almost always hung up in frustration and disappointment.
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She was born on , in Toowoomba, Queensland. Toowoomba is a beautiful and populous city located in Toowoomba, Queensland. Popularly known as the Television presenter of Australia. She is seen as one of the most successful Television presenter of all times.
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