Deploying to the MEAO - Day 16
Day 16 - Staying connected
No modern soldier goes to war without a laptop. This was an observation that Sally Sara, the ABC's former foreign correspondent in Afghanistan made. Sara reported that when some troops who were stationed at a remote patrol base and hadn't been able to have a shower for three months were offered the choice of having showers or internet access installed, they chose internet.
When you're sent on a 6-12 month deployment, chances are that you'll miss significant events like birthdays, Christmas, wedding anniversaries, or your child's first day at school. One mother I spoke to participated in her son's 5th birthday via skype. The family had the i-pad on the table and put a party hat on it. She sang 'happy birthday' to him with the rest of the family and watched him cut the cake. She said it was as good as it could have been, given the 11,600 km and seven time zones between them.
Some people, particularly mothers who deploy, try to stay very connected to their family while they are away. For example, one mother listens to her son read his school reading books and another gave advice about the making of an Easter bonnet via skype. Another mother was very hurt when she returned from a six month deployment and found her now 18 month old son was initially very cautious and wary of her. It was a day or two before he would accept physical affection from her.
There is some debate in the ADF about whether this is a good thing - whether it is good to have deployees emotionally connected with their families back home. In previous wars, people waited weeks or months for a letter to arrive, so they couldn't be as involved or connected. Will today's ADF employee be distracted from their work if they are watching the clock to see when the time will be right to telephone or skype? Will they miss a warning sign in a battle zone if they are thinking about how to help their son stand up to the school bully, or help their daughter adjust to kindergarten? I think that if you want to have highly skilled women in war zones, then you need to make it as easy as possible for them to be there. Reducing the amount of contact with your family doesn't reduce the pain of separation nor the need for emotional attachment. You never stop being a mother.
Twelve months ago I went to the Middle East Area of Operations (MEAO) with the Australian War Memorial. I was working on an oral history-photographic project. The core part of the project was interviewing and photographing 19 currently serving members of the ADF - from the army, navy and airforce - before, during and after their deployment in 2013 to the MEAO. In another 12 months time, you should be able to see the results of this work in an exhibition which will travel around Australia.
These blog posts were written while I was in the MEAO but were not uploaded to the AWM website at that time.
I am planning to upload one blog post each day, exactly 12 months on from the actual day I was on deployment. We left Canberra on 12 March 2013.