Erin Gilbert
Lieutenant Commander
Royal Australian Navy
Afghanistan
Erin Gilbert was 18 years old when she deployed to Afghanistan with the Royal Australian Navy.
“My first sea trip was to the Middle East,” she said. “It was six months after I’d joined. I hadn’t even been out of high school a year and I was there.
“I was one of the junior watch-keepers on board HMAS Melbourne and that was where I did part of my training. It was full on, and a lot of what was going on was quite overwhelming, but it was good because we were given quite a lot of responsibility. They didn’t have time to stuff around with us, so we just had to do it, and that was really excellent.”
Erin grew up in Newcastle and joined the Navy in 2002, straight out of high school.
“I finished high school in December and joined in January,” she said.
“My father was in the Navy; his father was a merchant mariner; and I have two sisters, one of whom is also in the Navy; so that was it.
“I guess I never heard a bad word about the Navy so it seemed like a good option for me. My dad was an electrical weapons engineer, and was a warrant officer when he discharged in the 1990s. He did close to 25 years and he’s still mates with people he joined with, so I only ever heard good stories.”
Erin studied arts at the Australian Defence Force Academy and became what is now a maritime warfare officer, later serving on patrol boats and hydro ships involved in border protection.
“It was confronting,” she said. “I look back now and I’m very glad that I wasn’t a mother while I was there because I honestly don’t think I would have been able to handle it. We were bringing families and their children on board, but if I went back now, having had kids, I think it would be very, very difficult. I’d just want to take them and bring them home, which obviously you can’t do.”
As a young veteran, she believes it’s important for the Memorial to be able to tell the stories of those who have served and those who continue to serve.
“I always find it sad,” she said of the Memorial. “It’s choking me up now just thinking about it.
“Veterans now are very different to back in the day. You walk past us in the street and you don’t know who we are; we’re not the typical old guys, it’s just not us.
“Warfare now is very different to warfare that everybody sees in movies. Everybody knows of the Anzac veterans, and the Vietnam vets, but it’s not like that anymore; it’s a lot different, and there is a broader spectrum of people involved so I think it needs to move forward.
“Today, you can fight in a war and never leave your ship, so you’re not necessarily on the ground in a trench; there are people who do that, but 99 per cent of us don’t.
“Those people need to have their stories told, and it will help with the post-traumatic injuries that people are coming back with. If nobody knows what they have done, then how can they possibly try and understand? They are not going to come close to understanding what they have been through, but if they haven’t even been told, then they have no chance.”
It means a lot to Erin and her partner, Martin Garrett, who also served with the Navy in Iraq and East Timor. They are looking forward to the day when they can take their two daughters, Olivia and Scout, to see the new galleries at the Memorial.
“I just really want to see what it is like,” Erin said. “I think it will be a lot more relatable for me and I’m just so excited to see it.
“They can’t relate at the moment because they don’t see us as the old guys who have come home, they just see us as mum and dad. But we’ll definitely take both of them when they are old enough to understand.
“I’ve had a lot of people ask me whether I would recommend the Navy for their kids, and I always say yes; it’s an amazing job, and I loved doing it.”