Alexandra Wolfe

Even though I had a vague understanding that I might be asked to work at any and all hours of the day and night, while in the military, it wasn’t really till I was posted to Germany on my first overseas assignment that it hit home exactly what that truly meant. Being in the military is a 24/7 commitment come rain or shine. There are no lie-ins, not taking a sick day, no skiving off. You are on call whatever time of day or night it is.

When the shit hits the fan you better be dressed and stood in front of it, ready for anything.

My first serious wake-up call happened not a month in after arriving on base. I was totally unprepared for the reality. Even though I had already been issued with my NBC (nuclear, biological & chemical warfare) gear 5 minutes after my first work shift, it hadn’t quite sunk in that here, on this frontline base, Exercises (yes, capital E) were done on a micro level (your immediate team), mini level (your whole section, which, in my case, was air traffic control & operations) and the dreaded TacEval (Tactical Evaluation), which was station wide and brutal on Newbies.

Guess who was woken at 2 am on my supposed day off for her first major Tactical Evaluation?

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Within weeks of arriving at my first military posting in the UK after I had completed my Basic Training, I was being encouraged to sign up for, well, everything. Including participating in helicopter rescue training exercises. Which wasn’t a stretch, given where I worked, which was the RCC (rescue and coordination centre) in Plymouth, Devon—an Air Force detachment working along side the Navy. They got all the new arrivals to sign up for this to build character, I was told. Uh-huh. Character. Right.

Signing up to do the helicopter rescue was made to sound wildly exciting and something we would receive a badge for doing. A fancy patch made especially for such training exercises. Not that anyone told me it was a patch we’d never get to wear on our uniform. Nonetheless, wide-eye, I went into this endeavour, like ever other endeavour I got talked into or volunteered for in the next several years, eager as only youth can be.

Now you would think I would have grasped exactly what I was being asked to do. Ha! Not so. I was completely and utterly unprepared for the reality of jumping out of a hovering helicopter into the sea.

The event didn’t happen straight away, there was training for those of us gullible enough to sign up. First came the silly stint in the gym, where they had us jumping off 10 inch heigh benches up into the air, legs straight, arms folded across our chests, to have us at the last minute before hitting the floor, star-fish our arms and legs out, to simulate hitting the water, and not sinking to bottom of the ocean.

Reminder. They had us doing this for a solid 2 hours … jump, star-fish, jump, star-fish … Do you know what it’s like to hit the floor and try to roll after all this? I was oh so innocent.

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I didn’t join the military thinking I’d have a life of adventure but, as it turned out, adventure found me anyway.

I was too young to sign up for myself and had to have my father sign the papers allowing me to join the Woman’s Royal Air Force — I was 17 years of age. A decision he had a huge part in suggesting given, at the time, I was in a constant battle with my menopausal mother. And, let me tell you, had I stayed, one of us would have ended up strangling the other.

So a solution was found. My father told me there was a way I could keep my sanity, have a job, and get paid to do my studies. A dream my mother had quashed with, “*if you’re going to live here you have to contribute to the household*,” meaning, get a job you’re not going to university.

With that particular dream in tatters, my father steered me towards somewhere I was very familiar with: the military. I was after all, a military brat, and had travelled across the planet with my parents, going from one country to another. And, knowing that life already, readily agreed with my dad here was the answer to all my problems.

So, rather than murder my mother or go insane, I signed up, took the oath, and left home to pursue a different path. And, in doing so, had a whole other set of adventures than those I had originally imagined, all the while earning my BSc along the way.

Life sometimes take us down a different path than the one we envisioned. And, to be honest, I’m very happy with the way things turned out in the end. Otherwise, I probably wouldn’t be here.

As a child growing up I use to tell friends, “… my dad kicks bombs for a living.” when asked the inevitable stupid question, ‘what does your dad do for a living.’ One because I was never sure at first what it was my dad did actually do and had overheard him talking to someone, one time, and say, “I kick bombs…” and giggling to myself though, oh, that’s cool. Never once, at whatever tender age I was at the time, realising what kicking bombs for a living actually meant or, entailed. And two, because I loved the look on the other kids faces when I told them that.

It wasn’t till much later it all made sense when one of my older brothers explained to me and, having a half ass explanation, had gone and asked my dad what exactly it was he did. By this point I was about 8 years old and we were living in Singapore, and I vaguely knew he worked putting bombs on planes. Though why they needed to carry bombs in the first place was still a little beyond me.

My dad had laughed for a good five minute when I told him what I told my friends. Yes, it was true that at one point he had kicked a single bomb, a dud he told me, when being pranked in his early career in Bomb Disposal just after the war. It turns out this was a phrase they guys used to pull the ladies in with when dating just after the war. Not that my dad mentioned this at the time, this was again, something I learnt from my mother much later as an adult teenager about to join the military myself.

Still, I have fond memories of grinning when I told other kids that my dad kicked bombs for a living and seeing their faces light up in glee and then, fear, seconds before one or two might call me a liar. But those kids were mostly civvy kids who didn’t know any better. Kids in the Air Force all knew their fathers could be doing some sort of scary job involving weapons and explosives. And, for me, as a kid, it seems wild and exciting, as I grew up, I began to understand the humour people like my father used when talking about some of the work they did, because it was far from exciting or glamorous.

My dad had the physical and metal scars to prove it. A three inch gash along his scalp to start with, when a missile fell on him from the undercarriage of an airplane during load-up.

He never did tell me if that was when he had his first heart attack. I often wonder.

My mother, by all accounts, had quite the life, especially in her younger years. Though some of what I know I only know from stories my sister told me much later, after my mum passed. What I did get to hear from my mother, firsthand, was how, despite being in a loveless marriage and an arranged marriage at that. And despite still only being a teenager (18), she ran away from home.

Let me tell you I was as surprised as anyone, knowing not only had my mother been married before she met my dad, but that it barely lasted a year before she knew she was suffocating, and left. That’s how she put it. From somewhere deep inside, she found the courage to not only leave a man she didn’t love. But in doing so, defied convention, this was back in the early stage of WWII. A number of women, she told me, were doing the same, signing up for service.

Why? Well, for the obvious, but also, because, at the time, the military were desperately recruiting as many young women as they could into the services. And, like many, my mum knew she wanted a better life. A different life, and one that gave her opportunities. She left to join the WAAFs and trained as an MT driver. Her first posting was to the outer most reaches of Scotland, to Stornoway in the Outer Hebrides. She served as a driver for the aircrew of squadrons patrolling the North Atlantic for U-boats, flying Avro Ansons under Costal Command.

She told me a story about how one night she was called up to drive out to the runway, in the dark, with no lights on, in order to help a troubled aircraft land. She had to guide the plane in by driving, still in the dark, but pumping her breaks to flash out a small red light for the plane to see and follow.

Can you image? I know I can’t fully grasp doing what she did, out there on her own, being guided by people in the tower to effectively slow drive her way up the runway for the plane to know when said runway was. All in the middle of the night in the pitch black of night.

For her, even terrified, she said it was one of the most exhilarating things she’s ever done in her life, and never once regretted escaping her family and marriage to create a life for herself. And for that, I salute her courage.