Thank god you had an intelligent uncle. I was going in through the direct entry commando scheme and found out I was colour blind at the last hurdle. I went from 30+ jobs to 6. I was then told to take an Op sup position and transfer to medics at kapooka. I went through with a platoon of 25 people who wanted to be medics. 2 got to stay and all through rest were made to transfer to trucks or op sup. This will make sense later.yeah, first time I met my uncle at like 11 he was pretty high up in the tankies and he asked what I wanted to do. Being a naive kid at the time of course it was "I want to be a sniper!". "No you don't, you don't want to sit in a tree for three days shitting yourself or spend a day crawling through a field of mud while pissing your pants".....Yeah, that pulled me up pretty quickly
Unfortunately my application has taken nearly two years at this point, spent about 6 months working my ass off to afford some dental work, spent three months getting dicked around by doctors who wouldn't do the referrals requested and then I'm on my third enlistment coordinator at the moment as my first one wasn't doing anything for anyone, second one was the area manager and just disappeared and I have only just heard from the third after about three months of silence. From the sounds of it they have gutted recruiting in Perth and started from scratchI've passed all my medicals etc. and was told that there are 27 spots this financial year but 100% of them will be female, first shot for a male will potentially be next financial year, good ole quotas and all that, sigh. I was going to take another spot in a combat branch and just sell a corps transfer hard but at this point I'll be setting myself back 12+ months so may as well wait, bank some money and work on my fitness.
Edit: Just looked up the PESA, 5km march in 55 minutes in basic kit, 150m farmers walks with 2x 22kg jerry cans and a box lift of 25kg to 1.5m.....
You'd think the military would be kinda immune to all the OH&S etc. and have reasonably high standards compared to civvie street, ya know being expected to go into combat at any time etc.Oh well, just going to have to smoke it all and make it look easy
To top it off I got retested and my colour perception is so mild it's no issue. I could have had the career I actually wanted if they had done the test correctly.
I made the most of a bad situation and lined myself up with some really good postings and left as a fully qualed SGT. I left with a pretty beaten up body because alot of officers in support units are wannabe SF and upset where they ended up.
The Pesa is a step in the right direction IMO. It is just hard enough to weed out the completely useless people in the job and while it might seem easy in the cool of Melbourne, the heat can really change things up in a place like Darwin.The infantry one catches up with you a bit with the fire and movement drills after the heavier pack march. I used to look at those tests as something I could do after my own training in the morning and then I knew my work capacity was good. OH&S is huge in the army, but only applies when they want it to. It's part of why I left haha.
Just as a heads up you are going to brisbane, nt, adelaide or townsville. There is no chance you are going west for years.
I probably sound negative, but I did enjoy my time in the army. I just like it better in my current career choice much more
