Well, first of all I’m Alex Cormack, I’m from Brisbane and I don’t know, one day at school on the internet saw the Gap Year and had a look through it. I saw Army, and I’ve done Army cadets before, saw Air Force, don’t know anything about Air Force, saw Navy, thought travel, thought new life, you know, lots of opportunities. So that’s pretty much why I joined.
Well, it’s pretty much a twelve month try before you buy. There’s no restrictions or anything. You can leave at any stage. They pretty much do the normal, basic recruit training and that’s for 11 weeks and then you get 4 weeks of seamanship, so you’re all prepared to be seaworthy and then you’re get your posting after going on a 1 week gap year officer tour, which I’m on right now. So they take you around to all the bases, and Adfire and Creswell and give you a taste of what it would be like to join up as an officer.
Well, it’s currently my sixteenth week and I’ve enjoyed all of it. Recruit school was definitely a challenge, you learn a lot about yourself. I’ve never thought I’d be able to do a lot of the things that I have done. A lot of teamwork, build a lot of friendships, so it’s no longer a workplace, it’s more of a family. And from leaving school not knowing what you wanted to do and coming here and actually finding some sort of purpose – it’s a really good opportunity and I think people should take it.