My name is Gerry Savage; I was born in Innisfail, which is probably an hour south of Cairns from here. I joined up when I left school. I completed Year 12 at Innisfail state high school. I actually originally wanted to join up as a cook but at the recruiting centre they persuaded me to join up as a quartermaster gunner back then which is now a Boson’s Mate. So basically my job onboard when I first joined up was to go and drive boats, keep watches on the bridge – that’s basically to steer the ship – and shoot all the weapons they have on board.
My background, my mum and dad they come from the Torres Strait. I come from a big family. I basically owned a boat before I owned a car so it was going to be that way that I was going to look for a job that had something where I was driving a boat and I had uncles that had joined up so they actually used to talk to me a bit about the Navy. Basically I had my mind set from Year 9 and I worked towards completing high school and then joining up.
The vessel that we are on here is HMAS Launceston. There are two boats that the three crews – this is multi-crewing – they rotate; they roughly spend about 8 weeks on each boat. We’ve only taken this over in the last 2 days. There is a crew of 28. There’s room for a lot more to come on board as in for training billets. My position on board is the boarding officer. That’s my position but there is a multi-task as well. I look after all the ammunition that we bring on board. I also keep watches on the bridge as an officer of the watch. I look after any issues to do with health and safety and I am soon to become an alcohol and drug awareness point of contact.
Now I joined up when I was 17. I just ticked over 25 years in the Navy – it flew by actually, I can honestly say this is the best job and I knew it was mine when I was still in high school. I’ve travelled around the world, I’ve seen the Queen a couple of times, I’ve seen President Nelson Mandela, President Clinton when he was around. You see a lot of presidents, get involved, been in a lot of countries, some countries I thought I would have never seen in my lifetime but for anyone whose interested in joining up you have 3 defence forces – army, navy and air force – but pick any one, you’ll see the world.
I feel there isn’t enough Indigenous personnel in the defence force at the moment. I feel that they can offer a lot. I’ve seen it now with Norforce and with the Army they use that to their advantage where you’ve got people from that country and they actually look after that part of the country, the army patrol the area, they know it like the back of their hand. Navy is a little bit different, coming from the Torres Strait background a lot of blokes think this is it but I feel there are a lot of untapped resources out there in different parts of Australia and I from a recruiting side I think the hardest thing is getting your confidence up for people to leave their communities to come out but once you’ve cracked that there’s no end!
After leaving Year 12 there was no other job that I really wanted to do and my mindset was on this so I’ve been in now like I said, 25 years, and my parents were happy that I just had a job but for me to go this far and be where I am now they’re very proud. I would like to say to any other kids who want to get out there and make a go of it ad probably don’t think they’ve got it in themselves, I was in the same position. Get out there, you have a go you’ll find you do well.