An identity steeped in service

When FLTLT Rachel Purvis enlisted in January 1987, her parents signed over guardianship to Air Force. She was 17 and three months old.

“The Air Force was actually my parents for nine months, which is interesting because my mum and dad were also in the Air Force,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“They had to get signed over to the Air Force as their guardians as well because that’s when you were an adult at 21.”

Her first role was education assistant, initially working in the library at RAAF Base East Sale. She did that until she became a corporal.

“We were amalgamated with other musterings to become clerks in 1994,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“The initial amalgamation consisted of clerk admin, clerk financial accounting, education assistants and clerk medical. In the early 2000s, we changed to personnel capability specialists.”

She went into medical as a clerk and said she “had no idea”.

“I’d never worked anywhere in medical. So it was really learning on the job because we never had a proper course at that stage,” FLTLT Purvis said.

Even though she was in charge of the ACWs and LACWs, she had to ask them to teach her.

“I learned a lot about leadership then,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“Just because you hold the rank, it doesn’t mean you know everything. There’s no room for ego when that happens. Everybody has a part to play regardless.”

While deployments were career highlights, including Operation Gateway in Malaysia and going to San Diego with the P-3 Orions, her first three postings were her periods of greatest growth. They represented different phases of her life.

There was RAAF East Sale from ages 17 to 24, then RAAF Williamtown where she got married and had a daughter. Then it was off to Tindal in 2000.

“Tindal was special,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“We were geographically isolated, but we weren’t socially isolated.”

She remembers married quarters with fondness, along with her earlier years when she felt there was more esprit de corps.

“At the beginning of my career, not many people lived off base. So our whole social life and our working life was at RAAF Sale,” she said.

“We lived, ate, socialised, went bush, travelled and had good and bad times with the people we worked with. That’s where that real family sort of thing came from.”

Across her four decades, FLTLT Purvis has seen many changes. When she joined, the Service had limited to no policies related to unacceptable behaviour, equal opportunity, or work health and safety.

Deficiencies with aircraft safety also marred her first posting.

“In my early years at Sale, we averaged an aircraft crash every year I was there,” FLTLT Purvis recalled.

“We lost the B707, F-111C, Macchi MB-326 and CT4A. Then, in the early 2000s, we started really focusing on aircraft safety and having zero tolerance of any loss of people. And it’s completely turned around.”

She described those incidents as being among her toughest days in uniform. FLTLT Purvis also found it hard having to constantly say goodbye – to family, to friends and to co-workers – whenever she got posted.

There was also farewelling her then-husband, an aircraft technician, when he deployed to the Middle East in 2003.

“We could only talk once for five minutes every two weeks and we didn’t know where he was or if he was going to come home,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“I had to be mum and dad, and had to work and be the RAAFie as well.”

Her daughter grew up on base, going to Little Geckos day care, and now is a support worker with the Defence Assistance Program – working with FLTLT Purvis’ current partner.

“It’s a small world,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“She’s quite devastated that I’m going out because this is also a massive part of her life.”

Although FLTLT Purvis had hoped to stay in until she was 60, she is discharging medically three months shy of 40 years of service in October. But she is looking forward to spending time with friends she made while in service; time she didn’t have before.

“We observe ‘ladies hours’. Between 1000 and 1400 now is our working hours of retired socializing and appointments.”

Maintaining her connection to the military is extremely important to FLTLT Purvis.

“I really am institutionalised and it is very much my identity,” she said.

She has already joined numerous local organisations for veterans, as well as the Kalbar RSL. On joining, they asked if she wanted to be their secretary or treasurer. She said no to both.

“I said, ‘Well, I was a PCO and I used to do welfare. I’m quite happy to go to the old people’s home at Boonah, where our old veterans [are], and sit and talk to them,” FLTLT Purvis said.

She is staring down the task of figuring out who she is now that she’s her own boss.

“I’ll definitely miss it,” FLTLT Purvis said.

“Mum and Dad did the first part. The Air Force did the second, and the people who were with me, until I learned to stand on my own two feet.

“Now they’re sending me out into the world and I’ve got to stand on my own two feet as a retiree.”

Even though she’s leaving, FLTLT Purvis knows she’ll always be part of the Defence family.

“We always look out for each other no matter what,” she said.