When I was asked to be a keynote speaker at RSL Queensland’s International Women’s Day morning tea, I was floored.

Being asked to share our experience as a Defence family with 55 incredible humans from different services and networks is such an honour.

Who was I to share our story, our experience?

We’d been ‘here’ for all of 5 minutes?

But we ALL have a story, and we all have experience to share. It’s our connection point. Our journey is what brings us together.

In January 2023 I stumbled into the Riverina Veterans Wellbeing Centre in Wagga, NSW and truly didn’t imagine that the “10 years of lessons in Defence life in 4 months” would land us in a space like it has. As I sat and cried, and then asked questions about certain things (like, “why wouldn’t the ‘family support’ teams, actually support us?” and “why can’t I associate with any of the ‘non-trainee’ people at any of the events?”) Charlotte and I turned through things that I wanted to bring to community.

Before being in the Defence space, my husband, Sam, was a police officer and that came with so many different challenges—I had been sharing that journey for 8 years online, so it felt apt to continue in some aspect as our lives evolved into being within the ADF environment.

I feel so humbled to be able to speak on behalf of the families, the partners and our community who are the boots back home.