By Carol Voyce, Deployment Services Officer
Deployments overseas can offer the ultimate in military experience, but for families they can offer fear and anxiety.
It was April 1941 when Gunner Henry Pierson boarded the Niew Amsterdam at Wellington, bound for distant shores. With his fellow comrades, he had volunteered for service abroad. Medically cleared and with some basic pre-deployment training behind him he was embarking on a journey with an unpredictable outcome. Four years later he was fortunate to return, but his deployment had been marked by intermittent and unreliable contact from home and a great fear of the unknown for those he had left behind.
Thankfully, some 67 years later, this true life scenario is ‘history’.
How things have changed! Nowadays you still see the tears at airport departures and homecomings, but behind the scenes a very different situation is unfolding. With more than 700 service personnel on deployments in 16 locations worldwide, a new perspective on family support has emerged. Not only do we prepare our soldiers to an outstanding level of expertise, we also prepare and support their families for and during their journey ahead and on their return.
Deployments are a way of life for our Regular and Territorial Force Service Personnel. For many, deployments overseas offer the ultimate in military experience, but for families they can offer fear, anxiety and the unknown. Both service personnel and their families must make huge sacrifices for a deployment to be a success.
Deployment Services Officers and Welfare Support Officers have one objective: ‘Peace of Mind’ for those at home and those abroad. The key to this is quality, timely information. Prior to deployment families learn about deployment locations, the daily lives of the soldiers, security states, welfare support systems and strategies for coping with change, anxiety and new responsibilities.
Importantly, they meet with others in the same situation and establish their own network systems. Armed with great resources, everyone can be well prepared for a separation, as the fear of the unknown and sense of isolation diminish.
Media coverage often focuses on disasters and tragedies, and deployment locations, in a world of unrest, feature highly on their agenda. This coverage can be frightening and unsettling for those at home but Support Services are just a phone call away to help set the record straight. Our family support service is available 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
While those at home are always in the thoughts of deployed Service Personnel, they are able to concentrate on their job abroad if they know support is on hand for their loved ones. A regular newsletter offers news and views from deployment locations and with informal get togethers and tour updates, our efforts towards achieving and maintaining ‘peace of mind’ are constant.
While reunions may present new challenges we find that for many, lives end up being enriched by the separation. There’s a sense of pride in knowing that the many sacrifices made by all have enhanced the lives of those less fortunate than us for so much longer.
Family commitment has enabled our Service Personnel to bring stability to fragile nations far away. Thanks to Gunner Henry Pierson, his comrades, our soldiers and our families of today, we now have a recognised system in place which allows those who continue to admirably serve their country, to have, for their families and themselves, peace of mind.