DAVID Snelgar has temporarily given up his day job to pursue a life-long hobby in the army reserve.
David will hang up his utility belt and say his goodbyes to the family plumbing and gas fitting business tomorrow to prepare for voluntary deployment to the Solomon Islands as part of “Operation ANODE”. He will return home in April next year.
David joined the army reserve in 1990 at age 23.
“I joined with the Collie depot but it closed in 1995, so I have been in Bunbury ever since,” he said.
“There was not a particular reason that I decided to join, I guess I was just always interested in military-type things.”
Although he never had any immediate family with an interest in the army, his “far-off” uncle fought in World War II and his great, great granddad fought in the British 16th lances and went to the Boer War and World War I.
From the outset in the army reserve, David has been involved in the infantry sector.
David said this involved a lot of running around and was “the pointy end of the army”.
“It is bush orientated and you spend a lot of the time on the ground, crawling around in the leaves. It is very tactic based and shooting is involved,” he said.
Two years ago, David made the transition into a career as a pay clerk which is what he will be doing in the Solomon Islands.
“It was sort of like a career extension. I was preparing to discharge but I was asked what it would take to keep me in the system. Plus the knees and elbows were starting to complain,” he laughed.
In the past two years, David has travelled to the Eastern States for a lot of training.
“We do courses as small as learning how to turn on a paper shredder, to complicated courses such as financial legislation. It was like going back to the drawing board.”
David did two courses and was the only infantry soldier on the first course he did. He received Student of Merit for both courses.
“It has been a very steep learning curve, academically especially. I was going to discharge back in 2006, thinking I had had a good career, learnt a lot and had great fun but my training staff urged me to reconsider as part of a career extension program. I told them it would have to be out of left field so they offered me a position in Pay Corp,” he said.
“Well left field it was. When I joined in 1990 I wasn’t even aware that we got paid, I thought it was all voluntary. So I had to redo all of my trade training over in NSW which was a blast as coming from an infantry background the last thing I would have expected to be doing was Financial Legislation etc. I guess that the culmination of all this training is to be able to put it to good use during this deployment.”
David said he feels the army has changed a lot since he first joined.
“There is a lot more opportunity to go away and deployment is optional. I volunteered to go, but when I first started there weren’t many opportunities like it.
“At the Bunbury depot there are soldiers that have been to many places including Afghanistan. When I started there was just the army and the army reserve. But now, the army is seen as full time while army reserve is seen as part time.”
David said all the opportunities available to the full-time soldiers are also available to the part-timers. “The Bunbury depot is infantry based but there is a wide range of other avenues too. There are drivers, tradesmen, engineering courses and even cooks.”
To some people, the idea of joining the army might be daunting but for David he likes it so much he does not know what he enjoys most.
“It is hard to point out one thing because it has just become a way of life. You certainly develop mate ship and a skill base you would not normally learn in a civilian environment.
“I have always enjoyed shooting activities. In civilian activities, you don’t usually get a chance to blow things up,” he laughed.
Despite the dangers he faces, David said his family are still supportive.
“Cherie, my wife, is supportive but obviously six months is a long time to be away from home,” he said. He also has two daughters, Aleshya and Shania.
“I did not join to be deployed but the political situation at the time was different. It is a culmination of the training I have had and being able to put it to good use.”
David is expecting his stay in the Solomon Islands to be hot. “From the small amount of reading I have done, it has a similar temperature all year round and I will be going in the wet season so it’ll be humid.”
While in The Solomon Islands, David hopes to learn more about its history, including that of the Guadalcanal which was a big battle area during World War II, particularly for Americans. Unexploded shells continue to be found in the area.
“In the deployment there are 140 people going. I will be the only person from Collie but there are five from Bunbury and the rest are from different units. Our contingent is based in Perth and the most people going will be from Western Australia.”
At the end of this month, David will begin full time service and will do two months of pre-deployment training before leaving for the Solomon Islands.
He is due back in April in time for ANZAC Day.
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