E38 - Life in and after the Royal Australian Air Force - The Hidden World of Women

April 25th is ANZAC day here in Australia. I wanted to do a short series talking to women who have experience with the Department of Defence to look at the ways that the armed forces impact women. Women in the military, the wives and mothers of those in the Department of Defence.

 

In the first episode of this series, I spoke with Helen Burgess who was a peace time veteran and was in the Royal Australian Air Force for 16 years with a civilian husband who followed her through her RAAF career.

 

Helen spoke of her love of planes, her experiences in the RAAF, getting married, being pregnant in the Air Force (before there were maternity uniform options), finding herself after she left the RAAF, living with PTSD, and more.

 

Thank you Helen for sharing your experiences.

Some of the support agencies that we spoke about where veterans can access some supports:

RSLSA https://www.rslwa.org.au 

Working Spirit https://workingspirit.org.au/

Open Arms https://www.openarms.gov.au/

Soldier On https://soldieron.org.au/

Sailing On https://www.sailingonwa.org.au/

Buddy Up https://www.buddyupaustralia.org.au/

Connected By https://connectedby.org/

Our Veterans Forge https://ourveteransforge.com.au/

And don’t forget if you want to keep up to date with what we are offering at Women’s Health and Wellbeing Services www.whws.org.au

Check us out on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/womenshealthandwellbeingservices

We also continue to add content to our Youtube page https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCju-8oH3lDHZYi18wvgSJTQ

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