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VI Kristi Ruus

I joined the Naval Reserve Cadets (now Australian Navy Cadets or ANC) in March 1999 at TS SIRIUS, one of 5 units in the Sydney metro area. I stayed there until my last year in cadets when I transferred to TS CONDAMINE which is on the other side of the city. I joined because one of my friends who I did swimming club with wasn¡¯t there at the beginning of the season one year, and I bugged my parents for the next 6 months before they would let me join. They thought it would be a bad influence... pfft! Now all four kids are either cadets, or in my case since I aged out in October, staff.

If I had to choose my greatest cadet memory, it would be January 2003, on our ACT (Annual Continuous Training) passing out parade, when I was Guard Commander, and was promoted to CPO by Commander Australian Naval Air Group, and having my sick grandmother put in a surprise visit organised by my mum and CO. I never imagined that my love of drill, sailing, seamanship, and everything else about the ANC (except for cleaning the heads and showers), would have had me in front of a guard and being promoted by a Commodore 4 years and a zillion friends later.

"I never imagined that my love of drill, sailing, seamanship... would have had me in front of a guard and being promoted by a Commodore 4 years and a zillion friends later."

My weirdest cadet moment was being part of an ANZAC Sunday catafalque guard, and when we marched off discovering we'd been covered in little green caterpillars falling out of the tree we were under... ick!

My greatest influences in cadets were probably SBLT Di Palmer and her brother CPOANC Frank Palmer, the first ever XO and Coxswain (nb: usually units have a staff member as Coxswain) I ever had as a cadet at TS SIRIUS. You didn't want to get on their bad side, but they knew how to have fun. Ma'am saw no reason that her girls couldn't be the best (and we were!) and expected nothing less than our best. She used to come out and play footy with us in the afternoons, still dressed in her skirt and shiny shoes. Chief used to teach the best ever first aid lessons, and I still remember the both of them crash tackling each other into garden beds at secure. I think it's Chief's fault that I went on to love drill so much and get my Ceremonial Weapons Safety rate (the Aussie equiv. to a gunner). When they moved to TS ENDEAVOUR, Cairns, Queensland we all missed them.

These days I am a Volunteer Instructor waiting for my appointment as a POANC, and my weekday job is working for Yachting Australia in the training, and competition and technical departments as part of a 12 month traineeship to get my Certificate III in Business Administration.

"Hear no evil, see no evil, speak no evil... have no fun."

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