Description
Second time around and trained as a nurse, Crew tells how she made a choice to make the military a lifetime career!
Rhonda Crew
Rhonda Crew was born August 25, 1970 in Moncton, New Brunswick. Crew first joined the reserves as a 17-year-old, becoming one of the first women in an infantry regiment, the Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry Highlanders Regiment of Cornwall, Ont. Then, after going to nursing school and working in the civilian world for a few years, she rejoined the military in 1997. Almost immediately, she was serving as a flight nurse on helicopters and fixed-wing aircraft. Crew accepted deployments to Bosnia 1999 and Afghanistan in 2007, holding rank of Lt. Colonel Nursing Officer and still serving today in the capacity of Canadian Armed Forces Nursing Officer. Stricken with PTSD during her time in military, Crew finds a positive approach in dealing with the effects and has recently been chosen as part of Team Canada for Invictus 2018! Rhonda and husband Duane, also a CAF Veteran now reside in Stittsville, Ontario.
Transcript
There was a lot that led to me joining the military. As a child we moved almost every year of my life, mostly within the Maritimes, sometimes through Ontario. My dad’s job was in management consulting so we travelled from spot to spot to spot. In fact funny enough I’ve spent more time in one location since being in the military than I have ever did as a civilian. I moved all the time so I was used to that lifestyle and when I was a teenager my sister dated a guy in the militia and I thought that looks like fun and I was always a tomboy so I thought I’m going to give it a shot. So when I was 17 years old I joined an infantry militia regiment. I was the clerk. I was one of the first females in the entire regiment and it was a highland regiment, Stormont, Dundas and Glengarry in Cornwall, Ontario. It was fantastic. I learned how to do so many things and I really enjoyed it but after that we moved again and so I was somewhere else and I went to school and I started my life. I got married, that didn’t work out and as I was going through my divorce I thought what am I going to do? I got to look after myself so I need some security, some stability and I thought back, you know I really enjoyed the military when I was in it because I was by then already trained as a nurse and there were no jobs on the civilian side at the time. It was within that cycle of no jobs where you were living on a pager if anybody remembers a pager, living on a pager trying to get work and so I went into the recruiting and I thought, maybe, let’s see how this goes. And I went for my interviews. It took about a year and a half even though I was already a trained nurse to get in. But I kept at it because I think this is the right thing so I got in and it was fantastic. I wasn’t even in the military a year and I was boots on the ground in the Former Yugoslavia, yes pretty amazing!!