Marie Gleeson

But the military side of my, like, I mean, I'm trained to make decisions.

That's my core skill set, like, and high risk, high intensity decisions.

And we've a system for that.

It doesn't take it out, but you definitely control it.

So an awful lot of military decision making is about, you know, controlling your breathing, making sure that you're in a good headspace so that you can see what the various options are.

You can analyse all of those, you work with your team, but ultimately the decision will come to you as a commanding officer.

Like that's why you get paid and that's why you're in charge.

So I do think that skill set meant that we could analyse what was there.

And for us at that moment in time where we were at, like we didn't have other kids, we were in a good place in our relationship, you know, so I think for us in that moment, that was the right decision.

You know, I'm not saying I would make the same decision in a different circumstance.

And I think that's why we're talking about the referendum.

I was very clear at the time when I was asked my opinion that really nobody knows until they're in the circumstance because, you know, in a different circumstance, we might have made a different decision.

But we then, you know, the way I went about it then was to try and continue as normal as possible.

So we didn't really tell that many people.

And I went back to work and I was working for the then Commodore Mark Mellott and the medical doctor in the naval base would only let me go back to work if I didn't work for him because the two of us as a combination were workaholics.

So he was like, I will let you go back to work on a three day week, but you cannot work for him.

And even that reflects where I was at in my life at that stage.

And I did, threw myself back into work and, you know, Ciarán did so well.

Like everything they were telling us, he was countering it.

Like he grew, he was 8, 14 when he was born.