Steve Baxter

I like them, but given what I pay them, they bloody well should do as well to me.

Yeah, we spent nine years here from 93, eight years here from 93 to 2000 or thereabouts.

I was with Adelaide Log Battalion, which is down at Waradale initially.

And then 16th Air Defence up at Woodside Hills back in the mid-90s, essentially.

So, yeah, worked on the Rapier and RBS-70 missile systems.

Yeah, joined the apprentice, yeah, 15, Rockhampton.

So Rockhampton, central Queensland.

Was in grade 11, so there was no prep back then.

So I was quite a young person in grade 11 at the same time.

That was probably not good.

I pretty well failed grade 11, but the army still took me as an electronics technician.

More for them.

And yeah, went and joined the apprentice scheme, signed up for nine years.

Spent three years in Wodonga in Latchford Barracks, just south of Bandiana.

And then got posted to Brisbane, to Bulimba, which was a base workshop battalion.

Great posting on the Brisbane River, right across the road from the Hammer Hotel.

It was quite nice.

And then out to Enoggera with 1C Regiment workshops.

So I was a technician out there.

Whilst I'll talk about repairing compasses, I'll talk about repairing surface-to-air missile systems, most things I repaired were compasses and binoculars.