Justin Quinn
After I came back from Cambodia in October 1993, I was posted to 1SIG REGT. I spent 3 years there, and was then posted to 1CSU Darwin. I spent 9 months there before getting a posted back to 7 CSU, Brisbane. I spent 14 months in 7 CSU & was posted to 1 JSU (formally 1 SIG REGT), in January 1999 for a normal posting tenure.
At the end of September 1999 the unit (1 JSU), was involved in the operation to go to East Timor, to help it with it‘s troubles. I spent 4 months over there with INTERFET forces, & returned to Australia at the end of January 2000.
In mid 2000 I went to Sydney as part of a JTF to provide communications & security for the Sydney Olympic Games. I was there for 3 months.
In August 2003 I deployed to the Solomon Islands with elements of 1JSU. I spent 3.5 months over there helping to establish communications in support of that operation. I returned home mid November 2003, 15 days after my son had been born.
By now I was pretty ‘burnt out’ & had, had enough of Service Life. My 20 years were approaching quickly, & so I made a decision to take all of my long service / accrued / war service leave & just ‘go away’ for a long time so that I could have a good long think about whether I wanted to continue on with service life. I had by now done almost 20 years continuous fulltime service, & I was well & truly over it.
In July 2004 I was finally & fully discharged from the Army. I studied a bit but that was not bringing in the money, so I tried several jobs on the outside including cabling, & comms rigging.
January 2006, I started a civilian job with defence in QLD. I look at it as my ‘retirement’ job, but it has certainly got its hectic moments. I’ll stay there until something better comes along.
Justin Quinn.
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