Navy People: Albion Park sailor on Middle East pirate patrol
31 August 2010
Albion Park’s Crystal Brown joined the Navy in 2006, straight after finishing her Year 12 at Albion Park High School. She joined to get new skills and to see the world.
Now Crystal and her 190 shipmates onboard Navy warship HMAS Parramatta are on anti-pirate and anti-terrorism patrol in the Middle East for six months.
After basic training in HMAS Cerberus near Melbourne, Crystal specialised in communications and information systems. She’s now been promoted to Able Seaman.
“I specialise in the communications between the ship and the shore, to get information where it needs to go,” Crystal said.
“I also get to work with the radio systems, signal flags, Morse code and of course, computer systems.
“The best part of my job is being able to interact with other Navies,” she said. “It’s good to be able to do something that is specific to Navy and Navy only.”
The opportunity to learn plus a sense of patriotism are two reasons that first drew Crystal to the Navy.
“I love that I keep learning and having fun while doing it — I like being able to learn off other people and strengthen my career at the same time,” she said.
“My job has given me a strength that I never thought I’d have. I love being able to stand tall on ANZAC Day and say I’m proud to be Australian and proud to be in the Royal Australian Navy.”
The Middle East isn’t Crystal’s first time overseas.
“I have been involved in a deployment to Hong Kong, Japan, China, Korea and Singapore as well as East Timor and Indonesia onboard HMAS Kanimbla, which is great,” she said.
“Before I joined the Navy, I’d never been out of NSW!”
“This is my first deployment to the Middle East and it’s particularly special to me, it shows you a different culture, something I would have never experience back home and makes you miss and be proud of the country we are from.”
Once her current deployment is complete, Crystal is really excited about getting married in October.
“We are both in the Defence Force and being away from each other is quite a struggle at times, but we both understand and support each other,” Crystal said.
“I also receive a lot of support from my family who have been encouraging every step of my career in the Navy; I will be spending time with them and my friends when I get home too.”
“But there’s no point being in a job that you don’t learn from,” she said.
“I like to keep the ball rolling and do things I would not normally do — like this deployment to the Middle Easy for instance.”
