If you are reading this, you are probably about to experience one of the most challenging and exciting opportunities of your professional life. Most civilians do not expect that they will find themselves deployed with the military. Many do not count on having to work in austere and sometimes dangerous environments.
Yet, for more than twenty years, many civilians have done exactly that. They have served with great credit in places as far flung as Bougainville, Timor Leste, the Solomon Islands, Iraq and Afghanistan. They have worked in disaster response; stabilisation and reconstruction; and during the prosecution of combat operations. They have worked alongside Australian and international military forces; and with police, humanitarian workers, United Nations officials, contractors and host nation agencies.