3 October 2024
After growing up on the Mornington Peninsula in a town called Rye, Lance Corporal Bayley Glover enlisted in the Army as a rifleman in 2014.
During his career he was posted to 3rd Battalion, the Royal Australia Regiment, for five years, and deployed to Afghanistan in 2018.
While deployed, Defence sent a call-out for pre-qualified electrical tradesmen and Lance Corporal Glover saw an opportunity.
“Before joining the Army, I started a school-based apprenticeship as an electrician,” Lance Corporal Glover said.
“I had very little exposure to the trade but was interested to pick it back up.”
He transferred to the trade in 2019, went back to TAFE and completed subject-matter expert training, after which he posted to 3rd Combat Engineer Regiment in 2023.
He was fortunate enough to deploy on Exercise Puk Puk 2023 at Manus Island, Papua New Guinea, and was happy to be back for Exercise Puk Puk 2024 in Wewak.
“Last year we had a scope of works redoing classrooms at the Lombrum Primary School,” Lance Corporal Glover said.
“It was a great team effort from all nations and very pleasing to see how well the school received those classrooms.
“To this day, I still get messages from the school principal saying the classrooms are holding up in excellent condition.”
The focus of Exercise Puk Puk 2024 was refurbishments for the Moem Barracks Guard House, live-firing range, obstacle course and Puk Puk bridge.
“We’re giving back to them,” Lance Corporal Glover said.
“It’s also a learning collaboration; we’re teaching them, they’re teaching us.
“We all come together to improve the infrastructure for the PNGDF [Papua New Guinea Defence Force].
“It is very rewarding. The community get around us all and have a really good time, good laughter.
“We go down and play sports, we’re one big family.”
