"SAY AGAIN, OVER"
CAPTION COMPETITION

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Army Jimbo's official guide

To your next deployment

There is never a better opportunity for achieving personal gain by unsavoury means than while on operational deployment overseas and therefore a deployment is something that every soldier should strive for.

So, once you’ve managed to worm your way into a high-readiness unit (we might have to look at the specifics of “worming” in a future column) and you see a deployment on the horizon, there are a few preparatory steps you should take.

Step one – finances. Provided the operation is either warlike (and this might leave you a little concerned about the nature of high-readiness unit you’ve wormed your way into) or lasting longer than 91 days, you’ll be pleased to know that you’re probably not going to have to pay any tax on the money you earn.

Now, just getting a few operational allowances and not paying tax is good enough for the simple minded, but for those of us who want a little more, this is the chance for big money.

It’ll take a bit of research on your part, but there are plenty of specialist skills and qualifications in the Army that come with a certain fortnightly cash incentive. Before deploying on your operation, your main priority should be to hunt these qualifications out and either gain them legitimately, or by some other means.

It may seem dishonest to be getting extra pay for qualifications you don’t need (or have, for that matter), but if the Army’s willing to pay more for a parachute qualified, dual linguist, DMEO, experimental diving, resident medical officer, test pilot, submariner receiving HDA and on rent assistance in a remote locality with a spouse and three children at home, then you should make the most of it.

Now, once you deploy on your operation and settle in (and hopefully don’t get called up to use any of those “qualifications”), you can start to explore all the wonderful opportunities before you.

Many people complain that we never seem to deploy to London, Paris or New York and therefore shopping opportunities on operations are limited. Not so fast, I say, because although a third world country doesn’t offer much in the way of designer accessories, there certainly are some good business prospects to be found.

You see, these troubled nations are generally over-flowing with hand-made, traditional bits and pieces that folk back home will pay big money for. The trick is to get in early, before all your mates start buying stuff for their families and drive all the prices up into a thriving false economy.

Sure, Customs will be curious about the 10,000 tribal masks in your backpack and Quarantine has always had an uncharacteristic distrust of people importing shrunken heads, but I’m sure you can negotiate your way through those minor barriers without my help.