{"id":69791,"date":"2016-04-21T06:15:21","date_gmt":"2016-04-21T06:15:21","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?guid=c6df9cfac10cd94c7c719e1699b97772"},"modified":"2016-04-21T06:15:21","modified_gmt":"2016-04-21T06:15:21","slug":"news-story-army-tank-technician-shares-royal-connection-as-the-queen-turns-90","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/?p=69791","title":{"rendered":"News story: Army tank technician shares royal connection as The Queen turns 90"},"content":{"rendered":"
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As a 25-year-old electronics technician in the Army I didn\u2019t think I had much in common with The Queen at all, writes Rebecca, but it turns out there\u2019s more than I thought.<\/p>\n

For a start, we have the same birthday \u2014 21 April. I don\u2019t know what The Queen will be doing for hers this year but I\u2019m going to be on a battlefield tour in France. <\/p>\n

And during the Second World War, she rolled up her sleeves and got her hands dirty serving as a mechanic in the Auxiliary Territorial Service (ATS) \u2014 doing a job just like mine.<\/p>\n

\n
\"Left,<\/div>
Left, 18-year-old Princess Elizabeth at work in the ATS. Right, Corporal Rebecca Smith in front of a Challenger 2 tank. Pictures: IWM\/Crown Copyright<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

My job involves diagnosing and fixing electrical problems with the Challenger 2 main battle tank. It\u2019s a dirty job and your hands are permanently black but someone has to do it \u2014 and I wouldn\u2019t do anything else.<\/p>\n

I think it\u2019s admirable that during the war Princess Elizabeth joined the ATS. She was 18 and by the end of the war she reached the rank of Junior Commander and passed out as a fully qualified driver.<\/p>\n

It\u2019s important that on her 90th birthday our nation pays tribute to what she did during that time. It\u2019s good to know that our Queen mucked in for the country. <\/p>\n

For me, it\u2019s nice to know that we did a similar job all those years apart, and that we share the same birthday is a nice connection. This job isn\u2019t one that many people would want to do \u2014 it\u2019s dirty, and there\u2019s a lot of time spent on exercise living in a field. So the fact The Queen did it in the military is extraordinary. <\/p>\n

It\u2019s an interesting side to her character. She could have got a job anywhere, doing something far more comfortable but she chose the life of overalls and elbow grease \u2014 and I don\u2019t blame her. <\/p>\n

What does The Queen have in common with this Army tank technician?<\/a><\/p>\n

I love my job. I got here after a lot of training, having joined the Army because I wanted a career where I can do different things every day. I always knew I wanted to join the Armed Forces, it was just a matter of when. I was going to join the Royal Air Force but I met a guy called Sergeant Matt Telford, who said I should look at joining the Army.<\/p>\n

He told me that I shouldn\u2019t join until I was ready and 100 per cent committed to it. Until that moment there was no point, he said, because you should be ready to commit yourself.<\/p>\n

While serving in Afghanistan in 2009, Matt was shot and killed. I was in the Middle East at the time, teaching at an international school in Qatar. When I heard the news, I came home and joined up straight away. I had been in my own world, doing my own thing, and it made me realise I needed to crack on with my life and get things done.<\/p>\n

People who knew me back home knew a slightly different me and they said I couldn\u2019t do it. They laughed at the idea of me doing as I was told and taking orders. But I knew it was what I wanted to do and I didn\u2019t let anything get in the way.<\/p>\n

I knew I wanted to work on tanks, after I saw the Challenger 2 I decided it was what I wanted to work on and I\u2019ve loved it ever since. My job is to support the tanks\u2019 electronics. The tanks have objectives to meet and it\u2019s the job of me and my colleagues to support them and keep them running if anything goes wrong. <\/p>\n

It takes a lot to get this far, there are a lot of tests and training you have to go through before you qualify to do the job but it was worth the effort.<\/p>\n

So when I celebrate turning 25 this year, I\u2019ll be remembering my special connection to The Queen, wishing her a happy birthday and a job well done.<\/p>\n

Corporal Rebecca Smith joined the British Army in 2011 and has undergone years of training to become a qualified electronics technician for the Challenger 2 main battle tank. She plays basketball for the Army and in addition to deploying on numerous military exercises, helped provide security at the 2014 Commonwealth Games in Glasgow.<\/h3>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There are three things you need to know about Corporal Rebecca Smith: she comes from Grimsby, she\u2019s covered in tattoos and she fixes tanks for the British Army. So what does she have in common with The Queen?<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[13],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69791"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=69791"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/69791\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=69791"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=69791"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mostafa.openonline.co.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=69791"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}