Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life from the Longest Serving Female RAF Chinook Force Crewmember

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The suicide attempt failed, and Liz woke up in the Basingstoke Intensive Care Unit, where she decided to turn her life around. A couple of my mates knew that I was suffering a little bit and they say, ‘how are you Liz,’ and I [was] like ‘ohh yeah living the dream’ and if they asked a second time, it was sometimes enough to crack the egg shell. but I know from messages I get daily, that it’s not a single day with a label that people feel depressed on, it can happen anytime, even when life is ‘supposed’ to be great. Self-sabotage is a well-known symptom that comes with PTSD and depression; we don’t just let the wheels come off, we blow the whole damn truck up. The first thing you notice is the dust being kicked up off the ground surrounding the aircraft as the bullets get closer, then the distinctive ‘ting, ting, ting’ as they begin to hit the metal of the aircraft frame.

I highly recommend this book, which will make you laugh, cry, and have moments of anger and despair, but it's never boring. S. If you’re on it, take it with care, it puts you in a very bad headspace before it pulls you out…that’s how antidepressants work. So, I’m kind of still getting used to it a little bit, but I think the biggest sense of purpose, writing the book was great. She said: "I used to be there for the guys who used to come back from some of the MERT flights and be really

Without the uniform and the sense of identity it provided, her world unravelled and what she had witnessed on the battlefield took its toll.

In conclusion, "Chinook Crew 'Chick': Highs and Lows of Forces Life" is a must-read for aviation enthusiasts, military history buffs, and anyone seeking a story of courage, resilience, and triumph over adversity. Growing up in the countryside near Newtownards, 10 miles east of Belfast, McConaghy had no real desire to join the forces until visiting her brother at the nearby British Army Palace Barracks, where she happened to read a magazine with a photo on the cover of a man hanging out of a helicopter.I really wanted to become the first master aircrewman to stay in and do the job, but sadly my neck had other ideas.

Long runs were cathartic for me, and it cleared my brain, but at the start of lockdown we couldn’t travel more than five miles and that was detrimental to my mental health. Eventually, my squadron said ‘this isn’t good enough because Liz is on shift with us’ and we’re doing different tasking days and holding different responses. This amount includes seller specified domestic postage charges as well as applicable international postage, dispatch, and other fees.

McConaghy finished frontline service in 2014 as British forces pulled out of Afghanistan and, five years later, was given a medical discharge from the RAF to begin a new life as a civilian. Aged just 21, she was the youngest aircrew member to deploy to Iraq and was also the only female crewman' on the Chinook wing for four years.