Me, myself and my tank
My name is Billy Everett-Norman and I'm currently deployed to Estonia, driving the British Army’s main battle tank
Hello, my name is Sapper Billy Everett-Norman and I have been deployed to Estonia as part of Operation CABRIT.
I’m out here as part of a NATO mission, we are here to work with the Etonians and to let them know that we stand with them. We are a combat-ready force, which trains regularly with the other nations here.
Soldiers from the British Army are in Estonia on Operation CABRIT, where they are leading NATO’s Enhanced Forward Presence (EFP) Battlegroup.
The current battlegroup here in Estonia is led by the First Fusiliers, an Armoured Infantry battlegroup, experienced with the Warrior fighting vehicle since it entered service.
It also includes soldiers from the Queens Royal Hussars (QRH), bringing the vital skills to Estonia with their Challenger 2 main battle tanks.
I’m part of 52 Armoured Engineering Squadron, we provide the engineering close-support to the battlegroup.
I have been in the Army for just over 2 years. I was born in Camden Town, London in 1997, at the Royal Free Hospital. I am the youngest of four brothers and am a proud uncle to just one niece. At the age of three, I moved from Camden town to Hertfordshire where I have lived ever since.
At around the age of 16, I finally decided that I needed my own income and so managed to get myself a job weirdly at a luggage shop where I sold everything from suitcases to handbags.
At the same time as being a sales assistant, I finished school and enrolled in college studying Level 3 mechanical engineering.
At college, I wasn’t the smartest and struggled to concentrate on all the work. So, halfway through my second year, I decided to drop out and volunteer at a youth club in America for a month.
I volunteered at a youth camp called The Castaway Club. The youth camp was situated on a private lake with a private beach in Minnesota. I worked as a waiter and we would serve three meals a day to over 400 kids — this was maybe one of the hardest months of my life, but possibly one of the best.
My time in America really started my love for travelling and so as soon as I got back I was already planning my next trip.
On my next trip, I decided to volunteer again with a charity called Tearfund. Tearfund are a Christian charity that provides relief, I was lucky enough to be sent to Durban, South Africa.
I worked within a mixed-race community providing HIV/AIDS information to secondary school kids and also various other smaller projects such as building a sandpit for the nursery.
This trip was such an eye-opener to me as I lived and worked in a community that was in constant hardship and yet they were some of the happiest and joyful people I had ever met.
I had the privilege of living with a family for three months, I learnt so much about the lives of regular South Africans and their culture.
It was on this trip that I knew that I wanted to continue travelling and also making a difference and so I decided that I wanted to join the army.
After coming back from South Africa I immediately signed up for the army.
On 5 March I officially started my training to become an armoured engineer in the Corps of Royal Engineers. I remember being extremely nervous as I turned up at the gates of Pirbright to start my training.
It was completely different to everything you expect it to be, it was intense and fast-paced but I learnt so much from it and officially finished my basic training in June 2018 as I moved onto my engineer training at Gibraltar barracks.
Again this was fast-paced and intense but taught me all the skills I would need as an engineer and also pushing both my physical and mental ability to the max.
I was then officially a sapper of the Corp of Royal Engineers.
Finally, I moved onto my Armoured Engineer training where I finally got to do what I joined up for, drive tanks! This was by far my favourite part of the training.
I loved learning how they worked and driving them. In February 2019 I was officially qualified as an armoured engineer. At this point, I was eager to get to my regiment and start working on vehicles and travelling again.
When I finally arrived at my regiment I was pretty nervous as I stood in the office with 10 other sappers who I’d never met before and trying to introduce myself.
Unfortunately, I stupidly greeted one of the LCpls by saying “Hi, I’m new” to which he replied “Hi New, I’m Dodge”
From that day on I was known as “New”.
I have now been in Regiment for a year now and have travelled to so many countries already and cannot wait to visit more.
