At Fort Scratchley, on the weekend, 17-year-old Budgewoi high school student Daniel Marsh came with friends to speak with the recruiters. He wants to enrol in Canberra's Australian Defence Force Academy after school and follow his older brother into enlistment.
He's considering the infantry as a career and a possible deployment. Still, he said he was drawn to the military after watching his brother find lifetime friends and the stability of a surefire career.
"He said it was one of the best choices he made," Mr Marsh said.
More than 900 visitors streamed through the fort gates overlooking the city on Saturday, where the various Defence branches had come to spruik a career in uniform after the class of 2024 sat their final HSC exams on Friday.
Recruiters were particularly keen to drive Navy interest, as the maritime arm of the nation's defence shed hundreds of sailors in the last two years and has struggled to bolster the ranks. They hoped the spectacle of the serendipitous arrival of the Navy's most powerful warship - the Hobart class destroyer - the previous day would help drive interest.
The HMAS Hobart III sailed through the heads at around 8.15am on Friday, November 8, to a four-round salute from the fort on a respite stop. It remained docked in the port on Saturday.
Flight Lieutenant Sarah Galbraith, who enlisted at 30 when her youngest child began school and now works with ADF Careers in Newcastle, said the expo included members of the RAAF's No. 1 Security Forces, responsible for securing and protecting bases like Williamtown in the Hunter, as well as cadets, various other units and branches and a focus on science, technology, engineering and maths components.
"I think some people are surprised at how many roles we have," she said. "I was a stay-at-home mum for seven years before I joined as a human resources manager. I have been doing that for eight-and-a-half years now and love it."
The Australian Defence Force has set a plan to increase its ranks to 101,000 by 2040, and a 2023 strategic review prioritises, among other key moves, improving the military's ability to operate its northern bases. Still, Defence has struggled to fill its numbers as most branches, except the Air Force, have shrunk despite increasing recruitment focus.
The ADF has forecast a demand for just shy of 67,000 uniformed soldiers by 2027-28, representing a near-15 per cent increase on its current overall ranks of around just over 58,000.
The weekend's careers expo, which boasted gap year opportunities for school leavers, coincided with another military open day at Singleton.
Fort Scratchley volunteers, who have similarly struggled to fill numbers to keep the city's iconic military history site open, said there were few more fitting places to host the active branches of the nation's defence. One volunteer said he arrived early on Saturday morning, where visitors were already lining up at the gate for the day's events, which included a ceremonial firing of the fort's guns during the afternoon.
