ADVOCATE EXCLUSIVE
Navy public affairs officer from Lindsay takes us inside anti-drug trafficking Operation CARIBBE LT. SHEILA THAM
Lt. Sheila Tham, public affairs officer, grew up in Lindsay. Photo: The Royal Canadian Navy
Since Oct. 26, 2020, when Her Majesty’s Canadian Ship (HMCS) Summerside departed Halifax for Operation CARIBBE, I have been the voice of the ship’s Facebook page as the deployed public affairs officer. I never expected to find myself on a warship; I’m from Lindsay, and hadn’t been on a ship until the day we left Halifax. Public affairs is a “purple trade,” meaning we can wear any uniform and work in any element of the Canadian Armed Forces. I’m now a good example of that. I wear the army uniform, I have split my time almost equally between serving with army and with my home position in the air force as the Wing Public Affairs Officer at 8 Wing/CFB Trenton, and now I’ve been attached to the Royal Canadian Navy as well. On ship I am known as a “rider” — closer to a passenger than a contributing member of the ship’s team, as I don’t have any navy-specific training. As public affairs officers, we are often justifying our existence and explaining our value to the trades around us. Public affairs is a command function, which can be difficult to grasp if you’re not a commander in need of strategic messaging or communications advice. (A command function simply means my work supports the commander’s decisionmaking process and potentially influences the direction that he or she takes in the campaign.) We also act as the liaison between the public and the military, but as a unit floating in the middle of the Caribbean Sea it’s sometimes difficult to imagine how this contributes to mission success. These issues compound on ship: You are taking up a bunk of a potentially useful member of the ship’s company (strike one), you’re a day worker in a sea of shift workers (strike two), and no one is sure exactly what value you bring (strike three). There is lots to be done on ship and plenty of opportunities to jump in and help. But, because you don’t have navy training, often the ship’s crew will
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