Company Sergeant Major Astrid

Astrid proudly wears the EHMH uniform. Photo credit: French Army

““I realised that actually I really wasn’t interested in combat””

It’s the last few days in November and Astrid’s tan still bears the white marks on the bridge of her nose imprinted by her sunglasses. The only female instructor at the Chamonix high altitude military school (known by its French acronym EMHM for École militaire de haute montagne), she has just finished the climbing season and is enthusiastically looking forwards to the ski season.

In parallel to her job as an instructor, Astrid is working towards obtaining her diploma as a ‘military instructor/guide’ and between now and June 2021 needs to pass three successive training courses. The first, last summer, entailed spending three weeks climbing the steep, rocky walls of the Dolomites in Italy. In February she’ll undertake the winter mountaineering course and lastly she will need to successfully complete a 10-day ski touring course (centred on extreme cold) in either Greenland, Sweden or France, the pandemic situation permitting.

Once she has this diploma, Astrid will be able to set up instruction courses to train Alpine troops with the aim of becoming a course leader herself. “The substance of these courses is decided ahead of time by the hierarchy, a little bit like the programme for the baccalaureate! So I’m not allowed to modify the substance, but the form is flexible and is up to the course leader to establish,” she explains. So the rock faces to climb, the summits to attain and the runs to ski down are chosen by the course leader to meet the objectives set.

It’s been 18 years since this athletic, 1m68 tall woman joined the Army. Following a vocational baccalaureate in medico-social studies, Astrid spent a year in New York as an au pair. “And then I returned home to the Lyon region and spent two years doing temporary odd-jobs,” she says. But, aware that it was high time to leave her parents’ house and realising that “there’s no future in odd-jobs” she turned to the Army. “About which I knew absolutely nothing!” she laughs.

Hanging on by one’s fingertips! Astrid in climbing mode. Photo credit: French Army

Selected to attend the non-commissioned officers’ school at Saint Maixent “I graduated as a sergeant in 2002 and then spent four years in the infantry as squad leader.” She was deployed to Guyana for four months and then to Kosovo. But, she stresses without dwelling on the reasons why, “it’s hard for a woman” and above all “I realised that actually I really wasn’t interested in combat.”

Keen on all outdoor sports, Astrid decided to request a career change to specialise in sports. She quickly discovered during the seven month training course at the National Centre for Military Sports (CNSD or Centre National des Sports de la Défense) in Fontainebleau that this didn’t just entail practising sports. The course includes human biology, pedagogy, legislation, rules and regulations; one has to learn to master the theoretical and technical bases and the safety rules relative to the sports one is going to supervise; one has to learn to adapt instruction to the level of tiredness, form and attitude of those practising the sport; one has to know how to maintain the equipment and so on.

But Astrid had found her place. She became an instructor, then deputy, then head of the sports section in various different regiments including seven years with the 7th Battalion Alpine Troops. “My job? Manage everything to do with sports training for the soldiers,” says this woman who comes across as being quite a taskmistress. Mountains being her passion, and wanting to both share her knowledge and continue moving forwards in her career Astrid “asked for a job at the EMHM.” She arrived on 1st July 2020 and spent the whole month supervising a summer course of climbing and mountaineering for officers who need the qualifications and refresher training. Delighted by the atmosphere at the EMHM, Astrid says she was very warmly welcomed by all her male colleagues.

Astrid chose not to have any children so that she could dedicate herself entirely to her passion. “It requires an investment of one’s personal time. You can’t just train during working hours, you also have to spend time training at the week-ends and during part of your holidays,” she says. But she stresses that she has found a balance between her professional and private lives that satisfies her. Probably a little foolhardy when she was younger, Astrid admits that she has become “a little more careful” since a close encounter with an avalanche. In any case, she remarks, “when one is the responsible party one pays greater attention.”

Astrid. Photo credit: Sandra Städeli

Clearly not one to boast, Astrid did not breathe a word during our WhatsApp conversation about her U.S. sports medal, her national lifesavers’ certificate [obligatory for all military sports’ instructors], nor that she gained her French parachuting certificate in 2009 and its German equivalent the following year, that she has summited the Chimborazo (6,350m) in Ecuador, amongst others, and that she loved participating in sporting raids, Ultra Trails and ski competitions. But today “even if I have very good memories, I don’t do raids, ultra trails or ski competitions...I prefer having a good time with my friends in the mountains.”