Julie, a meteorologist in the 3rd combat helicopter regiment laughs when I ask her why she didn’t join either the air force or the navy. “The army was an obvious choice for me because my grandfather and my father were both career soldiers,” she explains. But she knew nothing about meteorology and it was the armed forces recruitment centre (CIRFA) in Strasbourg “that first introduced me to the idea of becoming a meteorologist”, the young Alsatian recounts. She followed up on their suggestion to spend a week in meteorological immersion to discover what the job was about and she was hooked…