After discharge Voodoo Medic Dan Pronk kept busy building a man cave to honour his military past
FROM the outside, it’s a typical backyard shed, but stepping inside Dan Pronk’s man cave is a military geek’s dream with photos from his tours to Afghanistan and more memorabilia than most military museums.
NSW
Don't miss out on the headlines from NSW. Followed categories will be added to My News.
FROM the outside, it’s a typical backyard shed, but stepping inside Dan Pronk’s man cave is a military geek’s dream.
The walls are covered in photos from his four tours of Afghanistan as a doctor in Australia’s Special Operations Command and the shelves boast more memorabilia than most military museums.
It’s “rough”, Pronk says, and “wouldn’t stand up to any architectural scrutiny”, yet it’s the envy of his thousands of Instagram followers.
“It’s got a little TV set up and gaming console so the kids can come out and play games on the couch,” he said.
“There’s the gym area and the other side of it is a car workshop.”
MORE VOODOO MEDICS
Voodoo Medics Part Seven: Journey home to ‘normal’ can be the toughest battle
But it’s the bar that Pronk built with his late father that pulls you in.
“It’s called the Blue Voodoo Lounge which was the name of our ready room area over in Tarin Kowt in the med centre,” he said.
“It was like a little common room, the area where we’d wait for jobs when we were all tooled up waiting for a trigger to launch so that’s where the name came from.”
After his military discharge in 2014, Pronk had time on his hands.
“I had a lot of time to sit around and think and that’s when things started to catch up with me,” he said. “So I set about building this space around me.”
It was built from plans he’d been drawing for years.
“It was always intended to be, not a shrine as such, but an area where I could display stuff that wasn’t appropriate to have in the house but that was a fundamental part of that part of my life,” he said.
“Building this was a cathartic project for me to process events.”
The metal memorial bracelets from the deaths of Rowan Robinson, Todd Langley and Brett Wood are mounted into the back of the bar “as a reminder” of his fallen mates.
“I do still think very regularly about the guys we left behind, the guys I was involved with,” he said.
“Of course a space like this is a constant reminder of that but there’s none of the physical events … palms sweat, heart race, fight or flight terrible feeling.
“That’s been gone for years now.”
Pronk said he spends a lot of time alone in his cave doing weights.
“It’s a good environment and a healthy mix between being a connection to my past without being too much of a presence in my life to try and drag me back there,” he said.
“There are also other bits and pieces that remind me of key incidents overseas to try and keep it fresh in my mind and be appreciative of what I’ve got and where I’m at.”
Built from West Australian jarrah, the bar is countersunk with about 60 challenge coins — a medallion bearing a military unit’s insignia or emblem.
“It was an idea I’d got from a bar over in Belgium at one of the NATO Special Operation Forces bases over there,” he said.
“When you work with other units or other elements it’s a thing to swap coins.
“So any interaction with other units on operations or training you’d take the chance to swap a coin.”
The centrepiece of the bar is a brass Kilo emblem recovered from an internal door in the ready room of the Regimental Aid Post at the Tarin Kowt base during its dismantling when the drawdown of troops began.
His dad’s ashes are another special addition that reminds him not to take loved ones for granted.
“He was one of my best mates as an adult then got lung cancer and unfortunately died shortly after that,” he said.
“It was very special that he was able to come down and help me build the bar which was a pretty fundamental part of the cave and that’s where he now lives in his ash form.
“He’s in Tupperware at the moment — I need to find something better although that’s pretty appropriate for the old man — nothing too fancy. He was a pretty practical sort of bloke.”