Mackay Anzac Day 2022: Vet served across three wars
Malcolm Bridge has served his country in three wars with the Royal Australian Navy. He says it was better than the alternative. Read his story and the rest of the Mackay rolling Anzac Day coverage.
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Rohan Laidlaw proudly has his father, grandfather and great grandfather’s war medals adorned to the right side of his chest.
The Slade Point resident said Anzac Day held a special place in his heart – it was a day he had shared with his father, like brothers in arms, for about 35 years since age 15.
“It is a little bit more important to me because my dad died on Anzac Day 2017,” Mr Laidlaw said.
“So the tradition is still going but I’m the only one playing the game now.”
Mr Laidlaw said his father was a radio technician in Vietnam and his grandfather was an aircraft airframe fitter in the Royal Australian Air Force’s 1 squadron at Borneo.
While his great grandfather was an infantry soldier in France during World War One.
He said wearing his family’s medals made him “feel proud to be who I am and the family values that we have”.
“I think Australia would be a completely different place today if what happened all those years ago didn’t happen,” he said.
“It’s pretty hard to try and imagine what it could have been, but I think we should be pretty lucky with what we have now.”
Mr Laidlaw said while their time in the war was not “dinner table conversation”, it was discussed.
“Some of the funny stories and some of the sad ones as well,” he said.
Mr Laidlaw honoured his father, grandfather and great grandfather by attending the Jubilee Park Dawn Service before firing up a “gunfire breakfast”.
He said he believed the value of Anzac Day had increased over the years.
“You’ve just got to look around and see how many people are here now,” Mr Laidlaw said.
Mackay’s Malcolm Bridge has served his country in three wars with the Royal Australian Navy.
“I went to Vietnam, Borneo and I also went to the Cold War in the United Kingdom,” he said.
He joined the navy in 1962.
“It was either join the military or go to jail,” the 78 year old laughed.
“I had a good time … went to different places.
“(It was) a lot of hard work, long hours.”
The former navyman also spoke about the mateship and importance of Anzac Day.
“There’s a lot of camaraderie with people that you only see once … or twice a year,” he said.
Courage, integrity and mateship – these are among the values Mark Preston’s time in the Australian Defence Force instilled in him during his service.
He joined the ADF straight out of high school in 2001.
“I was a young man, the same age as those young Anzacs,” the Afghanistan vet said as guest speaker at the Jubilee Park Dawn Service.
“I, like many others that day, stepped onto the bus not knowing what lay ahead.”
He headed to Kapooka – “the home of the soldier” where he spent 45 days learning how to be a soldier.
“This included how to make a bed, iron and shave correctly,” he said.
“These sound like small tasks but it’s the attention to detail they were trying to instil in us”.
Mr Preston learned how to navigate the bush, carry out first aid and handle weapons.
“Most importantly we learnt the army’s core values of service, courage, respect, integrity and excellence,” he said.
In his 11 years of service – first in the aviation corps as an admission support command post operations before completing a trade transfer to the Royal Australian Electrical Mechanical Engineers in aviation maintenance – he has been deployed four times, once to East Timor in 2003 and three times to Afghanistan in 2006, 2008 and 2011.
Twice while deployed he took part in an Anzac Day service.
“I was and felt very privileged to be part of an Anzac Day service in the early hours of the morning the whole squadron detachment drove to a nearby hilltop to conduct a service,” he said.
During his service, Preston moved into his “dream posting” – working on the Australian Army’s largest and most versatile helicopter, the Chinook CH47.
The lowest point in his military career came on May 30, 2011 when, during a mission, one of the Chinooks crashed and claimed the life of Lieutenant Marcus Case.
The father of three left the ADF in 2012 and began an apprenticeship in the mining industry.
“That mateship that you get definitely lasts forever,” he said
“In 2021 the longest conflict the Australian Defence Force has been involved in came to a dramatic conclusion with the Taliban gaining control of the entire country of Afghanistan.
“All the progress made to improve the lives of all Afghans was lost.
“Women and children have lost all their rights that we’d fought so hard for.”
Mr Preston said some of the junior soldiers today had not yet started school when the first troops deployed in 2001 for the 20-year conflict in Afghanistan.
Now, he is heavily involved with the Mackay RSL sub-branch and has taken on the role of vice president.
He said the sub-branch “welcomed me in like a brother”.
“The same way the first veterans were welcomed in by those first members,” he said.
“To all veterans what you did while you served, matters and most importantly you matter now.”
Cadet under officer Stuart Reeves is a member of Mackay’s cadets alongside his brother Luke. He said the day was one he looked forward to every year.
“I personally feel honoured to participate in Anzac Day. As a cadet and getting to don the uniform of a soldier, you feel a connection with those Anzac soldiers, who often were the same age as many of us,” Mr Reeves said.
“Marching today, you realise just how much honour and respect there is for the Anzacs.”
“A time worthy of pause” were the words of Parade Commander Major ACC John Zimmerman OAM, who lead this the Anzac Day Dawn Service at Jubilee Park.
About 6000 people gathered, standing side-by-side with war heroes, before sunrise for a solemn but deeply moving ceremony at the city centre cenotaph which began at 5am.
“If I was to ask veterans gathered here this morning, ‘how old were you when you joined up?’ I can be reasonably confident that many would say 18, 19, 15, 16. All veterans before their 21st birthday,” he said.
Mr Zimmerman said the day was about remembering and paying tribute to people and not events, and a time to consider the immense impact service has on others.
Mackay RSL senior vice president Colin Benson, who has been a part of the Anzac Day committee for 35 years following 20 years in the air force, described the day as a duty to honour those who had their lives altered by war.
“I started school in 1952 with my longest friend in the world and his brother was killed in 1969. I’ve seen the direct impact on his family,” Mr Benson said.
“We lost a pilot two months after I returned from Vietnam, and when we unveiled the Vietnam Memorial in 1992, I met his sister and brother and his sister said, ‘we can go to Anzac Day and Remembrance Day, but we have no grave to grieve’.
“Once you know these stories and the impact they’ve had, you feel called to do your bit.”
Mr Benson said that the Mackay community bearing the rain and showing up in droves was a testament to their respect for servicemen and women.
Northern Beaches
Though the spectacle of war can seem a world away, it is very often close to home.
Of the thousands of Australian soldiers who perished in the Gallipoli campaign, 19 were drawn from the Mackay region, something Councillor Laurence Bonaventura emphasised in his speech at the Northern Beaches Anzac Day service in Seaview Park.
“They left home to protect their loved ones, protect their families and to protect their country,” he said.
Mackay’s spirit of service continues.
Corporal Kevin Stevenson trained as a medical technician in the Medical Corps and was deployed to Afghanistan to train up Afghan soldiers in how to manage traumatic injuries.
“I was training them in how to actually look after themselves after they’ve been shot or helping each other after bomb blasts,” he said.
He also treated regular Afghans.
Corporal Stevenson said though the customs of Afghans were radically different, he still felt a deep bond with the people.
“Very similar in the way we actually communicate with each other,” he said.
“Mateship and also a camaraderie.”
He said the camaraderie he enjoyed with his fellow Diggers and the Afghans was the most memorable aspect of his service.
The effects of war are with him still, he said.
“While I was doing the actual treating, everything was good,” Corporal Stevenson said.
“Afterwards it sort of sets in and you think about that memory and you dwell on it a bit and you have to sort of surpass that.
“Days like today sort of bring them up and also friends I’ve lost overseas.”
Bucasia local Alex Dean led the march with his bagpipes which he has played for 13 years.
“It started off as a father-son activity,” he said.
He said he was usually too busy to play at events, but Anzac Day was different.
“It’s obviously a big deal,” he said.
“Anzac Day is always a priority to make sure we come out and give these people the sound of the pipes.”
The crowd gathered at the Bucasia Cenotaph for the wreath-laying, national anthem, prayers, speeches and the Last Post.
Bucasia’s April Puddicombe played the solemn notes as a sudden shower of rain hit the gathering.
After the service, veterans and members of the crowd congratulated her for her rendition of the famous piece.
“It’s very nerve-racking because it is such a respectful thing and my grandfather was in Vietnam,” she said.
“I play music really emotionally.
“I’m not so good at technique but I just love putting emotion into it.
“This is one of those pieces where emotion is the big thing.”
Ms Puddicombe replicated the bugle with her trumpet.
“When I play it on the trumpet I don’t play notes either,” she said.
“I don’t change the fingers.
“So it’s a lot of breath control because you have to change it all with your breath.
“You can’t change it with the notes.
“So that’s the hard part.”
Walkerston
Glen Greaves stood with his son and granddaughter on Creek St in Walkerston just before the Anzac Day parade began to move.
Mr Greaves served in Vietnam from 1971-1973 and the 2022 Walkerston service was the first time he had marched with his family.
“Absolutely brilliant,” he said when asked how it felt to have his family by his side.
His granddaughter Sophie said it was a special moment for her.
“It’s very special,” she said.
“He served and so it’s special to walk with him and be with him.”
The cold and rainy morning did not stop the town from honouring the country’s servicemen and women.
A crowd of people, some with umbrellas, lined Creek St and clapped as veterans and Walkerston’s schoolchildren marched to Anzac Memorial Park.
Walkerston State School captain Logan Cunningham was at the front of the parade and said the day offered him a chance to remember.
“I feel like I’m able to remember the people who died for our country giving us the freedoms of the present and I feel like that’s special,” he said.
Veterans Lisa Wynen and Ben Voyer live in Andergrove but travelled to Walkerston for the service.
“For me, Anzac Day is a reflection of past generations,” Ms Wynen said.
“They did it a lot harder than what we did.”
Mr Voyer served in the Armoured Corps in East Timor and Iraq and said service abroad was “intense.”
“There’s no break,” he said.
“You’re living on a knife’s edge the whole time.”
In his deployments, he witnessed some terrible things, including massive devastation in East Timor.
“We were there in September 1999 when it all really went south, there was absolute devastation,” he said.
“There was no-one, it was like a ghost town, someone had just gone through and essentially cleared out a whole country of people.
“People, belongings, you name it, absolutely everything.”
Michael Wallace, a friend of the Greaves family, served in Iraq and Afghanistan as a mechanic.
He said Anzac Day was a day to remember those who didn’t come back, and also those who did.
“Wars take tolls on people in different ways,” he said.
Hay Point
The wind whipped at those gathered for the Half Tide Dawn Service, but the crowd held reverently paying respect to those who had served this country.
Diggers marched to the centre of the crowd, holding their place looking across the cenotaph and to the stormy dark ocean beyond.
Guest speaker Dr Kerry Summerscales regaled the crowd with her own stories of her time in the Solomons Islands and Bougainville Islands in Papua New Guinea.
“I know we saved lives there, and we certainly did things outside the square,” the former medic said.
“I saw diseases I had barely heard of and could barely pronounce.
“I was often outside my comfort zone.
“But those people needed us. Our soldiers needed us.
“And someone needed to speak for the Bougainvilleans who had lost their voice.
“Their voices are still with me, and like many veterans I hear their voices in my dreams.
“We never really leave.”
Dr Summerscales has gone from private medic to lieutenant scientific officer to major doctor and is now working as a GP in Sarina specialising in veterans health.
Dr Summerscales’ concerns for veterans health was echoed among other Diggers at the Half Tide Dawn Service.
Jackson Lewis, who served in the third battalion in Afghanistan in 2018, said he was marching for those who had passed and for those who had struggled since returning.
“I have ancestors who have served overseas, and being overseas myself, I
have some members that have returned, but there are other situations around that as well,
“It’s to remember as well the guys who are still in there and those who have left the army.”
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