By Casey Neill
“The Queenslander saw and heard the loudest explosion he thinks he’s ever heard,” Jeff Casson told the Dandenong Anzac Day service.
“It shook the sweat from his brow, rattled his teeth and took the breath out of his chest.
“Amongst the blast was his brother, the young Victorian.”
The soldiers weren’t brothers by blood, but by mateship.
“The Queenslander instantly thought his young mate had been killed,” Jeff said.
“The Queenslander found his brother, slightly broken but seemingly alive.
“This happened to me on the 23rd of September in 2011.”
He was in Afghanistan with the 3/4 Cavalry Regiment.
He’d become mates – brothers – with Scott May and his brother Chris.
Scott had returned home. Chris was “engulfed by dust and fire” as a bomb blast tore apart his Bushmaster vehicle.
“I saw a 240 kilogram wheel station removed from the front of his vehicle and thrown down like toys by an angry child,” Jeff said.
“I saw and heard the bolts from the windscreen of his Bushmaster, which is approximately four inches thick, explode off.
“I could think nothing else but ‘how the f*** am I going to explain this to his mum and dad?’.”
The three ‘brothers’ eventually all came home. Chris and Scott are founding members of support group Young Veterans.
“We all left pieces of ourselves in those places, be that in the streets of Baghdad or the villages and rolling dunes of Iraq, to the winding deserts in Afghanistan,” Jeff said.
“We were soldiers. We were doing a soldier’s job.
“We had to look out for each other, because that’s what soldiers do, that’s what brothers do, and that’s what mates do, most of importantly of all.”
Anzac Day in Dandenong started with a soggy dawn service at the Pillars of Freedom on Clow Street.
A Vietnam Veterans service followed at the Dandenong RSL, then a march from the RSL to the pillars for another service.
Dandenong resident Helen Matthews marched to honour her dad, Martin Te Whango Matthews, who served with the 28th Maori Battalion in Greece.
Former Dandenong Inspector Neil Thomas marched carrying the police flag, and has been part of the Dandenong event for the past 36 years.
Muna Elamin from Dandenong North proudly carried her father’s British Army World War II service record as she marched alongside daughters Danya and Dena.
