A VETERAN’S CAVING GRACE EEE

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 got a little TV set up and gaming console so the kids can come out and play games,” he said.

“There’s the gym area and the other side of it is a car workshop.”

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.

After his military discharge in 2014, Pronk had time on his hands.

“It was always intended to be, not a shrine, 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.”

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 fallen mates.

His dad’s ashes are another addition reminding him not to take loved ones for granted: “He was one of my best mates, then got lung cancer ... 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.”