Passing on military traditions
TODD Eastwood said goodbye to his military career to spend time with his three children.
Now, the Coomera Waters veteran is preparing himself to wave them off to military careers of their own.
The 47-year-old, fourthgeneration army veteran served for 12 years in a career that took him from East Timor to the Solomon Islands and back home again.
“I have three kids and I decided I’d done my time and wanted to take a step back and spend time with them,” he said.
My oldest boy is now 17 years old and wants to join up and work in explosive ordinance detection next year, while my younger boy is 14 and is joining up to the air force cadets.
“This Anzac Day, I’ll be thinking of my boys. My wife Kate wonders how dangerous it will be for them, but it’s in the blood and I won’t hold them back.”
Mr Eastwood grew up in a family with military ties stretching back to the landings at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915, when his great-grandfather Richard Eastwood landed with the first Australian Expeditionary Force.
His grandfather Headley Eastwood served in the Korean War in the early-1950s, while his father Robert served in Vietnam.
In September 2000, at age 24, Mr Eastwood followed in their footsteps by joining the army, after initially signing up for the navy.
“I went to enlist and joined the navy, but I came home and told my father and he said to me, ‘no you better march back down and go into the army’, so that’s what I did,” he said.
During his time in the army, Mr Eastwood served as a combat engineer.
He will mark Anzac Day with his family at Oxenford’s Dawn Service.
“During the Ode, I always feel like I’ve just been given a shot of morphine, it’s warm and unusual, but I also feel a bit scared,” he said.
“When you’ve been shot at yourself, you have this sense that you have to live life to the fullest and take every day how you can.
“For me, growing up in a military family, Anzac Day always was a time of reflection for me – I love to get to know the other veterans and listen to their stories and as an adult I gained a greater understanding of what they went through.
“Anzac Day and the military is about family and even when you do leave, you don’t lose that brotherhood.”