GOOSEBERRY Hill resident and veteran Troy Simmonds was among the veteran family volunteers at an Anzac Day at Villers-Bretonneux, France – a first for him.

Mr Simmonds is a decorated combat veteran who lives in the wooded hills of Kalamunda with his family.

He was deployed on Operation Solace to Somalia in 1993, had multiple deployments to East Timor, Iraq and Afghanistan, and was a member of the SAS counter terrorism team supporting the 2000 Olympics in Sydney.

In 2008, Mr Simmonds was in Afghanistan during the Battle of Khaz Oruzgan surviving gunfire and a rocket propelled grenade landing beside him and launching shrapnel into his flesh.

Fast forward 17 years and Mr Simmonds now resides in the home in the forest, east of Perth, which he has called home for the past 10 years.

Mr Simmonds told Echo News the Anzac Day commemoration organised by the Department of Veterans’ Affairs in Villers-Bretonneux was an incredible experience.

“Very moving to be there where so many young Australians gave their life. 110 years ago, the DVA team were fantastic and made us very welcome,” he said.

“I was embedded in the ceremonial team, which actually put on the actual service.

“They do everything from all the seat allocation, all the VIPs, what order the VIPs are going to sit in, putting name tags on all the seats so when the VIPs turn up at 3am or 4am, we can get them in their correct seats.

“Organising the band and heaps of rehearsals and the federation guard, which are the military drill people that perform the actual service.

“There’s a lot of moving parts to bring off for an event like that, so I was with those people.”

Mr Simmonds said as a veteran, it really resonated with him and he had read a lot about World War I.

“Just to be in the place, it felt really special,” he said.

“It’s just a shame more Australians can’t get over there to see the actual memorial there because it’s so magnificent and it was so special to have so many Australians and French people come over particularly for that event.

“There were 11,000 Aussies killed in that sort of region and there was something like 46,000 Australians who were killed over the Western Front, so in the broader area in World War I – that’s staggering.

“I don’t think there was any area of our country that didn’t get touched by that loss and tremendous loss of that amount of people.

“And this came after Gallipoli, so a lot of the veterans of the guys that fought on the Western Front had survived Gallipoli.”

Mr Simmonds said on the side of the memorial was the Sir John Monash Centre which was an interactive audiovisual museum that took visitors back to the trenches.

“Experiencing that and then being at the moving dawn service is pretty incredible,” he said.

Mr Simmonds said his decision to serve came from a desire for adventure, which he thinks has been satisfied after his 22 years of service in infantry.

“I saw a lot of adventures during that period,” he said.

“That was the main reason and also I wanted to serve my country and do my bit.

“So probably not dissimilar to the motivations for some of the young diggers back then.

“But yeah, I love living up here and I’ve certainly got a lot of memories – you tend to remember the good things rather than the bad things.”

Mr Simmonds said veterans are everywhere and it was time to shift the perception that veterans are only those who took part in World War II or the Vietnam War.

“They can be veterans that are in their 20s and you could be standing behind a veteran in the queue at the supermarket to go to the checkout,” he said.

“They’ve got a whole heap of skills and they’re very highly trained and adaptable.

“They make a good impact on society with all the skills they’ve learnt and they’re quick to adapt to the way the civilian world uses those skills.”