Serving Afghanistan Diggers unite at Redcliffe on Anzac Day to grieve for mates lost in recent battles Sapper Jason Andrewartha, Sapper Tim Westera, Sapper Chris Parker-Benton and (front) Sapper Sean Mulqueen at the 2CER Memorial at the Enoggera Army Barracks. UNITED by love, pride and overwhelming grief, a group of mates who fought together in Afghanistan are making sure our fallen soldiers will never be forgotten. Members of Mentoring Task Force One, who served in Afghanistan in 2010, share a bond that will stay with them for a lifetime, but Anzac Day will be their chance to reunite - standing shoulder-to-shoulder as the Last Post sounds. A group of about 20 former and currently serving soldiers has chosen the dawn service at Redcliffe, north of Brisbane, to honour the six men and a dog from their unit who never came home. Sapper Sean Mulqueen said Anzac Day would always convey pride, but also a fair amount of pain for him and the other guys after their tour of Afghanistan. "My time there was full-on," he said. He makes no secret of the ongoing battle with post-traumatic stress disorder - there are mental and emotional wounds that will take a lot longer to heal than the physical ones. During his eight months in Afghanistan in 2010, his mates Sapper Jacob Moerland, Sapper Darren Smith and his explosive detection dog Herbie, Private Nathan Bewes, Private Tomas Dale, Private Grant Kirby and Lance-Corporal Jared MacKinney were killed. Sapper Jacob Moerland, one of two Australian soldiers serving with the 1st Mentoring Task Force in Afghanistan, who were killed in an explosion while on patrol in Taliban hotspot near their Mirabad Valley base in 2010. Picture: Defence "Anzac Day, I have always held in high regard because my grandpa was a Rat of Tobruk," Sapper Mulqueen said. Definitely now that I've done my tour over there and everything we went through and losing my close mates, it hurts a bit. That is why they need to be together. Just like they did in the field, they need the support of their mates when a lump forms in the throat as The Ode is recited. The majority of us are part of Mates4Mates. It's an initiative to help soldiers with their injuries whether physical or mental," he said. There was a few of us talking about what we wanted to do for Anzac Day and that we wanted to not be on a base, we just wanted to get away from it all. We worked together in Afghanistan and we want to be together on Anzac Day. Sapper Darren Smith sits with explosive detection dog Herbie at Multinational Base, Tarin Kowt. Joined by their families, they will be part of the Redcliffe Dawn Service which starts at 5.30am, and hope it will become a tradition for many years to come. Redcliffe RSL Sub-Branch president Neville Cullen, a Vietnam veteran, said he was honoured the soldiers had chosen Redcliffe as the place to come together on such a special day.