WITH its ranks thinned to just 18 members and a 91-year-old president succumbing to dementia and a stroke, Fremantle’s RSL club is facing its last stand.

The club once boasted more than 600 members, but current secretary-cum-everything Les Butt concedes age has wearied them. Most WWII veterans are hitting their 90s and even his comrades from Vietnam are getting long in the tooth.

He says things had been looking very grim for the club with only himself doing the paperwork and organising commemorative events, but the cavalry recently arrived in the form of retired lance corporal Rob Cashman. The pair is now on a rescue mission.

Mr Cashman, who really was in the cavalry before joining the elite SAS and being posted to the Middle-East and Afghanistan, had asked to march in last year’s ANZAC Day parade in Fremantle.

“I saw Les doing all of this and he needed help, and I believe that if we stand by and do nothing, nothing is ever achieved,” he says.

“There were a lot of people in the crowd on the day who were vets who looked like they wanted to be engaged.”

Mr Cashman says the pair wants a “grass roots” club with more transparent meetings and a greater focus on interacting with the community. That reflects the approach being taken by the state RSL under the leadership of former Labor MP Graham Edwards.

He says this will help overcome the stereotype of RSLs being full of crusty old blokes in telling war stories, and may encourage younger veterans from Afghanistan, East Timor or Iraq to join.

Mr Cashman says he’d struggled after getting back into his civvies in 2003, and he’s seen many colleagues return, suffering post-traumatic stress disorder and other problems.

He says the RSL is well placed to put them in contact with agencies or help negotiate the labyrinthine department of veterans affairs.

Their first priority is a meeting of members on Saturday March 7 at their HQ in the Wyola Club on High Street.

Mr Cashman says he’s been drumming up support the old-fashioned way—armed with little more than a list of addresses, he’s been marching Freo’s streets knocking on old members’ doors to encourage them to saddle up again.

After that they’ll focus on getting veterans marching in the ANZAC Day parade and hope that’ll bring in new numbers so a huge effort can go into this year’s Remembrance Day celebrations in November.

For more contact rslfremantle@hotmail.com or call 0466 650 312.

by STEVE GRANT