When Somerset's Denis Eastley returned from Vietnam in 1967, he would hear loud noises and immediately drop to the ground to find cover.
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Like many young men sent into war zones, he was left with memories and trauma that haven't easily faded.
But it seems 62 years of drumming for the Burnie Highland Pipe Band provided just the kind of creative and social outlet Mr Eastley needed.
"I was near enough to 16 when I started, I was introduced to it by my cousin," the veteran said.
"I liked the atmosphere, the camaraderie. When I came back [from Vietnam], I rejoined almost straight away."
He said it had taken some time to adjust to normal life again after the intense environment, performing jungle searches for weapons, ducking for shelter from bombs.
"I was the sixth intake. 20-year-olds were rounded up and had to go into training ... about 1966," Mr Eastley said.
"It was strange, completely different to what you're used to.
"It's funny, you come home and - I suppose it's traumatic stress. If you heard a loud noise you panicked straight away and you hit the ground and see what it was afterwards. Because that's what you did over there [Vietnam].
"It took a while to get over that, but eventually you recover."
About 50 years later, Mr Eastley met 10-year-old Logan Breaden, a self-confessed history lover who preferred the company of older people and who wanted to learn the drums.
Mr Eastley began showing Logan some tricks of the trade, and the two built a steady friendship. Six years on, and Mr Eastley says the now 16-year-old Logan is teaching him a thing or two.
"It's a good social thing ... it's really good to come every Monday night and chat. I've always gotten on better with older people," Logan said.
"It's been really good because [Denis Eastley] is very knowledgeable. But it's getting to the point now where all the drumming is changing around Australia. We're sort of learning together now, we have a tutor that comes down from Launceston and tutors us both.
"Pipe band music is really just changing these days. It used to be a lot more straightforward."
The Burnie Highland Pipe Band last year celebrated its 80th anniversary, calling a few different buildings around Burnie home.
The current bandrooms sit right near the ocean near the University of Tasmania's new Cradle Coast Campus. Before the wooden boardwalk and fencing was installed, the little penguins used to nest under the bandrooms and sing along.
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