Our Fallen
Sergeant Brett Till
Killed in Action, Afghanistan 19 March 2009.
Sergeant Brett Till was born in Campsie New South Wales, in September 1977.
In 2001, Brett enlisted in the Australian Army and was allocated to the Corps of Royal Australian Engineers following recruit training.
Brett was posted to the 1st Combat Engineer Regiment in 2002 where he fulfilled a number of sapper roles and qualified in a range of mechanised combat engineering tasks such as crewman driver, bridging and destruction of malfunction explosive ordnance. That same year, Brett was deployed on Operation Relex II which focused on border protection to the north of Australia.
Brett was promoted to LCPL in 2004 and in January 2005 he was posted to the Incident Response Regiment as a combat engineer within the Chemical, Biological and Radiological Response Squadron. Later that year he was promoted to Corporal and completed the Explosive Ordnance Reconnaissance Course.
In 2007 Brett was posted to the School of Military Engineering as an Instructor and in 2008 was given the opportunity to complete the Explosive Ordnance Disposal Course, which was one of the highlights of his military career.
In late 2008, Brett was temporarily promoted to SGT and was posted back to the Incident Response Regiment as an Explosive Ordnance Disposal Technician. He deployed to Afghanistan with the Special Operations Task Group in 2009.
On Thursday, 19 March 2009, Brett was serving with the Special Operations Task Group in southern Afghanistan when he was tragically killed while disarming a Taliban Improvised Explosive Device (IED).
Brett’s colleagues described him as a man who would put himself directly between dangerous and unstable high explosive devices and the soldiers of Special Operations Task Group on a daily basis.
During Brett’s service he was awarded the following honours, awards and medals:
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Australian Active Service Medal with ICAT clasp
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Afghanistan Campaign Medal
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Australian Defence Medal
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NATO ISAF Medal
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Army Combat Badge