VC recipient offers helping hand

Ben Roberts-Smith at the Police HQ with Explosive Entry. Source: The Courier-Mail

CORPORAL Ben Roberts-Smith knows better than most how fragile life is.

The Victoria Cross recipient was in Brisbane recently to help launch a charity auction of a unique print by artist Stuart Brown.

Depicting members of the British Special Air Service storming the Iranian Embassy in London to end the deadly 1980 siege, Explosive Entry is signed by current and former members of the SAS and Australian Army, as well as all four of Australia's living Victoria Cross recipients.

The auction was organised to support the family of Leonila Garcia, a police employee who suffered a life-threatening brain haemorrhage last July.

Though surgery saved her life, she remains paralysed and mounting medical bills have left her family in a precarious financial situation.

"There was an Australian who was hurting and needed help," Cpl Roberts-Smith said.

"It's something we (Victoria Cross recipients) could do and obviously wanted to do."

The auction closes on Monday, March 25. To make a bid at the charity auction, click here

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