The Modern-Day Anzacs

IT WAS one of those beautiful autumn days that Brisbane seems to abound in. Temperature in the mid-twenties; the sky a brilliant shade of blue with the very occasional patch of cloud to break it up; birds squawking at each other as they flew from eucalyptus to eucalyptus.

Yet for all the beauty of the natural surrounds and the clearness of the day, the air was so thick with tension you could have carved it up and served it as mains had we been there for a barbecue. This was understandable: the setting was Brisbane's Enoggera Barracks, and we were farewelling loved ones as they went to war.

Nervous conversation thinned out as the time came for the soldiers to jump on-board the bus taking them to the airport. Rank-by-rank the names were called, final farewells made and bodies disappearing up the stairs and behind tinted windows. We all strained to get that last look through the windows as the bus drove off, hoping that this wouldn't be the final farewell.

A few days later we did it all again, although this time not at barracks as a second family member flew out. This would be his second time to Afghanistan, the second time he'd be up against the fanaticism of the Taliban and their fighters. A few beers the night before, a firm handshake that morning and he was gone too.


LIFE went on. Anzac Day took on added significance that year with the two of them overseas. Soon after I flew out to Europe on the last of my annual trips there to defer re-entering the real world. While there I caught up with both family members: the first in Amsterdam before heading to Berlin, Copenhagen, Stockholm, Oslo and Hamburg; the second for a night in Rome about a few weeks later. At this point everything had gone relatively well, with no casualties or major fire-fights to report.

Fast-forward a few more weeks and I've been back home for a couple of days. Word had got through that an Australian soldier had been killed by an improvised explosive device (IED), but it's not until I log onto Facebook very late one night that I realised that Private Nathan Bewes was one of those we farewelled on that beautiful autumn afternoon. Two days later I get a tearful phone call from Mum as one of the family members leads the tributes at the ramp ceremony. She hadn't known either.

The reality of war hits for those of us still in Australia. Soon afterwards another two soldiers from their unit are killed in another IED explosion. Private Dale Kirby and Tomas Dale die after standing outside their Bushmaster while stopped in the Baluchi Valley. By now we're getting some idea of what it must have been like for families during other major conflicts in Australian history. A swirl of emotions hits every time news of another casualty comes through: please don't let it be them; we haven't heard therefore it isn't them; finally sadness for the families who have lost a loved one. This is just for a fixed deployment of less than a year - you can't imagine how families of those who went off early in World War I and World War II would have felt as the days turned into weeks which turned into months which turned into years.

Eventually October comes and we - like hundreds of other families around the country - are counting down the days. The planes taking them home are delayed by a day, adding to the torment. But finally the plane touches down and one-by-one the first group of soldiers make their way out of customs and quarantine into the arms of friends and family. I go for the handshake; another one of us is so caught up in the emotion he even gives a hug - the first one we've seen him do in many a year!

The other soldiers - including our second serving family member - arrive a couple of days later. They've changed. You can't watch your mates die in front of you and not come back a different person. Tales of courage and heroism slowly emerge, none more so than when Corporal Daniel Keighran is awarded the Victoria Cross for his actions and valour in the Battle of Derapet. Four other soldiers won medals for their actions that day; the unit itself received a Meritorious Unit Citation in the 2011 Queen's Birthday Honours.


FAST-FORWARD again to April 25, 2012. It's pre-dawn, with a hint of winter in the air. We're there for the unit's dawn service, a tradition that rose out of the pre-dawn attack by the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps on the Gallipoli Peninsula on this day in 1915. What began as a way of remembering those who hadn't made it has retained something of its original meaning: just about everyone at the service knew someone recently killed in Afghanistan. As the bugler plays The Last Post the air is thick not with tension, but with sadness as everyone remembers those men who took their last steps on Australian soil here.

Lest We Forget.

This time...

... 30 years ago, I was living in my first house, was recovering after plastic surgery on my right hand and left foot, and still had two months before I stopped being an only child.

... 25 years ago I was in my fourth house, second year of school and was the oldest of three boys.

... 20 years ago was house nine, my final year of primary school - and the last time I was at the same school at the same time as any of my three brothers.

... 15 years ago unlucky house number 13 was balanced out by the fact I'd travelled overseas for the first time, finished high school and had the last of my seven operations earlier that year.

... 10 years ago I'd reached 20 houses, was one year off finally completing a university degree and had been living in a different city to my family for nearly two years, including when I'd gained a sister after four consecutive brothers.

.. 5 years ago I'd lost track of how many places I'd lived, was living and working in London, had visited 19 different countries and would soon after go to a Crowded House concert with a good friend who stopped talking to me six months later.

... today I've been in the same house for 27 months, have visited 40 countries on five continents, travelled hundreds of thousands of kilometres both in the air and on the ground, gained a sister-in-law and nephew, become a godfather, run a backpackers hostel and now wear a suit to work.

In the words of F. Bueller:

"Life moves pretty fast. If you don't stop and look around once in a while, you could miss it."