We Are All Anzacs

Growing up in sydney in the 1970s and 1980s, i saw Anzac Day simply as the day when the shops weren't open and we'd turn on the TV and watch the parade. It was about seeing a lot of old men on television and feeling sad for them. But although we learned about the history of the day from our teachers, I never really felt any affiliation with it. It was just a day off school. I joined the army in 1985, thinking I would do the normal three-year contract as a way of putting myself through university. No one in my family had ever been in the Defence Force, and I have to admit that in my first couple of years there I still didn't feel much emotional connection to Anzac Day. It was a day of getting up at 4.30 a.m., making sure my uniform was ironed properly and getting to the service on time. That changed one year when I was in New Zealand for officer training, and our warrant officer told us to meet half an hour earlier on Anzac Day for our own service. There were just six of us Australians, all about 19 or 20 years old, and we had some rum in our coffee. I remember it was very bitter, and our warrant officer, who had served in Vietnam, talked to us about what Anzac Day meant to him. I realized then that it was more than just about old men whom I would never meet, and we all went to the main service with the Kiwis after that thinking how great it was to be Australian. That day was the first time I'd felt Anzac Day in my heart.

Over the years since then I've learned a lot more about our military's achievements. I gave a talk to some bright young women at Sydney Girls High School earlier this month about Anzac Day. I told them it's a day of celebration, and whether you are in the military or not, it's about how you contribute to our country and its future. And I think Australians see that. I took two of my children to the service in Martin Place in Sydney last year and we couldn't get near the Cenotaph - there were so many people of all ages and ethnic backgrounds, a real cross-section of the community. I think Australians look around the world and see a lot of death and destruction, but when they look at the Defence Force's contribution it's seen as a very positive one. And that's not because the Army has good spin doctors, it's because it does good things. Like those nine young service men and women who died on Nias: it's not just about remembering that they died in a helicopter crash, but remembering what they were doing when they died - helping people and doing their job.

December 27, 2004, was my first official day as commanding officer of the First Health Support Battalion, one of Australia's two Army medical units. It was my birthday too, and our family had just moved into a new house, so I was unpacking and getting ready to have 30 people over for a birthday lunch. I had two chickens in the oven and was just about to pop some champagne when my mobile phone rang. When I hung up I said to my Mum, well, I'll see you sometime. I rang my husband, who's a fireman, at work and told him, and kissed my four children, who are aged 10, five, four and two, goodbye and got in the car. From that day until January 2, I was getting the unit ready. I got home for five hours to pack, and the next time I saw my family was on March 4.

There were 154 of us who went to Indonesia, and in the nine weeks we were there we treated 3,600 people and performed 292 major surgical procedures. I met my New Zealand counterpart on the phone, and 12 hours later her unit and mine were working together. There were so many people coming to us from everywhere. And you don't just look after the patients in those situations, you get to know their families too. You hear their stories, and you form a very close connection with them. And in Aceh, as in East Timor, there was overwhelming support for the Australians. We don't have any airs and graces, we just get in and do the job, and the Acehnese were so grateful. When we arrived, there was nothing there, and by the time we left there were functioning wards. There were tears when we left, too, but some Acehnese doctors and nurses are already planning to come to Australia for training. We'll have an enduring connection with those people.

When we came back from Indonesia I told my unit that this was another page in our history. Every year, particularly as Australia's commitment to the world grows, we are adding pages to our nation's history. Anzac Day is like that: it's not just about the First World War or Anzac Cove, it's about that being a defining moment in a history that we are adding to all the time. It's a day when we celebrate who we are and what we can be. To me, being an Anzac is not only about being in the military, it's about being Australian.