CLAPPER/LOADER (archive, 1988): Two byte in, sound roll 45, Four Corners, seven-nine-13-37. (Claps board for sync)

CLAPPER/LOADER (archive, 1988): Three-nine-four. (Claps board for sync)

CHRIS MASTERS, REPORTER: I count it as one of the great privileges of my time at Four Corners to have interviewed these men: a last roll-call of Gallipoli veterans.

British-born Tom Usher, who embarked from Brisbane as an 18-year-old, survived the landing.

TOM USHER (archive, 1988): I'll never forget one case: one bloke was asking me how could he could get down and get - he, he'd had his tongue blown off. He was asking me how... I couldn't understand him.

CHRIS MASTERS: Bill de Saxe, the son of a Moruya dentist, wounded at the landing, later rejoined a battlefield that had as much moved underground.

BILL DE SAXE (archive, 1988): You can imagine digging out a bloody dugout like it were a grave or something like that to, to, to, to get in, to lie down. You were under shell fire 24 hours a day.

CHRIS MASTERS: Lieutenant Basil Holmes was the son of Major-General William Holmes, the most senior Australian officer to be later killed on the western front.

BASIL HOLMES (archive, 1988): We didn't have a lot of self-inflicted wounds but they were, it did occur there, I know. Fellows... anything to get away from Gallipoli. Lot of them fell so... There were cases of that: fellows saying they wanted to get away, tried, do anything to get away.

CHRIS MASTERS: Trooper Lionel Simpson of the Eighth Light Horse would survive the infamous battle of the Nek.

LIONEL SIMPSON (archive, 1988): He just waved the rifle and he says, "Come on, boys! Come on, boys, for God's sake. Come on."

And that was the end of him. He was shot down dead.

CHRIS MASTERS: Frank Parker, a railway porter from Melbourne, was a member of the stricken 5th Battalion.

FRANK PARKER (archive, 1988): We lost 715 men. So you can understand the holocaust it was. Seven hundred and fifteen out of 1,000 men.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Brendan Nelson): What do you think about the value of those voices that are now lost?

BRENDAN NELSON, DIRECTOR, AUST. WAR MEMORIAL: The value that we place upon them can't be measured in any real sense. Ah, that's the last enduring, ah, oral link, at least, we have with these men - and women as nurses - who did so much for us in the First World War.

JAMES BROWN, US STUDIES CENTRE, UNI. OF SYDNEY: Those, um, survivors of Gallipoli really helped us to capture the diversity of views, ah, and, um, remind us of the richness of the story: that not every Gallipoli experience was what we would expect it to be now.

CHRIS MASTERS: Former Army Captain James Brown is the author of 'Anzac's Long Shadow'.

JAMES BROWN: I think it's hard-wired into most Australians that when we think about war, we think about boats turning up on a shore. Ah, we think about soldiers alighting and we think about charging up a hill to kill an enemy.

If you were to put the Afghan battlefield and the Anzac battlefield side by side, you couldn't really get two more different situations.

CHRIS MASTERS: Our contemporary cast is drawn from the broad spectrum of peacekeeping operations which have dominated the last half-century.

David McCammon earned a Distinguished Service Medal, having served two-and-a-half years in Afghanistan.

DAVID MCCAMMON: Every war people go into with this very clear belief that there's right and wrong. Even, even when we look at Afghanistan, there was a perception of right and wrong. Um, and, and looking back at previous wars it's exactly the same. Um, you very quickly realise that everything is grey.

CHRIS MASTERS: Nick Perriman commanded the combat outpost to experience Australia's first green-on-blue attack - with an Australian soldier killed by an Afghan ally.

NICK PERRIMAN, CAPT., DSM, 5TH BATTALION RAR: I'm really proud of the way the guys handled that situation at the time 'cause they were all distraught and they fought really hard to save his life. Yeah, it was... it was one of those things that it's going to live with me forever, but...

CHRIS MASTERS: Scott Tampalini, a four-times Afghanistan veteran awarded a Commendation for Gallantry, was wounded in action.

SCOTT TAMPALINI, CAPT., 7TH BATTALION RAR: I had a mate's bag in front of me. So the bullet's passed through the bag, through an ammunition tin, just clipped my arm. But bits of the tin had gone through my shoulder and nicked my artery and a bunch of pieces across my chest.

CHRIS MASTERS: Canadian-born Navy surgeon Ian Young, like many personnel from the other services, was on the ground in Afghanistan.

IAN YOUNG, CMDR., SURGEON, RAN: For me, the, the front line was really our trauma base. It was quite amazing to me to be in the middle of a war zone and be able to get extremely injured casualties to us within an hour.

CHRIS MASTERS: Army engineer Briana Sterling is a further example of the diversity of modern taskforces. Deployed to both the Southern Sudan and Afghanistan, she accepted risk in conflict zones with no definable front line.

BRIANA STERLING: I think... that's what we're trained to do. That's what we want to do. So, you know, to not consider going or considering the risks is- doesn't necessarily weigh into the equation for me.

CHRIS MASTERS: Pete Rudland fought with Australian Special Forces. Tasked to undertake Gallipoli-like offensive operations, Afghanistan almost cost him his life.

PETE RUDLAND: I remember about a millisecond before we crashed, um, I remember pivoting around to my right, looking at the ground and going, "Oh, this is not going to end well." And they weren't the words that I used.

CHRIS MASTERS: At Gallipoli in 1915 Australians were, as in Afghanistan, part of a much larger multinational battle group. They opposed an enemy in different uniforms, dug in across a tiny strip of no man's land for eight brutal months.

The story, though 100 years old, is far more familiar than the story of what Australian soldiers confront in the here and now.

JAMES BROWN: If you take all the elements of a good story, they are there in that landing at Anzac Cove. It's the site of ancient battles, um, in the Mediterranean. It's, ah, a visually evocative place with those cliffs that you can see on the water. It was the first time that Australians really fought together in an organised way. And it's such a tragic thing. Um, the fact that we pulled out with very little to show for it: I think that tragedy makes it a much more compelling story.

CHRIS MASTERS: Around one in five was born in the old country. This was an era when loyalty to Australia was matched by a patriotism for Britain and empire.

BASIL HOLMES (archive): I was keen: 100 per cent keen - like every- like we all were in those days. There was more patriotism about us in 1915 than there is now, I think.

TOM USHER (archive): Oh Christ, it was disorder and all... They were all mixed up with the 9th battalion that would be with our mobs, they were... all over the shop.

BILL DE SAXE (archive): The place was a, a cauldron of bursting shells, you know. When you heard the blast of a shell, there's no need ducking away then because, I mean... It happens to you before that burst, you see.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Basil Holmes, archive, 1988): What was your attitude to that as an officer: the idea of throwing your men against well-entrenched positions?

BASIL HOLMES: Well, I don't know. Your, your sort of... attitude was: it was, you were told to do it and it had to be done.

CHRIS MASTERS: Eager, reckless, the Australians would not reach further than they did on that first day.

This was a battlefield where old-style courage could matter as much as new-fashioned firepower. But soon the classic western front stalemate overwhelmed.

TOM USHER: Oh, lousy. All this body lice, you know. And it was terrible and the flies were filthy. You'd open a tin of jam: millions of them would fly out.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Basil Holmes): Do you still recall the smell of that battlefield?

FRANK PARKER: Oh, you, you, you never knew... you can... don't think anybody can ever get it out of your system. That was shocking. You wonder where the damn flies come from. There were millions!

CHRIS MASTERS: The confinement of trench life bred a common self-reliance and trust of each other. Accentuated perhaps by the extent of remoteness from home, mateship became a central element of survival.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Tom Usher): So, Tom, what do you think was special about Australians, the Australian soldiers?

TOM USHER: Comradeship. They'd stick to you.

LIONEL SIMPSON: I put it this way: I never remember a soldier, ah, refusing to go to his death on the field.

(Excerpt from the film 'Gallipoli, Associated R&R Films)

OFFICER ('Gallipoli'): Steady, lads. Wait for it.

(Officer blows whistle. Soldiers begin yelling and climbing out of trench to attack enemy trench. Most are shot)

CHRIS MASTERS: Ultimately, the blind sacrifices exhibited here and on the western front could be put down as much to the soldier's love for one another than obedience to higher command.

In August 1915 the allies attempted a coordinated breakthrough, part of which involved an impossible attack at a narrow ridge known as the Nek, familiar to a new generation of Australians through its depiction in the 1981 movie 'Gallipoli'.

OFFICER ('Gallipoli'): Third wave: take up your positions. Come on, boys.

(Excerpt ends)

CHRIS MASTERS (to Lionel Simpson): Before you jumped out at the Nek, there, there were a lot of men in the trench beside you. Were many of them nervous? How would you describe them? Were they nervous or were they keen?

LIONEL SIMPSON: No, they all seemed to be keen enough. They never showed any nervousness at all.

(excerpt from the film 'Gallipoli, Associated R&R Films)

(Officer blows whistle. Soldiers again begin yelling and climbing out of trench to attack.)

CHRIS MASTERS: The fate of the Gallipoli campaign was sealed on this day. There was slaughter up and down the line.

(Excerpt ends)

Remarkably, Lionel Simpson was able to tell his story having survived the massacre, the western front and the next 70 years.

(to Lionel Simpson) Lionel, after you got knocked yourself and you, you just got up and walked back to the trenches, did you?

LIONEL SIMPSON: Yes, I-I... yes. Oh, I might have ambled a little bit faster: just, just a slight amble. And...

CHRIS MASTERS: Why didn't they shoot you?

LIONEL SIMPSON: Oh, well, I-I suppose there might have been, well, a bit of a lull, you see, with the... That, ah... And that was all I know, I didn't even remember seeing any more come at my back.

CHRIS MASTERS: Skill and planning, so absent at the beginning, was at last found. The December evacuation was achieved with negligible casualties.

BASIL HOLMES: We thought we'd be very lucky if we got away.

FRANK PARKER: There was 8,700 left behind. Eight thousand, seven hundred graves we left behind on Gallipoli. That's a lot of people.

TOM USHER: It was a sad affair, the whole, the whole Anzac business.

CHRIS MASTERS: One hundred years separates the first war and the longest war. While the Afghanistan story shares the stark landscape, dramatic contrasts and less-than-triumphant outcome, the new story of war has yet to capture public engagement.

JAMES BROWN: I think there's a few reasons why Australians have found it harder to engage with today's wars rather than the wars of 100 years ago.

Partly it's that these wars are happening a long way away. Ah, they, they happen over the space of decades. The Afghanistan conflict for Australia has been going on for 14 years, ah, so it is hard to keep them at the front of your mind every day.

But there is no shortage of movies, TV series, books, um, and- and memorabilia about 1915. So part of it is just, ah, getting to grips with it, ah, and what you can access. Um, but the second part is, ah, that the Government, ah, has not been very good at talking to Australians about what its soldiers have been doing in the last 10 years.

CHRIS MASTERS: If you talk to the Gallipoli veterans: ah, you know, they had a real sense of fighting for the flag. Was it any- in any way like that for you?

PETE RUDLAND: No, not at all. N-not... To start with: like, love the country, would do anything for the country, I mean, bled for the country. To be honest, I just wanted to get out of Perth. (Laughs)

BRIANA STERLING: I remember being nine and seeing a ready reserve ad, ah, and thinking at that time: "Wow. That's, that's really cool. What is that?"

SCOTT TAMPALINI: I think I was 19 when I first went to Afghanistan. That was, um, that was my first trip overseas, too, ever. So it was, it was an eye-opener, um, and it was, you know, a bit of a thrill.

NICK PERRIMAN: Everyone that I served with was very proud to, to wear the, the Australian flag on their uniform and was very proud to be serving the nation in that, in that way. Um, I, I find it hard to put in words the, the difference that it would, would be. Certainly, you know, everyone that I served with didn't join for king and country.

(Chris Masters and Brendan Nelson walk through the Australian War Memorial)

CHRIS MASTERS: So, you've done an extensive renovation here, have you?

BRENDAN NELSON: Well, Chris, this is a $32 million redevelopment. It is the most significant change we've had to telling the First World War story in over 40 years.

CHRIS MASTERS: At Australia's War Memorial a short walk separates the new First War and Afghanistan galleries. The walk across 100 years reveals that, while notions of patriotism have changed, the motivation for adventure remains, as does a sense of duty and service.

BRENDAN NELSON: Our young soldiers today - young 20-year-olds, 21-year-olds - they see themselves not just as soldiers, ah, proudly wearing our uniform, the slouch hat, carrying a legacy borne of this nation's involvement of the First World War 100 years ago, but they see themselves also as aid workers, diplomats, teachers and they know they carry a certain burden of responsibility in wearing our uniform to carry the, the, the good reputation of our nation.

(footage of Australian soldiers in Afghanistan preparing for a mission, putting on combat gear and equipment)

CHRIS MASTERS: A century on, we see massive changes in awareness of global events and the burden of individual responsibility. You can in a sense see the new load they carry there on their backs.

NICK PERRIMAN: So even a private soldier, in his own area of responsibility of providing the machine gun support to his four-man brick, was also not only doing that responsibility that he normally would; he'd also be potentially the combat first aider for that small four-man element. He is also going to be responsible for individually mentoring an Afghan soldier at the same time. Ah, he's also responsible for potentially providing, ah, electronic countermeasure capacity for his four-man team.

PETE RUDLAND: There is no simplicity in war. There's a lot involved in it and that's why within- well, Special Operations, you know, we pick intelligent soldiers.

CHRIS MASTERS: At Gallipoli the Anzacs knew their enemy. Basil Holmes fought at Quinn's Post, just metres from the Turks.

BASIL HOLMES: You could hear the- a rifle being reloaded, bolt being opened and closed.

BILL DE SAXE: They were only 20 or 30, 40 yards away and then they could sling bombs all bloody day at one another, you know.

CHRIS MASTERS: The modern mission to keep peace, the wilds of Afghanistan, the uncertain objective, the absence of a front line and enemy in a different uniform seems to call at times for an army of anthropologists.

DAVID MCCAMMON: I do remember having an instant where a, um, a-a man was on a motorcycle with his wife and, um, he, um, crashed his motorcycle near a patrol. And he was injured but his wife was a little more seriously injured.

CHRIS MASTERS: Every day the soldiers navigate a cultural chasm.

DAVID MCCAMMON: They really couldn't understand why we were concerned for her, yet we wouldn't treat him. Um, and I remember we got back from patrol and i-it was raised to me by the commanding officer: "This is not how w- we work." And I said, you know, "Well, we respect your culture. You need to respect ours."

CHRIS MASTERS: It took particular bravery to go out day by day to protect a population harbouring an enemy intent on blowing you to bits.

The requirement for constraint calls on a fund of moral as well as physical courage.

SCOTT TAMPALINI: We could walk past them day to day and, ah, one day they're saying, "G'day" to you. The next day they're trying to blow you up, potentially. So...

PETE RUDLAND: You know, there will be somebody on a hill reporting information on you. You look through your optics: you can see the dude. You know, he's standing there holding a radio up at- you know, and he's a threat. Um, so he, he is enemy.

(footage of Australian solders on patrol)

SOLDIER: We've got one pinned in this f***in' room! Go in the side!

(shots are fired)

Some get here! I'm gonna run out of ammo!

CHRIS MASTERS: Special Forces soldiers, tasked with taking the fight to the enemy, often saw not only the farmer with a rifle but also a coordinated and determined opponent.

PETE RUDLAND: I was in an elevated position, looking down on the green belt, um, and looking down with the optics. The- they were actually very organised, you know. You had, um, enemy who were on the extreme flanks with flags, you know, indicating that to the other soldiers so, you know, like World War One guys, you know, they were just over there, you knew the enemy was there.

(footage of parcel drop in Afghanistan. Soldier carries large stack of packages from Australia)

SOLDIER: Another 900 packages, mate.

CHRIS MASTERS: In both wars, small comforts from home could make a large difference.

FRANK PARKER: One of the one of the great things about Gallipoli was the parcels you got from home. But one parcel that I recollect very clearly was: my Dad included a couple a small tins of curry. I think they were about tuppence or thruppence, might a been thruppence a tin: very small. Well, the idea- as matter of fact, I think I wrote for them... um, my memory serves me correctly: I think wrote, "Oh, put in a couple or two. Make the bully beef taste a bit better." My word, it did.

CHRIS MASTERS: In the first war there were occasional letters and, too often, the dreaded telegram. While the new battlefront provides direct and constant contact.

(footage of soldier in Afghanistan calling Australia)

SOLDIER: Hey, Joshy. How are you, mate?

NICK PERRIMAN: Obviously technology, social media, email: it makes it easier to communicate with home, but it doesn't make it any easier for the guys being away. It's still as true today as it was a 100 years ago.

CHRIS MASTERS: While Afghanistan has seen no official correspondent, a new all-seeing digital age intensifies scrutiny but somehow fails to comprehensively communicate the new world of warfare.

BRIANA STERLING: On the modern battle space, where the population has, has, ah, access to media: you know, texts, pictures on phones, probably Facebook, you know, anything based on the internet: that, that... adds to the complexity of what we do because there is a instantaneous judgement by the people, the population where you are, the population back home, perhaps.

CHRIS MASTERS (to Scott Tampalini): Do you think that the public back in Australia actually had an understanding of the type of conflict that you were involved in?

SCOTT TAMPALINI: Ah, I don't think so. I'm sure, you know, my immediate family and friends did just from hearing stories, but I don't think a lot of the public really understand what it was like. We only ever mentioned, well the media only ever mentioned, you know, the deaths we had over there. We didn't really talk about - and, and our injuries - we didn't talk about our successes as much.

CHRIS MASTERS: While women did enlist, embark, serve and sustain casualties with the First AIF, there was unchallenged determination to keep them from the front - a determination that largely persisted through the century until that front was no more.

BRIANA STERLING: The sight of a female walking down the streets in TK as part of a patrol draws a lot of attention.

CHRIS MASTERS: In Afghanistan, engaging with the other 50 per cent of the population was a task largely beyond the male soldiers.

BRIANA STERLING: It provides the opportunity to change cultural perspectives. I walked through one of the small rooms and there was four or five quite old women sitting on the floor and they were preparing some food to cook. And when I walked into the room, I sort of acknowledged them and said, "Hello," you know. Um, and they looked up at me and they started talking eagerly amongst themselves.

And I said to the interpreter, "What, what are they saying?" And he said, "They're saying that how amazing it is to see a female here on a construction site with a weapon, in a uniform," And they, they were saying that they would hope that one day their children could be- could have those opportunities.

DAVID MCCAMMON: A very different society. Ah, I mean it's like the Second World War was very similar. Women: you wouldn't have expected women to be working, yet, um, the necessity meant that they did. And, and this is where we are now and, um, we're very fortunate to, to be where we are.

CHRIS MASTERS: As in Afghanistan, the Australians at Gallipoli were a small part of a multinational force, at that time led by the British, who earned mixed regard.

BASIL HOLMES: They did that landing at Suvla Bay, which was a failure. And we never saw much of them after that, you know. We never saw them.

BILL DE SAXE: Ah, well, they were just tough men. I mean, you wouldn't know them from Australians if you put them in an Australian uniform.

PETE RUDLAND: We get along with everybody. We're Australians: we're easy-going.

CHRIS MASTERS: Powerful links to the British Army persist, despite the percentage of British-born members of the Australian Defence Force dropping from one in five to one in 20.

But in Afghanistan it is the American alliance that dominates, an attack on the United States having drawn Australia into the conflict, after which a new bond matured and strengthened.

DAVID MCCAMMON: The Americans provided our, um, casualty evacuations. So we had an incredible, um, deal of respect for those people that fly in those helicopters. Um, and, you know, were always very, very happy to see them.

NICK PERRIMAN: Um, you can't fault their bravery. I'll say that straight-up. Um, certainly they, ah, helped us out in some hairy situations. Um, the... I distinctly remember, um, one incident where one of my soldiers was hit by an IED and he'd, um, lost the lower part of his leg and, ah, a part of his hand and we were quite worried that he wasn't going to, um, make it through the treatment and onto the helicopter.

And so the, yeah, the pilot said, "OK. No worries." And he came and landed in the river and we waded in that way. And I remember distinctly going in and saying, "Thank you" to the loadmaster because I was really worried that... I was going to lose him.

CHRIS MASTERS: In the Australian Taskforce there is further diversity. Deployed across the theatre and on the ground alongside the soldiers are Navy and Air Force personnel to call in airstrikes, defuse explosives and patch up the wounded.

IAN YOUNG: The level of care that we can provide, the, ah, amount of technology that we had at our disposal with CT scan - even an MRI scanner - ah, quite incredible when you compare it to 100 years ago. Kandahar hospital boasted a 98 per cent to 99 per cent survival rate if a casualty arrived to us with a pulse.

CHRIS MASTERS: The many thousands of First War headstones reveal a greater faith then in God and an afterlife - although, even then, it is said the men talked more about the power of luck.

TOM USHER: At the foot of the, ah, where the 9th were, they, they cut a trench. They'd go through. But they, they'd pick that corner. "Hellfire Corner," I think they called it. And if you, if you weren't quick you, you'd get hit. Oh, we lost a lot there. You'd go for your life. I could run pretty quick so... (laughs)

BILL DE SAXE: And I got down out of, out of the trench, down into the bottom of the trench. He got up. And he was tall. He was about six feet high, you know. And he got one right - bang - through his head. Just as I got down, he, he copped the lot, which, you know...

CHRIS MASTERS: Pete Rudland is seen here in the same position on a helicopter, the like of which crashed in June 2010, inflicting devastating injuries and killing four of his comrades.

PETE RUDLAND: I tried to put it into perspective: I was alive and others were dead, Really can't complain, can you? So...

It, it does it all comes down to luck, you know. The, the dude sitting next to you on the helicopter: you know, he dies and you don't. Um, you know, it's- it's a game of luck.

DAVID MCCAMMON: Luck is a massive part of it. You certainly know people that should have been shot, um, that didn't. And then you know people that, um, did everything that they could've done and unfortunately were, were shot.

Some people feel that even more than others and feel that their, their luck's starting to run out a bit. Um, I certainly had one or two that thought that was the case.

NICK PERRIMAN: In late November I stepped on a 20-kilogram IED. I was just fortunate that it didn't detonate correctly. Um, it should have. I can't explain why it didn't. And, you know, if it had I wouldn't be here. It, it would have, I would have been disintegrated.

Um, and New Year's Day 2011 I had a sniper have a go at me and I, like I, I, the bullet was that close I could tell, I- I could have put my hand up and caught it. Um, you know, is that luck? Or is it good training? It's probably a little bit of both, you know.

CHRIS MASTERS: There is little doubt that old maxim that good luck comes with better training holds true.

While Australian soldiers remain volunteers, new levels of training, planning and accountability have increased professionalism.

(Footage of Lionel Simpson on a computer screen. Briana Sterling watches footage with Chris Masters)

LIONEL SIMPSON: I never remember a soldier, ah, refusing to go to his death on the field.

CHRIS MASTERS: While modern soldiers will continue to risk their lives for the sake of those around them, it is impossible to imagine them doing this.

(Computer screen shows excerpt from film 'Gallipoli'. Soldiers climb from trench to attack enemy trench)

BRIANA STERLING: I don't think that an order would be issued in, in the first instance. I don't think that... It would not be considered a reasonable action.

(Chris Masters shows excerpt from 'Gallipoli' to Nick Perriman)

NICK PERRIMAN: I think today we train our young officers, we train our young soldiers to logically think about these things. Certainly think as a junior officer that I never, ever would have been put in a position where one of my senior officers would have told me to do something so rash and so brazen that it would, you know, unnecessarily risk so many lives for such little tactical, operational or strategic gain.

CHRIS MASTERS: In another respect the modern battlefield has become more dangerous, the risks in asymmetrical warfare having moved from 180 to 360 degrees.

JAMES BROWN: The weapons, ah, that our enemies are using reach out much, much further. So you're a cook in the Australian Defence Force: uh, you're not safe behind the lines like you probably were 100 years ago. Um, there is every chance that the enemy can reach out and touch you. And, in fact, one of the people killed, ah, in Afghanistan from the Australian Defence Force was a cook.

NICK PERRIMAN: It was really hard to deal with and, um... It took all of my strength as a leader and all of the knowledge that I'd built up as a leader to be able to control that situation and to, to sort of try to... salvage that relationship. Um, it certainly... When I look back on my tour it is a sore point. It is the blackest point of my tour. And if I could do something to change it I would, but I can't. It happened.

CHRIS MASTERS: On the 30th of May 2011 an unarmed Lance Corporal Andrew Jones was shot and killed by an Afghan soldier sharing the patrol base commanded by Nick Perriman.

(to Nick Perriman) I suppose it's an extreme expression of the complexity of the, the battlefront. Did it challenge the very purpose for being there?

NICK PERRIMAN: Um, ah, I guess it, it did to start. Um, everyone in my team reacted in different ways, including myself. Um, I know a lot of the guys immediately doubted everything that we'd done for the last eight months and whether it had been worth it. I asked that question myself a lot, you know, a lot of times. Um, I don't however allow myself to fall into the trap of saying that our whole time there was wasted over one person's actions.

CHRIS MASTERS: At Patrol Base Mashal in the Baluchi Valley on that worst day, Nick Perriman's soldiers held firm.

Though now out of the Regular Army, Perriman continues to maintain contact and accept responsibility for their ongoing welfare.

DAVID MCCAMMON: I think, ah, soldiers rely on each other to a level that is not seen anywhere else in, in, in society.

BILL DE SAXE: No, I wasn't a hero. It was just a case of: you made ma... you made friends and mates, you know, and that, while you were in training and that sort of thing. And you wanted to join them. Not from any bloody hero... don't, don't put me down as that, for God's sake. I was no bloody hero.

CHRIS MASTERS: The soldiers from both eras would say that what makes the ordinary heroic is the strength they draw from each other.

BRENDAN NELSON: In the end it's about their friendship, their mateship with one another - whether that be men or women -and their love of one another.

They go away to serve our country but in the end they fight and die to protect one another. And one of the observations that, ah, has been made, with which I agree: that in the end, ah, it's not so much about war: it's about friendship and love.

JAMES BROWN: It was, it was an entirely different picture of an Anzac Day. Um, you know it was less academic. It was very visceral. Ah, people who were suffering injuries were parading those injuries down the street. People who had lost loved ones were honouring them by walking down the street. Whereas today we're a little bit more removed from it. We, we see the military walking down the street but their, uh, the cost of war isn't so obvious to us.

CHRIS MASTERS: As always, for the veterans the cost is real and constant.

NICK PERRIMAN: You know, we spend the whole day reminiscing. Had a bit of a quiet moment and talked about some of the low points and we poured a glass for Jonesy and we, we all had a toast. And, you know, everyone got a bit teary and, and all that. But i-it, it's so important to me now: being able to see all those guys again.

IAN YOUNG: When I came over and found out about Anzac Day, ah, it, it really moved me. So when I see every year that the, the parades are still there, that people still attend the dawn service and the other services later in the day, I am very impressed by the Australian, um, collective that remember and reflect.

(David McCammon shows Bible to Chris Masters)

DAVID MCCAMMON: I feel very privileged to have this in, in the office.

CHRIS MASTERS: Lieutenant Colonel David McCammon, now commanding 7th Battalion, retains a Bible carried at Gallipoli.

DAVID MCCAMMON: I don't think the Army owns Gallipoli. I think it's owned by Australia as a whole. Um, but what we do each day: you, you're aware that you're, um, responsible for the maintenance of that reputation and ensuring that you maintain the standards of, of those that've gone before you. So i-it was important and it was something I was certainly aware of before I enlisted.

CHRIS MASTERS: There was in those original voices one strong message that the story of Gallipoli is a story of unremitted tragedy.

BILL DE SAXE: I said, "I don't want to see the place again." And I don't, either. I never want to set eyes on it again. I can talk about it and laugh about it now, but it was no laughing matter at that time.

TOM USHER: Oh, sadly, eh, I- the only get, part that gets me: we lost so many men, good men. For what? What did we get out of it?

FRANK PARKER: I wouldn't send a mangy dog to the war.

PETE RUDLAND: I mean, they got shelled all day, every day. I mean, imagine that. You know, an- and your mates are being killed off one by one and you're seeing it all of the time. The modern battlefield doesn't have that volume of death. You know, guys don't get shelled all the time. You know, they got their own things to deal with, you know: am I going to put my foot down and blow up?

CHRIS MASTERS: Modern veterans don't seek to have their stories compete with those from former generations. Their challenges are neither greater nor smaller, but far removed: as distant as the past is to the future.

BRIANA STERLING: I am sure that every soldier that went to World War One and came back had a broken heart for all the, the death and destruction that they saw. So I don't know that it's different, but I... There's no doubt that everything that I saw in Afghanistan and, and in Africa particularly, broke my heart.

And, you know... it's very hard to repair it.

KERRY O'BRIEN: Broken bodies and broken bodies. One you mostly see; one you often don't.