Are we still raising men willing to stand?
As the 25th of April draws near, we find ourselves once again edging toward ANZAC Day - that quiet moment in the year when our nation stops, bows its head, and remembers what it once asked of its young men… and what those men gave back.
But this year feels different.
Not quieter. Not calmer.
Because right as we prepare to honour courage, there’s a question hanging in the air that too few seem keen to answer straight:
What do we actually think a soldier is?
The arrest this week of Ben Roberts-Smith has brought that question crashing through the front door.
Here’s a bloke awarded the Victoria Cross for running toward danger when others couldn't – actions that, at the time, summed up everything we like to say we value: courage, loyalty, stepping up when it counts.
Now he stands accused of very serious crimes.
He denies them. And in this country, that still matters. I hope. The case must be proven properly - beyond reasonable doubt - not settled in headlines or over a beer.
But while the legal wheels turn, something quieter is turning too.
You don’t always see it happening.
Until you do.
There’s nothing neat or comfortable about it. No time for calm debate or perfect information.
It’s fast. Confusing. Ugly.
As one of our readers said :
Anyone who has ever faced a moment of real confrontation - where things turn suddenly, where decisions are made in a heartbeat – knows how quickly the world changes.
There is no time for perfect reasoning. No time to weigh every angle.
You act. I know, from my own life experience.
And only later, when the dust settles, does the mind begin to catch up with what the moment demanded.
And the soldier - he’s the one sent in on our behalf.
The one who makes the call when there’s no second chance.
The one who carries the weight long after the rest of us have gone back to ordinary days.
And when he comes home?
Often the same society he protected steps back and begins picking it all apart - frame by frame, year by year - under conditions far removed from the dust and fear where those decisions were made.
This isn’t about giving anyone a free pass.
We cannot send men into that kind of hell - IEDs in the dirt, enemies who don’t play by any rules, danger hiding in everyday places - and then pretend, later, that it was all as clear and tidy as a court transcript.
It never is.
The men we honour from the Gallipoli Campaign didn’t have perfect intelligence either.
They had noise. Fear. Confusion.
And each other.
Still, they went forward.
Not because they were flawless, but because staying put wasn’t something they could live with.
That willingness - not perfection – is what ANZAC Day is really about.
Here’s where the unease creeps in.
We say we honour courage. We carve it in stone, play the bugle, bow our heads.
Yet we also show,very clearly - the long-term cost of sticking your neck out.
In the old trenches, raising your head too high invited a sniper’s bullet.
Today the risks are different - but they’re real enough.
Stand out. Act decisively. Take responsibility in the worst of circumstances… and there’s a fair chance that, somewhere down the track, you’ll be standing there on your own while the world examines every move in slow motion.
Young people notice.
The lesson they absorb isn’t complicated:
keep your head down.
Don’t be the one out front.
Don’t be the one left exposed when the dust settles.
And that is the real danger.
Because a country that honours its warriors in statues and ceremonies, but quietly discourages living men from stepping into those boots with the same spirit… isn’t carrying the torch. It almost feels like it is snuffing it out.
The case of Ben Roberts-Smith will play out.
Let the evidence speak. But when it’s done, the bigger question will still be there.
Waiting.
As the dawn breaks this ANZAC Day and the bugle sounds once more, it might be worth asking - quietly, honestly:
Are we still raising men willing to stand when standing costs something…
BLOG COMMENTS POWERED BY DISQUS
