Forty-seven Australian Defence Force personnel died in Afghanistan and 263 were wounded. On Sunday, thousands gathered at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra to mark 25 years since a war that demanded enormous sacrifices from those who fought and the families who waited.
Prime Minister Anthony Albanese, Opposition Leader Angus Taylor, Governor-General Sam Mostyn and former prime ministers John Howard, Tony Abbott and Scott Morrison attended. Afghanistan veteran Ben Roberts-Smith was there, too.
The Families Who Waited
The service’s sharpest moment came from Janny Poate, whose son, Private Robert Poate, died in 2012 when a rogue Afghan army officer killed him. She spoke for relatives who rarely get a microphone. Families, she said, “formed part of the story.”
“Families hoped every day that their partner, parent, child or sibling would return safely,” she said. “We remember those families and loved ones who experienced the overwhelming loss of a family member who never came home and those who have suffered loss since. The empty places that remain and the grief that fills that space has become part of the everyday life for these families, including my own.”
Her words carried fourteen years of absence. They also named a cost that doesn’t appear in casualty tallies.
A War Measured Differently
Australian forces deployed in 2001 under Operation Slipper, part of a multinational mission to combat terrorism after the September 11 attacks. Over the next two decades, more than 35,000 Australians served in Afghanistan or in support roles in the Middle East. It became Australia’s longest war.
Australian War Memorial director Matt Anderson told the crowd that “every person who served there experienced a different Afghanistan.” Some saw the very worst of war, he said. Others found friendship, humanity and moments of extraordinary courage and kindness. “And some carried experiences home that they would find difficult to put into words.”
Anderson quoted Chaplain Rob Sutherland: “perhaps we will measure success in Afghanistan differently.” Whatever history concludes about the campaign, Anderson said, one thing is already clear: “the great success of Afghanistan is the men and women who served there.”
Albanese cited Howard, prime minister when troops were sent, to explain why Australia joined: “If we left this contest only to America, we would be leaving it to them to defend our rights and those of all the other people of the world who have a commitment to freedom and liberty.”
Accountability in the Room
Unresolved questions also hung over the ceremony. A court granted Victoria Cross recipient Roberts-Smith permission to travel to Canberra for the service. He faces five counts of war crime murder related to his Afghanistan deployments. He has rejected the allegations and said he plans to fight to clear his name in court.
An accused man’s presence at a national memorial sat beside a basic principle: courts, not commemorations, test allegations of this gravity. The court’s permission to attend reflected that process at work.
A Loss Still Fresh
Mostyn began her address with condolences to the family of Corporal Brendan Hannam, killed the previous week during a training exercise in the Northern Territory. Hannam had served in Afghanistan. Mostyn said “his loss is felt well beyond Australia, well beyond these shores.”
She shared a message that the Chief of the Defence Force received from the chairman of the NATO Military Committee: “Training to keep our forces ready is never without risk. Those who accept that risk every day deserve our deepest respect and gratitude.”
Recordings of past and present Defence Force members describing their experiences featured in the service. It included wreath-laying at the Stone of Remembrance, the Ode of Remembrance, the Last Post and a minute’s silence. A Chinook helicopter flyover closed the ceremony.
Why This Matters: Casualty figures can make war feel like arithmetic. This service pushed back. Janny Poate’s account of an “empty place” shows how conflict’s burden outlasts deployment, falling on families and veterans who returned with experiences they struggle to describe. Hannam’s death a week earlier reminds us that service still carries risk. Meanwhile, the court proceedings against Roberts-Smith show a democracy holding its own forces to account while honoring those who served. A country that sends people to war takes on a long obligation to the wounded, the bereaved and the truth. Twenty-five years on, that obligation hasn’t expired.