As a young lad, one of my favourite books was about a boy working on the tall ships out of South Australia. Early in his career, the boy is faced with the daunting task of climbing the ship’s rigging to release a tangled sail. He is terrified, trying to hold it together and – quite reasonably – questions the need of climbing the mast at all. One of the old salts simply says before leading the way up the ropes “Growl you may, but go you must.”

The other night I watched a documentary on the 9/11 attacks. The film consisted of footage from the day filled with audio from the the phone calls and radio traffic of the victims, survivors, and first responders. Late in the film, after the first tower had collapsed, the footage showed a group of New York Firefighters preparing their gear to move into what would become known as Ground Zero. They moved calmly, even as they were obviously nervous, putting their years of training and work into practice, pushing the voice of doubt to the back of their minds. Then they picked up their hooks, hoses and rakes, and walked towards the remaining tower of the World Trade Center.

Growl you may, but go you must.

They must have known they were walking towards a likely death. The looks on their faces gave their thoughts away, and yet still they walked on. They must have known that their time was running out. They would have surely known that already scores of other firefighters had perished and yet still they picked their gear up and moved forward. As the camera followed them up the street a voice off to the side said “Why are they going there?”

Growl you may, but go you must.

I had seen that look enough times before to realise what it was. Most soldiers have. The attacks that day precipitated the most operationally busy period for the Australian Army since World War II. It certainly altered the course of my life. The look the firefighters wore that day was the same look that soldiers have walking towards battle. The gut-churning dread that you push to one side so that you don’t let your brothers and sisters down. You drive or walk out the gate hoping no one notices. They don’t of course, because they all have the same feeling, the same look. Then you switch on, turn on your game face, and concentrate on the job at hand.

Growl you may, but go you must.

That look was on the face of a young Transport Corp driver who was part of a convoy to resupply my base in Afghanistan. She drove a truck with a large fuel tank on the back. At the time politicians and intellectuals at home were debating the merits or otherwise of females in combat roles; it was a debate that was already over for us soldiers. I asked this young Digger how she felt about her cargo and she quipped “Fuck Boss, if I hit an IED I’ll be the first Australian astronaut on the moon.”

Growl you may, but go you must.

That look was all over the face of my soldiers as we stepped off for another patrol into the Tangi Valley. Seven months into our tour, we’d just been extended by six weeks. We had met and bested the enemy on any number of occasions but suffered wounds – physical and mental – along the way. One of our Australian brothers was dead. Two Afghan soldiers also. And more than a handful of civilians. The enemy were tenacious. Like the song says “ . . .when each step can be your last one on two legs. It was a war within yourself.” But the Diggers never faltered. Never wavered. They moved calmly, even as they were obviously nervous, putting their years of training and work into practice, pushing the voice of doubt to the back of their minds. Then they picked up their rifles, machine-guns and supplies and walked towards the battlefield.

Growl you may, but go you must.

We owe a debt to those veterans of the Defence Force and Emergency Services. When they return from the battlefield – domestic or otherwise – it is the responsibility of the society that sent them to care for them. This is part of the moral contract that we enter into with our servicemen and women. They go to war when called by their country, we must answer their call for help when they return.

Never Alone, Fight Together.

This post was originally published on LinkedIn on 11 September 2019.