'My dad missed my birth because he was serving his country ¨C it's time I said thank you'

When I called my dad on about a story I wanted to write for Anzac Day, I was hoping for something lighthearted and feel-good. A few tales from his Navy days, a quick line about what Anzac Day means to him - that sort of thing.

What I got instead was a list of names of the men and women my dad had served with in the Royal Australian Navy who had died; an honour roll, really. I learned the stories of children left without parents, wives without husbands, husbands without wives.

You see, in my own father's words, Anzac Day isn't really a feel-good holiday.

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"It's a time to take stock and remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice, whether it be in battle or other missions, like humanitarian assistance, disaster relief, peacekeeping, or during training," he tells me over the phone from Canberra.

"There are people that lose their lives and there are people who have other scars. Some scars you can see and some you can't."

My father joined the Navy fresh out of high school in 1989, when he was 18 years old. He served until he was 40, and even missed the birth of his first child ¨C me ¨C because he was over 12,000km away at sea.

"When you're posted to a military unit and the unit deploys, you go with the unit," my dad explains.?

He was deployed to the Northern Arabian Gulf off the coast of Iraq on HMAS Melbourne about three months before my mum was due to give birth. He was gone for over six months as part of Operation DAMASK, to enforce United Nation Security Council Resolutions after the Gulf War of the early '90s. It was his second six-month trip to the Gulf.

He didn't meet me until I was three months old and had seen war before he held his firstborn. I know the story well, but it feels like a raw wound when he relives it over the phone.

"Missing your birth was horrible," he says. "It's probably the biggest regret of my life."

In the 25 years since, things have changed in the Australian Defence Force (ADF) and they are more accommodating of major events like births, but service members and their families still make incredible sacrifices every day.

"Mums deploy as much as dads these days. The kids make sacrifices, and the parent that stays back makes sacrifices, and the parents [of the service member] make sacrifices. It's not just the person going away," my dad says.

"The families of military folks make a lot of sacrifices and the impacts can be long. They don't necessarily end as soon as the Sailor, Soldier or Aviator returns."

Long deployments in potentially dangerous circumstances, being posted abroad, and other sacrifices that come with being a service member can put strain on families.

Parents miss their children being born, they miss Christmas, birthdays, first days of school, wedding anniversaries, even funerals. For some families, the strain becomes too much. Couples separate, divorce.

"That's the price of service. I loved serving in the Navy, but there was a price to pay," my dad says.

It's a heavy price, one my dad continued to pay throughout my childhood years, but when my half-sister was born in 2010 he decided the price was too high. He left the Navy the following year.

"I'd missed out on you and I wasn't going to miss out on [your sister]," he explains.

"I wasn't going to do that again. It hurt too much to be away from you, and I couldn't go back in time, but I wasn't going to do that with [your sister].

"Being in the Navy was amazing, I saw and did things that were breathtaking; the Navy gave me incredible opportunities that I'm grateful for today¡­ it was just my time to leave."

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My sister and I were fortunate in the sense that our dad got to make that decision, but for many kids of service members, the sacrifices continue. And in some families, the service member ¨C the mum, dad, partner, child ¨C never comes home.

It's a truth my dad knows all too well. He's seen it happen too many times.?

"I was flying with Captain Mark Bingley two nights before the Black Hawk crashed and he died," he says.

Army Captain Mark Bingley, along with Special Air Service Trooper Joshua Porter, was killed in a Black Hawk helicopter crash on November 29, 2006 as the craft attempted to land on HMAS Kanimbla. My dad was serving on the ship at the time.

"We were from towns less than 50km away from each other and we'd talk for hours about growing up in Tassie. He would tell me how proud he was of his newborn son. I think about 'Bingers' often and how his boy is today," he continues.

That wasn't the only tragedy he witnessed.?

Leading Seaman Aircrewman Scott Bennet, along with eight other personnel, were killed when a Sea King helicopter, known as 'Shark 02', crashed in Indonesia on April 2, 2005. It had been carrying an emergency medical team from HMAS Kanimbla to a village on the island of Nias as part of relief efforts after a devastating earthquake.

"I had served a couple of times with Scotty Bennet who was killed on that helicopter crash," my dad continues.

"He was a great bloke we all loved serving with; one of the funniest and kindest blokes you could meet. It's been 18 years since the crash. I think about his sons often, and the families of the others we lost that day."

Two men surv?ived the crash. My dad remembers them too.

"I was stood at the end of a triage bed when [Corporal] Scott Nichols and [Leading Seaman] Shane Warburton were brought back on board. two survivors of the crash. "I'm sure they still carry the memories of that today," he says.

Service members don't just lose their lives in the line of duty. Suicide rates have risen among serving and ex-serving ADF personnel, with more than 500 deaths by suicide since the Afghanistan war began in 2001.

"I served with an amazing guy who was on a patrol boat when I was a Captain, he was named Dave Finney. His mother has been a champion for the royal commission into suicides," my dad says.

"Like many in the extended Navy family, when I see Dave's smiling face in photos and I wonder if I could have done something to have prevented his death."?

David Finney, a Navy veteran, died by suicide in 2018 after seeking support for PTSD through the Department of Veterans' Affairs and receiving none. His mother, Julie-Ann Finney, pushed for change so that her son's death would not be in vain.

Her campaigning led to a royal commission into veteran suicides, which released its first interim report in August 2022. It stated that the prevalence of suicide among serving and ex-ADF members "should concern us all" and the commissioners were "dismayed" by the lack of action from past governments to previous inquiries and reports.

It made 13 recommendations for immediate action, including eliminating the backlog of compensation claims. Veterans' Affairs Minister Matt Keogh called the rate of veteran suicide a "national tragedy".

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There are hopes the royal commission will inspire action to prevent more deaths like David Finney's, but for many families it will come too late for lost loved ones.

These are the people my father remembers on Anzac Day. The David Finneys, and Scotty Bennets and Mark Bingleys. The people who made the ultimate sacrifice, and their families who have had to make the sacrifice of going on without them.

"Anzac Day, for me, isn't about World War I, World War II, or Vietnam and Korea," he says, though he has great respect for veterans of those eras.

"Anzac Day is not like when I was a kid, with old men marching up the street. It's also about young men and young women¡­ It's a day of remembrance. To remember those who have fallen, and remember and honour those who continue to serve."

When I called my dad, I didn't expect to learn the names of the service members who died in terrifying proximity to him. I didn't expect to feel my heart ache for their families, who will have to live with the empty place their loved one left behind.

But on this Anzac Day, those are the people we need to be thinking about. Those are the people whose stories and sacrifices really matter, and they're proof Anzac Day has never just been an "excuse" for a public holiday.

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Today, I'm asking Aussies to remember the fallen, to think of veterans and people still in service, and all the things they and their families have sacrificed.

"Tell someone in uniform or a veteran 'thank you for your service' and don't just do it on Anzac Day," my dad urges.

"And if you're around the kids, or the partner, wife, husband, boyfriend, of a service member ¨C ask them 'are you okay?' But not just on Anzac Day. There's another 364 days of the year that that person's making a sacrifice."

As for me, I have another call to make - one to tell my dad 'thank you'. Lest we forget.

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