On Tuesday we honoured the servicemen and women who picked up arms and laid down their lives for their country.

We reflected on what sacrifice means. 

We paid homage to our veterans and what we cherish as an Australian – that willingness to muck in and lend a hand to help a common cause.

The Anzac legacy has become ingrained in our our national psyche. Australians are renowned for their willingness to help out in an emergency. Our soldiers, sailors and aviators put themselves in harm’s way not just in times of conflict.

They have been deployed to disaster zones in not only their own country but overseas as well, where they have at times made the supreme sacrifice discharging their duties.

In these volatile times, there is every chance they will be called upon again, even though it is the last thing we’d wish on any young Australian, or for that matter their family.

Should that happen, we must ensure mistakes we have made in the past are not repeated. 

Young lives should not imperilled without a clear explanation from our government of the reasons we are doing so. We should not put young lives on the line in the pursuit of ill-considered foreign policy as we did in Vietnam and Iraq, two conflicts history has shown we should have stayed clear of. 

Veterans should be properly cared for when they return. We never want to see the social isolation and shame heaped on Vietnam veterans repeated, regardless of what we think about the war in which they were involved.

We insist that adequate support is provided for veterans. As a nation, we must do our best to ensure their physical and psychological injuries are treated to the very best of our ability. Veterans should not have to fight one conflict only to return to face another in the form of an unfeeling, unblinking bureaucracy.   

On Anzac Day, it’s important we commemorate the service of veterans and their past sacrifices.

It’s just as vital we vow to look out for those serving now and into the future. We cannot forget the errors of the past.