It was the women who got me in the end - ANZAC Day 2011

It was a day at the football. But this day was a little different because it was the traditional ANZAC day football match at the Melbourne Cricket Ground in the heart of the city. I was so very fortunate this year to be one of the 90,000 people who held a ticket to be there. This match is a spectacle, a ceremony of sorts, that reveres and honours those who fought and died, those who are still fighting on behalf of and for Australia. Without getting in to the very complex "whys" and "what fors" of our participation in modern wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, I still believe, with all of my heart, that we must honour and respect those who enlist themselves, now and in the past, in complete and utter service of their nation and its defence.

I have been to dawn services on ANZAC Day before and found them extraordinarily sobering and moving. There is something amazing though, at the ANZAC day footy game, about the silence of 90,000 people in a stadium, hats removed, eyes held respectfully as the Last Post is played. Stillness, quiet, reverence, respect. It's like the quietest of churches. I am incredulous every time, to hear the sound of the crowd transform from footy barrackers to the silent, honouring mass and back again. Extraordinary and moving. There are tears in my eyes as I take it all in.

The tears started a little earlier for me this year. A motorcade before the main ceremony honours servicemen and women who represent each of the wars Australia has participated in. The crowd stands and applauds these individuals who no doubt stand for many, many countrymen, fellow diggers and friends.

It was the women who got me in the end. It was the two women who sat in the back of an open car, waving jauntily, smiling and acknowledging the crowd who honoured them who made my tears flow. We hear, at least to my way of thinking, primarily about the men in war. The men in the front line, their valour and their courage, in harm's way and protecting their mates with every ounce of their beings. It has only been in more recent times that it feels like there has been more mention of women and their contributions and service. Women historically have taken on a multitude of roles in war - as nurses and other frontline assistance, as "paid labour" doing "men's work" back at home and in voluntary organisations like the Red Cross. But as I watched these two women being driven around the perimeter of the field, it was the presence of the emotional burden of war carried by women that moved me so. They looked not to have a care in the world but the reality of their contributions, and of so many women like them, must have meant fear, enormous and solo responsibility in families, comforting frightened children, a shortage of resources and the grief and trauma of losing the men they loved.

The two women in the motorcade smiled. I felt the presence of their service, courage and contribution. I cried. It was the women who got me in the end.

Lest We Forget.