While sitting down to lunch in the local shopping centre, I noticed an elderly Asian woman in a wheel chair. She was waiting at a table, while her relative/carer bought her food at a nearby store. The woman sat still, her hands clasped together at the table and her eyes looked off into the distance. Despite her frail stature and quiet demeanor, her bright eyes disclosing a pensive mood. She reminded me of my grandmothers, who are of the same generation as this stranger. I wondered what country the woman was from and whether her life was as punctuated by war as that of my grandmothers, both of whom lived through the Japanese occupation of the Philippines.

All this led me to wonder how many people in Australia have a personal connection to war — through direct experience, or the experience of a relative? A personal connection to war provides a much more palpable perception of it — something you can hold on to and associate with. Perhaps such a direct connection with conflict may force you to take an interest such as when a family member is away fighting, or when the war comes to your homeland. The connection may make you turn away out of fear or disapproval; or it might make you wonder what the war was all about in the first place and cause you to seek more knowledge about the conflict.

In my case, the faces of war are the faces of my grandparents. I remember my dad telling me stories about my grandfather, who fought at Corrigador. I have no doubt that my grandfather’s wartime experience shaped my father’s upbringing and, consequently, my own. For as long as I can remember, war and the military has always been in the background, a part of my personal narrative. I guess its no surprise that I ended up joining the military.

Now the faces of war are those of my contemporaries — they are the faces of family and friends that currently serve and have deployed to places ranging from East Timor to Afghanistan. The faces are no longer pictures in an album accompanied by wartime stories that are family legends passed on over meals, mahjong games with aunts or late night ‘Johnny Walker on the rocks’ with uncles. These stories highlight the importance of the human stories of war that resonate with people more than grand political statements issued by generals or politicians.

Warfare — a human endeavour — is therefore part of the narrative of an individual life, which coalesces into the wider narrative such as a family’s history or that of a nation. When viewed from this perspective, it is important to come to an understanding of the impact of war at the individual level — the way it shapes an individual’s or a people’s perspective on the world and their place within it.