MATESHIP

"Mateship" was a particular Australian virtue, a creed, almost a religion. Men lived by it:

‘Put this flour in your dixie, old man and make my pancakes with yours, will you?’ ‘Lend us yer fire after you mate’ ‘Usin that bit ‘er fat. I’m short of a piece, lets have it, will yer…the trench is no place for a selfish natured man where almost everything is common property, just ask for the taking’

"They died by it, and it could become their finest epitaph: the man who asked about a twopenny tram ride to Glebe before Lone Pine was killed an hour later, and his mate wrote of him. ‘ he was a jolly fine cobber, and always stuck to his mates.’

Above all they fought by it. They fought because their mates relied on them, and this and their own self respect were the chief causes for their continuing to fight after fighting had lost much of its attraction. ‘Please god I may die in the same manner and fight in the same spirit that I know that my comrades will display, for they know not defeat.'’... This sentiment could always rally Australians, and the man who risked himself for his mates was the best sort of Australian."

From The Broken Years, by Bill Gammage.

This passage shows what it means to portray an Australian Soldier. A unit of "Good Mates" working together. This is our purpose, for it is the best way to honor those men.