Serving family passes on the spirit of Anzac Day to the next generation

Before dawn tomorrow, an alarm will sound and four children will be gently woken from their beds.

There will be uniforms to straighten, medals pinned carefully to jackets and shoes found in the half-light. Outside, the air will be crisp, the streets silent and the sky still dark.

For Canberra couple Brittany and Tim Craig, Anzac Day rarely looks like this.

For years, the couple – both lieutenant commanders in the Royal Australian Navy – have spent it apart, one deployed and the other at home with young children, navigating the rhythms of Navy life.

“This is our first Anzac Day together, where we’ll both be in uniform, so it’s special,” Brittany said.

“We’ve always attended some sort of event for Anzac Day, but I haven’t been in uniform for a couple of years due to having kids.

“This is the first year we can all attend together.”

The pair, who met soon after joining the military, have built their lives around the demands of service – including stretches at sea and time apart – while raising their young family.

Brittany, a maritime logistics officer who joined the Defence Force straight out of school, returned to work this week – just days out from Anzac Day – after maternity leave with their daughter, Hadley, who is babbling beside her as she speaks.

Tim, an aviation warfare officer with almost 20 years of service, is undertaking a course at the Australian War College in Canberra.

“Half the time I’ve been deployed on Anzac Day so I’ve often spent it conducting a small service on the flight deck with my crewmates, so this will be the first time our complete family is together,” he said.

Together, they have navigated about a dozen deployments, postings across three states and the arrival of four children: Hunter, nine, Harper, six, Harlan, four, and Hadley, eight months.

Their growing family has changed the way they experience Anzac Day.

“Our older two kids know a bit about Anzac Day,” Brittany says.

“We bring it down to our family’s level and explain that it’s about saying ‘thank you’ to all the mummies and daddies who have spent time away from home.

“We talk about the history of the Anzacs to some extent, but also why we still commemorate it today and the importance of reflecting on the men and women who are still deployed.”

Their children “ask a lot of questions” and not always the ones they might expect.

“There are lots about the artefacts of war like, ‘Can you fire a gun Mum?’ and ‘Did Daddy go there on his helicopter?’’’ Brittany said.

“We’ve only recently talked about those traditions like Anzac biscuits and helping them understand why we do the things that we do.”

For Tim, those questions have become an opening.

“It’s increasingly becoming a chance to teach the kids what Anzac Day means,” he says.

“It’s starting to provide a way to talk about mateship, courage, service and sacrifice with the older kids.”

Both Tim and Brittany grew up in military families so their career paths felt like natural ones.

Brittany’s father, Stephen Smith, was a Navy clearance diver, and her sister, Emily, a Navy communicator.

“Dad had talked about it,” Brittany says. “But ADFA was really the drawcard.”

She joined at 17, completed a business degree, and has since built a career that has taken her to sea and on operations, including Manus Island.

Tim’s family history runs just as deep. He is one of four brothers, all of whom have served.

Their mother, Anne, was an Air Force nurse, while their father, Shane, spent 43 years in the Navy before moving to the reserves.

Between them, the extended family counts multiple generations in uniform.

For Shane, the meaning of Anzac Day has deepened over time.

“When I was a lot younger, I was a bit lost with Anzac Day because I don’t think I really comprehended the significance of it,” he said.

“But over time, you realise what those sacrifices have meant – not just in the past, but what people are still giving today.

“There are so many ways that modern defence people make a sacrifice, which doesn’t compare to the ultimate sacrifice that the Anzacs made, but it’s still a sacrifice and a commitment they’re making to defend our way of life in Australia.”

Standing alongside his children and their families on Anzac Day brings that into sharp focus.

“I’m proud that they’ve made that commitment to serve our country but I also understand they do it because it’s challenging and rewarding too, so it’s sort of a dual dimension for me,” Shane said.

“As I step towards my twilight years and do less and less with the military, it’s one of those things that’s a bit hard to let go, really.”

Anne recalls one of her proudest moments being Anzac Day in 2014, when the family marched in Melbourne before attending the AFL match between Essendon and Collingwood at the MCG.

“The day we got to stand in the stadium at the MCG in our uniform and all do the traditional salute for the national anthem was a pretty proud moment because I think that’s probably the one and only time we’ve all managed to be in the one spot,” she said.

“This year we’ll be on the South Coast in Nowra. We’ll do the dawn service and the march.

“Being a military town, it’s also an opportunity to catch up with a large number of people that you previously served with, so it’s a bit of an emotional day, really.”

Now, as a grandmother, her focus is on what comes next.

“Our sons didn’t have their dad around very much at all so that could be very difficult for them and made them sad but now, looking back, they can see that it was for a bigger and higher purpose,” she said.

“So I hope (our grandchildren), in the future, will also understand that (time apart from their parents) was for something and it meant something and it’s important.”

Tim has been deployed for large parts of his children’s early years, missing milestones and special occasions.

“I was deployed when Harper was born and I think her fourth birthday was the first one I saw,” he said.

“But I think it’s my family that’s making the sacrifices, because Britt’s at home on her own looking after the kids when I’m away doing my job.”

For Brittany, that dual perspective – as both a serving member and the one holding down the fort at home – shapes how she sees Anzac Day.

“I reflect from both the perspective of the spouse who is at home, longing and waiting, and as a member of the military as well,” she says.

“It’s no small feat for a child to say goodbye to a loved one for a long period of time and that’s really what the day is about, reflecting on the sacrifices that have been made.”

This year, the family will spend Anzac Day in the tiny Victorian town of Omeo, where they plan to attend the dawn service and join the local march.

It will be the first time they have spent it together, in uniform, with all four children.

The kids’ questions have already started.

“Harper asked if we have to get up when it’s still dark,” Tim says.

“The other day Hunter asked where Anzac biscuits were from and how I got to Gallipoli.

“He wasn’t happy with my answer and ran off to ride his bike.”

For Tim, 38, the meaning of Anzac Day is now both broad and deeply personal.

“Anzac Day is an opportunity to reflect and pay respect to all ADF servicemen and women – from the original Anzacs to those who have served since – many of who made the ultimate sacrifice,” he said.

“Also the thousands of people who’ve volunteered to serve Australia ever since, both at home and abroad, at personal cost to themselves and their families.

For Brittany, 35, the response is more immediate.

“I still find the whole ceremony quite moving … that silence and then the breaking of the silence is really that moment of reflection,” she said.

“You think about the commitment that you’ve made to make those sacrifices that others have made.

“You can imagine yourself in those kinds of situations ... and how would it make you feel.

“I always cry with the bagpipes. They get me every time.”

As Saturday approaches, the family car is packed for the drive south.

Tomorrow, in the cold before sunrise, there will be four children to dress, medals to pin, and a minute of silence to keep.

“It’s about taking a minute to reflect on the lives we have and why we sometimes have to do hard things,” Brittany said.