Drawn from engagements ranging from World War I through to operations in East Timor and Iraq, the stories are taken from the Australians at War Film Archive, a collection of the memories of over two thousand Australians who have served, both on the front line and at home.

Some are unbelievably, unbearably tragic, even after sixty or seventy years, others are the golden memories of happy, albeit unusual, times. And, more often than not, they are stories which have never been shared with others, even family members. There are stories from winners of the Victoria Cross; stories from the POW camps of Asia and Europe; from the patrols of Vietnam, through to those who served as peacekeepers in Rwanda and Somalia. There are stories from nurses, from those who have volunteered to serve with aid agencies. They are stories of ordinary Australians caught up by circumstances and by duty, in wartime. Here are their words.