The quotes above describe one man’s experience on Tuesday, June 6, 1944 – a date written forever in history as D-Day. The 23-year-old lieutenant, then in his sixth year at war, had a lucky escape when the explosion that sunk HMS Durban nearly claimed his life. The young soldier’s good fortune is vigorously celebrated by this columnist because Lieutenant Richard Dennis Rathbone was my grandfather.

My mother’s grandfather, Percy Goff, fought in WWI in East Africa and in Europe. My father's grandfather, Sydney Thompson, also fought in WWI. Born in Geelong, he was a medic during the battle of the Somme in France in 1916.

My mother’s other grandfather, J.J Phillipus Olivier, had perhaps the most harrowing wartime experience of my recent ancestors. My grandmother is South African author Daphne Olivier. Here she explains what she discovered about my great grandfather’s life during the Boer War, Australia's first involvement as a nation in a conflict:

“The Boer War was not included in our history books, so I knew little about the war while growing up. My interest began when, as a newlywed, I heard my father-in-law talk about the years he spent in a concentration camp. He was five years old when a group of soldiers arrived on his father's farm. They ordered the family out of the house, gave them 10 minutes to carry out their belongings, then set it alight. As he watched, his father's cattle and sheep were slaughtered. Then he and his mother, together with his siblings, were placed on a wagon and taken to a concentration camp. His mother went into the camp with six children. When the war ended, she left with three. My father-in-law was the youngest of those who survived.”

Investigating my family history has brought my attention to the role of war in the lives of generations past, as well as its effects on many families today.

This week I learnt that the Australian Defence Force has has a four-fold increase in post-traumatic stress disorder since joining the war in Afghanistan in 2001. Distressingly, the number of serving and former soldiers who commit suicide is now more than triple Australia's combat toll in Afghanistan. These soldiers return home seemingly unscathed, yet many had minds disfigured by the horrors of war – none of these soldiers were honoured by commemorations or ceremonies on Anzac Day.

April  25 is rightly reserved as an occasion of national remembrance. But what exactly should we remember?

Perhaps we should remember that there is a fine line between paying homage to those who have made the ultimate sacrifice and the glorification of war. To cross this line is to withhold respect from those who most deserve it.

This is why I’m uncomfortable with comparisons between war and sport. Words like "courage" and "toughness" and "sacrifice" assume entirely different meanings when transferred between sporting fields and battlefields. Sports journalists have a deep affection for military jargon and it is common to see tight, physical matches headline our newspapers as "trench warfare".

Plenty of coaches seem eager to draw connections between sport and war from even the most tenuous links. I’m concerned that sporting teams appear to view Anzac Day as a commercial opportunity, rather than a chance to learn from history.

Commemorating war at sporting events raises the question of how sport is used to reinforce certain ideas in our national psyche. If sporting events paint a false picture of war, as I’m certain they do, then should athletes allow their profiles to be exploited in strengthening a lie? I argue that they should not. When it comes to war and sport, It would be a sad irony indeed if remembrance served only as thinly veiled promotion.

To really believe that sport is akin to war requires a desensitisation to the realities of warfare. In our culture it’s easy to view war as a distant and impersonal event, something that happens to other people in other countries. Until this changes, we cannot appreciate why war must only exist when not going to war is a deeply immoral or dangerous action.

Even the most extreme pacifists should recognise that sometimes war is justified and unavoidable. But we would all do well to insist that these times always represent the last resort.

What I remember on Anzac Day is that, war, even in victory, always represents a failure. A failure to resolve conflict with conversation. A failure that continues to claim countless lives. A failure to respect those who have suffered. And most of all, a failure to do enough to prevent it’s recurrence.

The ultimate war memorials are gravestones, stitched across this earth like scars on the face of humanity. Lest we forget.