A crisp autumnal breeze blew in my face as I yanked my backpack out of the cab.

Even Melbourne’s weather seemed to be pushing us onwards, to a new place where summer wasn’t ending. Having spent a month scraping the last tasty bits of the Australian summer from the pan, the eucalyptus-tinged breeze confirmed what I already knew.

It was time to go.
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Honest travel engenders a comfortable familiarity with the world. It reaffirms the greatest of instinctual human truths; that which differentiates us is far less than that which we share.

Australia proved this to me again and again. From a people as generous as they were curious to watching NBA basketball with nearly every group of 20 something Aussie men that I met, there was never a shortage of common ground. Time and time again, there was either a nostalgic appreciation from a trip to America, or an earnest desire to visit. I was amazed at the near universal depth of knowledge about the American political system. I am afraid that many Aussies have a more well-informed opinion of what ails American democracy than my countrymen do.

Australia and America are separated in ways akin to two different cooks working from the same recipe. Our shared beginnings as British colonies left us with the same base ingredients, differentiated now by local spices and the unique iterations of generations past. The inconsequential distinctions between us betray the existence of our shared history. America and Australia are brothers without a doubt, largely identical at a glance, with the same temperamental distinctions that have separated brothers since Cain and Abel.

Australia has been an amazing part of the Conquest. From Chad generously opening his home to us in Perth, to Nick’s genuine joy in showing us around the Whitsundays, to being fussed over by Ben’s Nan in the Gold Coast, we’ve been graciously seen to by people whose all-encompassing definition of hospitality would teach a Southerner a thing or two.

The people I’ve met here have scraped away a bit more debris from those universal truths that we so often claim as unique to ourselves.

The perfidy of differing perspective afflicts fathers and sons the world over. Those malevolent shadows on the wall could be dispelled with a mere step or two, but fear calcifies into the anchoring rage that holds us fast to the spot.

A daughter’s struggle for parental affirmation might manifest itself in various fashions, but the moral of the story is always the same.

The best part of my Australian experience wasn’t the phenomenal beaches or outstanding concerts. It was the opportunity to step into several different families and see the same familial dynamics as the ones I know back home. The location and accents may be different, but the human condition is universal.

True villains are as rare in the world as blameless heroes, but the shared myopia of humanity all too often makes monsters out of the unfocused shapes in the distance.

Every road leads one closer to somewhere. Proximity is the panacea for myopia, that erstwhile creator of monsters.

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In one month on the ground, Ben and I have seen no fewer than 12 beaches, seen 23 musical acts, swam in two oceans, visited 6 cities and stayed under 9 different roofs (or lack thereof in the case of the boat.) It has been a rock star tour of the “lucky continent.” Upon landing in Singapore this morning, we’ve now travelled together on 4 continents, a feat unto itself.

Now it is onto a different part of the world, one still bears both the physical and cultural scars of unenlightened colonialism. Seeing a culture so dissimilar from my own will again act as a focusing agent, forcing me to again check those truths I’ve held as universal.

Here’s to dispatching more monsters in the distance.

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Here were some of the highlights of Australia in picture.

For all of the methods of discerning a society’s civic virtue, few are more effective than gauging the treatment of veterans. The esteem with which a society holds those individuals who fight on behalf of their fellow citizens is an unparalleled bellwether. Seeing ANZAC Day (Australia/New Zealand Army Corps) was a truly eye opening experience for me.

ANZAC day is best described as a combination Veteran’s Day/Fourth of July/Memorial Day in the states.

Now for the obligatory Conquest history lesson.

On April 25, 1915, the ANZACs stormed the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. The objective was to establish a beachhead from which the British Empire would overrun Constantinople, forcing the Ottoman Empire to withdraw from the war and clearing Russian shipping lanes through the Black Sea.

Landing a mile north of their intended jumping off point, the ANZACs were under heavy fire from the moment they reached the beach. In a force of 16,000, there were 900 killed and 2,000 casualties. However, they established a beachhead, and defended it the next day against a massive onslaught of 42,000 Ottoman soldiers. While casualties were high on the storming, this is considered to be one of the greatest victories in ANZAC history.

By the end of the Gallipoli campaign however, more than ⅔ of the ANZAC force was either killed or wounded. This lead to the World War 1 total of 145 deaths per 1000 mobilized for the Australian military, the highest of any British Commonwealth force.

40% of men from the age of 18-44 years old participated in the war. 1 out of 6 never came home.

Hell considers itself insulted by comparisons to war. Your mates don’t disappear daily in Hell.

Both Australians and New Zealanders have held ANZAC Day in the highest regard since 1916. Every town in Australia big enough to warrant a post office also has a war memorial. Dawn service is proudly held at each one. 10,000 civic pilgrims head to Gallipoli annually to celebrate Dawn Service at ANZAC Cove. Demand is so great, that ANZAC Cove has a lottery to determine attendance.

When I compare this to Memorial Day/4th of July/Veterans’ Day in the states, I’m more than a little embarrassed. Much like we’ve taken the Christ out of Christmas, we’ve largely neutered the patriotism that these holidays were meant to engender. A prayer and flyover prior to a sporting event is lip service, nothing more.

The US Department of Veteran Affairs estimates that there are an average of 22 veteran suicides daily. A veteran of the wars in Afghanistan and Iraq is ⅔ more likely to be unemployed than a civilian counterpart, and untreated PTSD has cost a generation of our service people and their families an incalculable sum.

As the brother of a veteran and friend to many more, I find America’s civic efforts to our veterans to be inferior at best. Given the real issues facing those whom we have asked to fight on our behalf, our efforts towards veterans have been sorely lacking. Those who volunteer to vouchsafe our freedom deserve better than the insufficient scraps that DC has seen fit to give.

The cost of these wars has been greater than the 4-6 trillion USD shown in the liability column of America’s balance sheet. The cost has been in lives, whether destroyed or irreparably changed by conflicts which have dragged on without conclusion for far too long.

Any society that doesn’t spend the time to reflect on the true cost of war will inevitably find itself misunderstanding the pricelessness of peace.

When I see the 10,000 Aussies crammed around the Victoria War Memorial at 4:30AM on a public holiday, I see a population that truly values the sacrifice of its veterans. Good on you Australia. I hope that my country can learn from your example.

Benny and I moved from our rented flat in Rivervale to his friend Chad Fletcher’s place over in the Subiaco neighborhood. Subiaco is quite a bit more urban, with a ton of development going up everywhere. Chad has owned his flat for 7 years, and he said that the area has really grown up around him, obviously to the benefit of a property owner.

The neighborhood is a nice mix of cafes, independent retail shops and a few Australian chain restaurants. Very clean and modern. Benny and I actually found a pretty funny coffee shop around the corner from Chad’s, a joint called Tickle My Bean, which we thought was hilariously suggestive.

Australians are a bit coarser in their sensibilities over here, with newspaper articles printing a profane quote by merely dropping a couple letters from the middle of a four letter word.

Chad got in last night from Indonesia, where he’s been surfing for the past two and a half weeks off of Bali. Every surfer I’ve spoken to here raves about the surf in “Indo.” Tickets being around 300 round trip and accommodations being on the $10/night side, it isn’t tough to see why. If I can get my surfing up to scratch on this trip, I am going to make an effort to go spend a week.

I was speaking to another bloke yesterday named Jason, who like many in Western Australia, works in the mines. He talked about the good money that the miners make, and how the “really huge money” is being made in offshore mining. Apparently there has been a big operation opened off of the northwestern corner of the country, and guys over there are making $275,000 annually, working a 26 days on/ 9 days off schedule. He says the money is great, but it is grueling 14 hour a day work. It really shows on the faces of the miners, there is a tradeoff there between your life expectancy/quality and the cash. For that kind of money though, there are no shortage of men willing to make that trade.

He gave me a very cursory overview of where most things are mined in Australia. The northwestern quadrant near Broome is mainly iron ore while the eastern side is largely gold and diamonds. The project he was about to leave on was an absolutely desolate location where they were mining for nickel.

Hearing about mining as such a lucrative enterprise was a first for me, as American miners have fallen on hard times lately, especially in the coal industry. He also spoke of oil and gas developments off of that northwestern side, but there does seem to be a more pronounced opposition to offshore drilling in OZ than back in the US.

Past the mining conversation, we got into surfing and he was very adamant about not surfing Western Australia any longer. Apparently the Indian Ocean side of Australia outlawed the hunting of Great White Sharks while paring back fishing to replenish natural fisheries back in 1998. Since then, the shark problem has become pretty fierce, with 6 meter (nearly 20 foot) great whites being seen within 100 meters of shore. This coupled with the 8-10 shark attacks reported annually have really damaged the reputation of Western Australia for surfing. Jason was another avid proponent of Indo for surfing.

This morning after Chad woke up from his 5AM re-entry from Indo, we spoke a bit about footy. Chad played professionally for West Coast Eagles and it was interesting to gain the perspective of someone who played for 11 years in the league. He spoke of how different the game is today from even when he retired 7 years ago. He also spoke of the real problems with former footy players reintegrating into the workforce after years of being professional athletes. Footy players over here make good money, with 8 players making more than 1 million AUD/year in the 2012 season, and the fat part of the bell curve being between $100,000-300,000.

These numbers seem downright paltry compared to the 25-30 million a year that American superstars make. A few reasons for wide pay discrepancy include the very powerful club culture in AFL; players being far more likely to stay with a club their entire careers, and a strict salary cap which doesn’t allow for extreme pay for superstars. There is also a Father-Son clause during the draft which allows teams to take the sons of former long time players (100 games played) to take the son prior to the draft. This kind of cross-generational connection to the club is really interesting. I suppose the closest parallel in US sports would be sons playing for their father’s alma mater. No correlation professionally.

Chad actually spoke about the team taking cross the board paycuts in order to keep the club from losing players to free agency. The club went on to go to back to back Grand Finales (Super Bowl equivalent) and Chad said that he would gladly give back 50k of salary in order to be on a squad competing at that level.

I laughingly thought about Lebron leaving his hometown Cavaliers for the money. Villian would’ve been too kind a word for Lebron in footy culture.

Learning more by the day, fascinating to learn something from scratch like this, even if it is just sports.