Lieutenant Stan Watson, my great grandfather, was one of those who left from Albany, cooped up in the old steam transport ship, the Karroo, slowest vessel of the fleet. Over the last four decades, I've traced his experience from listening to his own story, from reading his written account of the campaign, speaking with other family members and researching the historical archives. When Watson spoke, it was with a clarity of mind and a fierce conviction that remains a part of who I would like to be.

Some things he told me I will never forget. On the overnight train from his home in Adelaide to visit us in Melbourne, he would shave at dawn using a cutthroat razor. Yet to grow a beard, I was aghast that a man would hold a lethal blade to his own throat every day, let alone on a rocking train at the age of 90.  Later on, in the caption of a photo in the Australian War Memorial, I learned that Watson and his fellow officers had had a bet over who could grow the best beard by the time they got to Constantinople. They never made it that far. Instead, Australia held a razor to its own throat on the jagged coast of Gallipoli.

In following one man's journey, I came to understand many sides to the war. Abject boredom was interrupted by occasional battles. Shrapnel and snipers competed with dysentery and other disease to inflict huge casualties. Outdated attack strategies by soldiers in wool tunics marching with rifles across the battlefield, were no match for the brutal new technologies of machine guns and barbed wire. Communications, engineering and transport, whole civilian economies and endless bureaucracy were essential to getting each soldier to the frontline. Thousands of soldiers returned from the war damaged men. Sadly, the tragic realities of war remain largely unchanged.

To understand Watson's story, I contacted current veterans. One young major, a signalman, had returned from multiple tours of duty in Afghanistan. He told me of the shock of battle as well as the now routine shock of returning home. From his time under fire it was clear no two soldiers' account of one battle are the same. Then each time they tell their story it changes ever so slightly, and with it their memory of the story itself. We'll never have a rigid grasp of Australia's Gallipoli history. Instead we'll feel the grains of each story slip through, hopefully passing to the next generation as they fall.

Mateship was made among the Anzacs. Men from all round Australasia came together as a national force in Egypt and realised how much they had in common. Mateship was used in many ways, often to maintain morale above and beyond the call of duty. But Anzacs, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Senegalese did not go over the top to face certain death for God or King or Country. They went into battle for their mates; their mates became the mission. Just as the Turks and Germans went over the top for their mates. Our memories of Gallipoli must concede that war made, used and abused mateship. Only then can we craft modern forms of mateship that serve our true needs.

In the 1960s and 1970s the commemoration of Anzac day was largely shunned. In more recent years a hagiography has enveloped the national moment. Our understanding of our history must continue to evolve. Each generation must decide for themselves what many different things Gallipoli means for Australia, now and into the future.

Watson's single, humble claim was to have been the second last Anzac to have stepped from the shores of Gallipoli. In the last moments of the remarkable evacuation, Watson was furious that the Anzacs detonated the vast explosive mines under The Nek, needlessly killing more than 70 Turks and endangering the Anzacs yet to get away. Instead he had hoped the Anzacs would escape and the Turks wake up the next morning home free.  Anzac Day celebrates the failed landings of the Anzacs and marks our invasion of Turkish land. December 20, 2015, marks the centenary of the remarkable exodus of the Anzacs from the fatal shores of Gallipoli and the moment when the Turks repatriated part of their homeland. We need to mark Anzac Night, a modest memory of when night fell on enemies and dawn rose on freedom.

Australia is committing over $300 million in commemoration of Gallipoli, by some estimates more than double all the other countries combined. Much of this has been devoted to yet more marble and monuments. We run the risk of using history to look backwards not to our future, of repeating past mistakes. Instead we should continue to build a practical, living tribute to Gallipoli.  We need diverse, active memories of our history and the capacity to make them relevant to contemporary Australia. We need a commitment to learn from our war history and insist on a better, more peaceful future. Finally, we need to honour the fallen and those who lived and continued to suffer with a fully funded Anzac trust to ensure that no Australian serviceman or woman goes untreated for the physical and mental costs of war.

Joshua Funder is the author of Watson's Pier (MUP) www.watsonspier.com