What does a homecoming look like for today's soldier?
For some modern Afghanistan veterans - faces amid the throng of carefree tourists at an airport arrival hall - there is persistent loneliness.
While there is no malice towards the recently returned, Soldier On co-founder John Bale said few Australians understood what modern veterans had experienced.
"If you came back from World War II for example, the entire society knew what you went through," Mr Bale said. 
"Everyone knew, because everyone lived it, because the whole country was at war.
"With what we've been through recently, the whole country hasn't been at war ... It's not through malice or anything, but there's a significant divide."
Like the generations before them, many of today's returned soldiers are facing enormous challenges adapting back to everyday life.
Forty-one Australians serving in the Australian Defence Force were killed in Afghanistan after troops were dispatched in 2001, but since 2000 at least 246 serving or former defence personnel have taken their own lives.
"If you look at the numbers, there were 261 people that were physically wounded in Afghanistan, which is a lot of people," Mr Bale said.
"But we are looking at thousands who have been affected psychologically, including through post-traumatic stress disorder, depression and anxiety."
Afghanistan veteran Michael Williams, 30, is one of those who returned from his overseas deployment with both physical and mental injuries that took hold as soon as he had a chance to switch off the intense focus required to be a leader in a war zone.
The former officer worked in force protection, which meant he took part in regular foot patrols that would often venture into hostile territory.
"The large threat was one you couldn't see," Mr Williams said.
"As you know through the battle casualties, improvised explosive devices played a huge part. And most of our patrols were dismounted patrols, so we always had that in the back of our minds."
There was also the trauma of constantly being exposed to the unnecessary suffering of others.
Mr Bale has a word for it: "moral injury", defined loosely as the damage that comes from witnessing things that go against one's basic values. Extreme poverty is something many visitors to third-world would have wrestled with, but Mr Bale said it took on a different dimension in Afghanistan "when you recognise the amount of time, money, blood spilt in that country".
Many also struggled witnessing the abuse of children and "green on blue" attacks when members of the Taliban infiltrated the Afghan National Army.
After experiencing these extremes, it is perhaps no surprise that returning veterans can feel a deep sense of isolation from their communities, or even their family.
Mr Bale said it is this disconnection that Soldier On wants to address and on Sunday the non-profit organisation launched Melbourne's first "reintegration centre" in Parkville, offering employment assistance, psychology sessions, recovery activities and other services to veterans and their families.
Mr Williams - who joined the army at 17 and before being given a medical discharge had believed he'd serve out his career there - said the centre's art classes had helped him move on. "The art expressed some of the emotions I found too hard to give words," he said.
More than 26,000 Australian soldiers served in Afghanistan between 2001 and 2014 - Australia's longest war.