OVERSEEING Australian army operations in Afghanistan and other dangerous places, Lieutenant General Ash Power knows first-hand the ongoing, devastating consequences of war.
In his time as Chief of Joint Operations, 18 Australian soldiers have died in Afghanistan with many others wounded.
General Power will lead the Call to Remembrance at the Anzac Day dawn service in Villers-Bretonneux in France on Friday and, like so many, he has a close personal connection to the area.
His grandfather Hab Power fought on the Western Front in World War I and General Power said Anzac Day was a time to honour diggers past and present.
"If you look back to attrition warfare, the trench warfare of the First World War, thank heavens we've moved a long way from that," General Power told AAP on Thursday.
"But it's still traumatic, and each of these people we lose is a human being.
"Each of them have mums and dads, brothers and sisters, some have their own kids and the loss is significant for each of those families.
"Thankfully the scale has changed but it is a time to not only remember those remarkable generations of the two world wars but to remember the ultimate sacrifice made by so many up to today."
This is the first Anzac Day since Australia started pulling out of Afghanistan, where 40 Australian solders have died since 2001.
But General Power said the Australian Defence Force would remain busy and Australians continued to risk their lives every day in minor operations at places such as Golan Heights, the Sinai Peninsula and South Sudan.
General Power has also overseen the ADF's role in the search for the missing plane MH370, a task he will resume after Anzac Day.
He admitted he wasn't optimistic that an end to the search was in sight.
"The Indian Ocean is huge and if someone's done this deliberately to try and hide it, it's probably the best place on the surface of the earth to do it," he said.
"It's really remote and very difficult. There's not much going for us but we'll continue to work at it for a little while yet."
Foreign minister Julie Bishop will also attend Friday's ceremony in France.
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