Diggers show spirit as they relive agonies and remember their fallen comrades Catch up: Chief Petty Officer Chris Wright, right, and Gavin Stevens. The most powerful stories of war and its impact don't emerge during the Anzac Day dawn service - moving as it is - or the proud march down Sydney's main drag. The real tales are told when the Diggers reach the pub. It's here - in a harbourside bar packed with beer-soaked sailors - that former navy diver Gavin "Rocket" Stevens recalls an Anzac Day exactly 10 years ago in the southern Iraqi port of Umm Qasr. Gavin Stevens when serving. Having reached the rank of chief petty officer in the navy clearance divers' unit, and with 14 years' experience under his belt, Rocket celebrated Anzac Day 2003 with a cloud of responsibility hanging over him. "There was quite a lot on my mind - trying not to blow anyone up for a start," he says wryly. When you say diver, people just think you're just in the water, but we dealt with explosive ordnance devices wherever they are - land or water. Fewer marchers: A veteran in the Sydney parade. Just weeks into his three-month tour of Iraq, Rocket came face-to-face with one of the nastiest explosive devices around - a bomb that, had he taken another unguarded step, could have killed him and his team with an explosive force sufficient to demolish half a city block. The device was sensitive not only to touch but any metal that came within its vicinity. "I had to strip everything off except my shirt," he says. Placing a small explosive device centimetres from the bomb, Rocket picked his way through the maze of other explosive devices to a safe distance and completed a controlled detonation. The father of two says he managed to put this terrifying moment, and many others, behind him. But as the beer flows, it emerges that one of the men he served with during that tour was affected much more deeply. About a month ago, he took his own life. "I think what he saw and what he went through had a lot to do with it - along with a lot of other personal stuff," Rocket says. He was a brilliant guy - it just affects different people in different ways. There was little sense of the profound emotional impact of active duty on Australia's servicemen and women during Thursday's march. Much of the winding journey had the character of a celebration. The Diggers were greeted like rock stars as they turned off George Street towards Hyde Park - the older and more frail, the bigger the cheer - and several of the marching bands have added contemporary songs and rock beats to their musical repertoire. "It's a big day for the family - it's a huge celebration," said Roy Sommerville as he accompanied his 82-year-old father, who served on HMAS Murchison as a stoker during the Korean War. The number of marchers was down by about 2000, according to the NSW RSL, with 15,784 servicemen and women, and descendants of those who are no longer alive, making the journey. The RSL puts this down to the natural attrition of those who served and the growing tendency of some to take part in services closer to home. The dawn service drew a healthy crowd of 20,000 out into the chilly autumn air. "There is a phenomenon that younger people still in very active careers, with sort of the here-and-now pressing in on them, probably take a few years to gear up into what I might call the memorial mood," former defence force chief Peter Cosgrove said. I noticed after Vietnam that it took a few years for generations of Vietnam vets to solidify around Anzac Day but, as you can see now, a huge number of the veterans who will march today are actually the ageing Vietnam vets like myself. So I just think to myself that there's not anything other than a bit of time pressure on the youngsters, but they will come. He also predicted "immense" crowds of up to 100,000 in Sydney's central business district for the 2015 Anzac Day centenary. Yet, no matter how many take or watch the long walk from Martin Place to Hyde Park, it will always be around the bar and two-up games that the true Diggers' spirit is most clearly on show. "It's your chance to let it all out," Rocket says. You can say whatever you want about what you've seen, what you've done and you know your mates will understand.