In 2008 Mr Bale's close friend, Lieutenant Michael Fussell, was killed in a bomb blast while serving with the Australian Defence Force in Afghanistan.

The pair had known each other since they were classmates at The Armidale School.

In the wake of his friend's death, Mr Bale co-founded the Soldier On charity to help those struggling with the same feelings of devastation and despair.

"Michael and I went to school together and joined up with the army together," he said.

"Eventually we went into different corps, Michael went into artillery and I went into signals.

"I had actually just got back from Afghanistan after he had been deployed there, and I found out he had been killed.

"I was unashamedly shattered by that. And so were we all. It really impacted a lot of people."

In the years following Lt Fussell's death, Mr Bale took up a role within the Australian Defence Force's operations command.

It was this experience that finally convinced him and colleague Calvin Wilson an organisation such as Soldier On was desperately needed.

"I didn't fully understand the complexities of Afghanistan and Iraq and peacekeeping until I got to Joint Operations Command," Mr Bale said.

"I could see that my mates were going through certain things, being shot at and picking dead bodies out of the water. 

"And at the time, we also weren't talking about the people around them who were impacted by the service."

On Monday, the charity marked five years to the day since it was co-founded by Mr Bale, Mr Wilson and psychologist Dr Danielle Clout in 2012.

Today, the charity operates recovery centres in Canberra, Sydney, Melbourne and Perth, while supporting close to 500 veterans in their search for employment.

"The choice to set it up the day before Anzac Day was deliberate," Mr Bale said.

"We decided that if we were going to do it, we should set it up around the time where Australia is thinking about veterans. 

"We wanted to highlight that there were a new generation of veterans coming in, and they needed to be part of the Anzac story as well."

It had not always been plain sailing, Mr Bale said, but the memory of his friend "Fuss" kept him motivated in tough times. 

"It's always been about those values, the sorts of things that Fuss would have wanted," Mr Bale said.

"It's about his memory and what he stood for. And that was friendship and doing whatever he could for others."

David Savage was wounded in a suicide bomb blast in 2012 while working in Afghanistan for the Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade. 

Friendships and support aside, he said Soldier On had helped to make him feel "useful" again. 

"I was one of the first couple of people that they reached out to," he said.

"John met with my son and then he came to visit me in the hospital. As a civilian you think that maybe there isn't the same sense of camaraderie that perhaps you get in the military.

"But Soldier On has connected me and my family to others who have had the same kind of experiences.

"They've also had me giving talks and things like that. I think it's a really incredible organisation."