The 32-year-old logistics specialist, who is sitting this one out on medical advice as she is four-and-a-half months pregnant, has the mother of all war stories however.

Her husband, an army major she had met in 2008, proposed in Tarin Kowt in 2012.

Patrick Foxley, a public servant who spent more than seven months in the United Arab Emirates and Afghanistan in 2012 and 2013 helping co-ordinate the Australian withdrawal from Uruzgan, will be marching.

The 30-year-old, who has now signed up with the Sydney University Regiment Officer Cadet Company, has welcomed the chance to march down Anzac Parade watched by his wife and son.

He is one of 294 civilian staff who served in the UAE and Afghanistan as part of Operation Slipper, the name the Australian Defence Force gave to its longest war.

"I am proud of the service I was able to give and the work of my peers," he said.

Both agree Australia has learnt much from the Vietnam War experience. That national welcome home parade wasn't held until 1987, 15 years after Gough Whitlam withdrew the last troops in December 1972.

Squadron Leader Simond said her engagement was the highlight of an affair to remember.

"We overlapped by a number of weeks on our last deployments together (in 2012)," she said. "It was my first visit to Tarin Kowt and he managed to find a quiet 10 minutes. He framed it as a base familiarisation tour."

Her husband, who can't be named for security reasons, found a quiet spot on a hill overlooking the base runway.

"It was `this is this, this is that, there's the township in the distance'. It was probably as romantic as TK gets," she said.

The RAAF officer did not keep her soldier waiting for an answer. "Of course not. He was armed," she said. "I was very, very surprised, but very happy to say yes."

Both Mr Foxley and Squadron Leader Simonds believe the work they did as individuals and the collective efforts of the 15,000 plus men and women who served made a difference.

Mr Foxley highlighted reconstruction and development work in Uruzgan as game changers for the local community.

Squadron Leader Simonds, who also worked on the planning for the withdrawal, fondly remembers her work with the Orions in 2007. "Every night I would watch P-3s take off and think to myself `we achieved something today'."

Mr Foxley said being away from people you loved and cared about was the hardest thing despite Skype, email and phones. Even work brought a sense of geographical isolation.

"All the people I need to speak to were in Australia, Afghanistan and Europe," he said. "You are working around different time zones and with time lags of up to 15 seconds on phone calls."

One thing he didn't have to worry about was put downs by the uniformed personnel.

"When I first arrived some people would ask `what is a civilian doing in a war zone?'. After I explained I was there to allow the war fighters to fight I was well accepted."

Saturday's March will begin at 9.30am at the lake end of Anzac Parade.

The Prime Minister, Tony Abbott, will be receiving the parade and then, during the memorial service, the Chief of the Defence Force, the Prime Minister, the Leader of the Opposition and the ACT Chief Minister will be delivering speeches.

Welcome home marches will also be held in Brisbane, Melbourne, Sydney, Darwin, Perth, Townsville and Adelaide.