Up at 4.30am. And it’s my birthday. But I would not want to miss the privilege of attending ANZAC Day, Australia’s national day of commemoration for those who have sacrificed their lives serving Australia, in many conflicts over the years since the Gallipoli landings began 97 year ago today.
The Australian War Memorial is one of Canberra’s greatest treasures. It is a fitting backdrop for the moving dawn service and subsequent formal wreath laying ceremony and march past by veterans. Each country commemorates its war dead in slightly different ways, although with equal dignity. As I laid the British wreath I noted that the poppies we use on Remembrance Day in Britain to evoke the WW1 battlegrounds of Flanders are a little different from the New Zealand ones. And many Australian attendees were wearing a sprig of the herb rosemary for remembrance.
Whenever I attend remembrance services, I’m always reminded of what King George V said when he opened the Tyne Cot war graves in Flanders in 1922 “I have many times asked myself whether there can be more potent advocates of peace upon earth through the years to come than this massed multitude of silent witnesses to the desolation of war.”
Prime Minister Julia Gillard wasn’t in Canberra this year, she was actually at Gallipoli in Turkey, where she movingly described the ANZACs as “our first act of nationhood in the eyes of a watching world, an act authored not by statesmen or diplomats, but by simple soldiers.” This is a sentiment widely shared by Australian people, as can be seen by the strong public support for the Diggers currently serving in Afghanistan alongside comrades from Britain and other allies.
Paul
A former soldier with 24 years active service behind me, I have always attended the dawn service here in Cyprus, as does the High Commssioner.
The early rise and the coolness of the morning is invigorating. The ceremony is undertaken at the British Miliatary Cemetary, Wayne’s Keep, in the Buffer Zone where few can get to see, accept on this day and our own rememberance day. But it is also a time when the Turkish Army allow freedom of access to us who wish to remember. There are 6 Australian/New Zealand forces personnel laid to rest here amongst our own and it is humbling to be able to be part of such a poignant service of rememberance.
The Australian contingent of AUSCIVPOL from the UNFICYP ensure that each time the service is truly remembered.
On a lighter note, it always seems that when we have this service that following this there is the traditional gunfire breakfast, and then it seems over the past 4 years I have attended, that I sit with these Australians watching cricket, and drinking beer, making new friends and feeling a big part of their day of rememberance!
May all forces be it our own and other nations remain safe in their duties.