Lest We Forget

I got up extra early today to make my way up to Kings Park here in Perth to observe the ANZAC Day dawn service.

It's the most beautiful setting with the State War Memorial standing silhouetted against the scarp with the sun rising over it, washing the memorial in that lovely pinkish-goldish dawn light, with the lights of Perth city shining behind it. The memorial is constructed so that as the sun rises, it shines into the memorial crypt below the monument, where the names of the lost are recorded. I'm not sure if that was the plan when they built it, but it's quite a lovely thought that those names are bathed in the early morning light every day. I didn't take a photo of the sunrise as I believe it's disrespectful to hear shutters clicking and see flashes going off at sombre occasions such as this.

Also, I think it's amazing how very, very quiet thousands of people can be when the moment requires it. You could almost hear a pin drop this morning when the wreathes were being laid.

The most lovely speech was given by one of the local Army Commanders - unfortunately I can't recall his name, but the words that he spoke really made me think (even more so than previous years) about the spirit of the ANZAC's and the effect that it had on our country at the time.

Thinking about ANZAC Day always makes me a little emotional. I'm not sure why - I didn't really have family that was directly impacted by WWI. WWII is a different matter - that did have an impact on both sides of my family for combatants and non-combatants (but that's another story). It was always a very serious thing for me, growing up as I did in town of Albany on the South Coast of WA. Albany being the place from which the first and second ANZAC troop convoys left from and also the location of the first ever dawn service. Perhaps this historical aspect is just ingrained in my subconscious.

The sound of the bugle playing the last post is almost always guaranteed to make me cry, and even now typing this up I still feel a bit teary. Heaven forbid someone should break out that song, I think it's called "I Was Only 19". They played a rap mash-up of that song on the radio this morning when I was driving in for the service, and although it was good, I simply had to change the station...

I think what sets me off is the thought of all those wasted lives and opportunities. How so many sacrificed the most important thing - their own lives - so that I and my parents, grandparents, aunts, uncles, nieces, possible future children can all live and enjoy the life that we have. How so many young men lied about their ages to go off and have what they thought was going to be a great adventure, but which turned out to be possibly the greatest horror they ever witnessed. How they must have felt knowing that they might never see their family again in far away Australia; that the guy next to them - very likely a good mate - might not survive the day; that they themselves might not see another sunrise...

And the sacrifice continued on after WWI and continues on today.

For that sacrifice, I thank all those brave men (and women) who lost their own most precious lives and those that are risking their lives now so that we can live a free and wonderful life.

I saw this wonderful, beautiful, poignant poem in our local WA Newspaper earlier this week. It was penned by Ken Bunker, and I think that it is just wonderful so I hope that he does not mind that I have reproduced it here.

A Tribute to ANZAC Day
With their hair a little whiter,

their step not quite so sure

Still they march on proudly

as they did the year before.

Theirs were the hands that saved us,

their courage showed the way

Their lives they laid down for us,

that we may live today.

From Gallipoli’s rugged hillsides,

to the sands of Alamein

On rolling seas and in the skies,

those memories will remain.

Of airmen and the sailors,
of Lone Pine and Suvla Bay
The boys of the Dardenelles
are remembered on this day.

They fought their way through jungles,
their blood soaked desert sands
They still remember comrades
who rest in foreign lands.

They remember the siege of old Tobruk,
the mud of the Kokoda Trail
Some paying the supreme sacrifice
with courage that did not fail.

To the icy land of Korea,
the steamy jungles of Vietnam
And the heroic battle of Kapyong
and that epic victory at Long Tan.

Fathers, sons and brothers,
together they fought and died
That we may live in peace together,
while at home their mothers cried.

When that final bugle calls them
to cross that great divide
Those comrades will be waiting
when they reach the other side.

LEST WE FORGET.