Reflecting on Anzac Day Dawn Service

By Warren Nunn

For more than 100 years, Australians have been gathering in multiple locations on Anzac Day,  April 25, to remember those who served our nation.

Initially it was to honour those who fell in World War 1, particularly on the beaches of Gallipoli.

I joined several thousand others at Brisbane’s seaside suburb of Sandgate to quietly contemplate the sacrifice and service that so many made and continue to make.

Having just written an article about Anzac Day for radio station 96five, the focus of which was my Uncle Arnold, this year took on renewed significance.

Respect for those who served and died

Remembering those who fell is all about respect. Very few people are put into a position where they have to fight to survive and/or protect their loved ones.

To do so voluntarily for your country should cause us all to be so grateful.

If others felt as I do, then it was gratitude and respect I saw in many faces.

It was so quiet that the caw of a raucous crow was an unwelcome intrusion on the one hand, but a comforting reminder of our land on the other.

Simple but appropriate service

The Sandgate gathering was simple and appropriate with a lovely rendition of The Band Played Waltzing Matilda, which is a poignant and moving tribute to both those who died and survived.

The audio that follows is from the service. Despite how far away I was from the performer, his voice is clearly heard.

 

A line in this song echoes what I too once thought, “and the young people ask what are they marching for?”

I have since learnt why veterans and so many others get out in public, attend services, march in parades or otherwise mark the day.

It has everything to do with honouring those who made the ultimate sacrifice.

Those lines taken from Robert Laurence Binyon’s poem For the Fallen, so powerfully sum it up:

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.