Anzac Day is not merely a date or some remote campaign but rather a spirit.
It is a time to reflect on the qualities of past generations of Australians who in hardship displayed courage, discipline, self sacrifice, self reliance, resourcefulness and friendship.
Thousands gathered in the darkness, as the first light of dawn cracked the clear morning sky, to watch hundreds marching from the Miranda RSL to the Seymour Shaw Park Memorial.
Miranda RSL Sub-branch president, Mike Molloy, set the tone of the morning in his prologue saying: “The pride and grief of Australia following Gallipoli formed a bond so strong that it made a statement to the world that we had come of age and that our armed forces and our people were truly of one nation.”
The commemoration address was given by Warrant Officer Class one John Powell from the 17th Combat Service Support Brigade and as the morning dawned it was time to pause to remember that at the conclusion of the Great War a quarter of a million Australians from a nation of only 5 million had been casualties and 60,000 had been killed.
May we and our successors prove worthy of their sacrifice.