ANZAC Day: Remembering
On this day when the first ANZACs came ashore at Gallipoli in 1915, remembering the sacrifice of Australian and New Zealanders on many battlefields from Gallipoli to the Western Front and beyond.
It is apt to recall that sacrifice in the words of one of those original ANZACs who served at Gallipoli, Leon Gellert.
The Last to Leave
The guns were silent, and the silent hills
had bowed their grasses to a gentle breeze
I gazed upon the vales and on the rills,
And whispered, “What of these?’ and “What of these?
These long forgotten dead with sunken graves,
Some crossless, with unwritten memories
Their only mourners are the moaning waves,
Their only minstrels are the singing trees
And thus I mused and sorrowed wistfullyI watched the place where they had scaled the height,
The height whereon they bled so bitterly
Throughout each day and through each blistered night
I sat there long, and listened – all things listened too
I heard the epics of a thousand trees,
A thousand waves I heard; and then I knew
The waves were very old, the trees were wise:
The dead would be remembered evermore-
The valiant dead that gazed upon the skies,
And slept in great battalions by the shore.Leon Gellert, Australian Gallipoli veteran, 1924
New Zealanders in France 1918
Great War Photos 
as long as there are people like us, who value the sacrifice that was made by so many, and are willing to teach those that come after, I have the hope that the world will live in peace, a vain hope perhaps…but if enough people share the dream, who knows what we might accomplish…
04/08/2013 at 16:22
My father came over from Adelaide in !916 aged 18years and was severely wounded at Villers Bretonneux, Picardy. I often wonder when mankind will come to its senses and realise the total futility of war and the appalling consequences of their mindless action namely war.
09/08/2013 at 21:32