For as long as I can remember — I'm the proud son of a Vietnam Veteran — I've attended an ANZAC Day Dawn Service on April 25, each year.
My ritual begins each morning with waking up well before dawn, and getting ready while listening to the Dawn Service live from Sydney's Martin Place. If I close my eyes, the voice of the long-time master of ceremonies is as clear as crystal in my mind. I know the hymns and anthems by heart.
And there, and an hour or so later at the local Dawn Service I attend, the ANZAC Dedication is read:
At this hour, on this day, ANZAC received its baptism of fire and became one of the immortal names in history. We who are gathered here think of the comrades who went out with us to battle but did not return. We feel them still near us in spirit. We wish to be worthy of their great sacrifice. Let us, therefore, once again dedicate ourselves to the service of the ideals for which they died. As the dawn is even now about to pierce the night, so let their memory inspire us to work for the coming of the new light into the dark places of the world.
It is, for me, the embodiment of the commemoration. It speaks to what we remember. It reminds us of what we commemorate. And it calls us, in the spirit of those ANZAC diggers and their spiritual descendants from all wars, to work for a brighter future.
It surpasses politics. It doesn't get bogged down in ideology. It is the human spirit, called to its highest and most noble place.
Commemoration, then, is not a political act. It's not reliant on our view of the conflict itself or whether we agree with with the rights and wrongs of policy. It is a solemn recollection of the human cost of war, the courage and strength of those who put themselves in harm's way, and our duty to care for them upon their return — and the families of those who didn't return or have subsequently passed away.
A country owes no greater debt than to those who fought in its name. To commemorate the fallen and those who returned. To be worthy of their sacrifice.
This ANZAC Day, we remember those who served, suffered and died. Those who returned, but never quite came home. Those who took up arms, in our name, to do their duty for their country.
The Ode of Remembrance is the last verse of Binyan's poem, For The Fallen. The previous verse, often recited at Dawn Services, deserves reading alongside:
They went with songs to the battle, they were young,
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow,
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.
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.
LEST WE FORGET
