Think of them now

Anzac Day - Dawn Service 25/4/10

Ninety-five years after the Gallipoli landing we remember...

I've just arrived home from the Anzac Day Dawn Service. It’s warm and overcast, and in town it’s foggy. I thought I could get a nice photo of sunrise on Anzac Day, but it was not to be.

The crowd at the Dawn Service was great to see. It's a small country town and there were easily over 100 people there.

The homily was wonderful. The Reverened spoke of love, and what it is, and how a special love of comrades and country is what has given us our freedoms, and that such hard-won, costly freedoms should not easily be given away. I’m going to see if I can get it, but I suspect it was only with a few notes and “off the cuff”.

I should carry a notebook with me, to write down my thoughts.

After the Dawn Service the local RSL hosts a Gunfire Breakfast. At the breakfast all serving and ex service members are welcome to eat a breakfast prepared and supplied by the local Lions group. Bacon, eggs, snags, baked beans, bread, tea, coffee, rum. Yes, rum. It is a tradition that rum is provided for addition to coffee for/with breakfast after the Dawn Service.

Reading some of the information in the links I provided yesterday about Anzac Day I was surprised to see that Australia is unusual in its War memorials and commemorations as we not only remember the dead, but celebrate and honour those who came back. British War Memorials are only dedicated to those who fell. In Australia any town which had representatives in any war has a war memorial.

Pearl Harbour - 7 December 1941

I've been to Pearl Harbour.
That's how I remember.

Please visit my friend KC's blog and Remember Pearl Harbour.

Eight years ago I was awakened

Brisbane Australia. 11 September 2001 11:00:00pm
New York USA. 11 September 2001 9:00:00am

Looking at the clock now I remember that evening eight years ago.

Changing the channel to see the late news at 11pm, not the usual evening viewing for me, I was usually in bed by 10:30pm, I was shocked to see the most frightening vision.

What was playing on the television was not the news. Mesmerising in its horror, I watched one of the Twin Towers burning.

Hoping it was some movie short promoting a new release I watched, glued to the screen until sometime after midnight. It was too horrible to contemplate. I watched as the second plane flew into the tower.



I can not begin to imagine the horror those people experienced before they perished.

I can not begin to imagine the pain of their loved ones - no one I knew was in the tragedy which will forever be called 9/11, although a work mate had a nephew who worked in the WTC, he wasn't at work that day for some reason. He was safe.

WTC Some old photos of my father's. I must find that post about remembering what has been lost.