[Special] ANZAC Day Commemorations 2021

Today we observe ANZAC Day, an important occasion for both Australia and New Zealand. It is a time to remember those who lost the lives in wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations and the contribution and suffering of all those who have served, ensuring the safety of their fellow countrymen.

This year we reached out to ANZ Community Contributor Ziggy on what ANZAC Day means to him.

My ANZAC day

Wherever I am on April the 25th I will make the dawn service my priority to commemorate and remember this man.

He was not a hero by the Nation's standard but he was my father and my hero.

He survived the war but carried scars, both physical and emotional, through the rest of his life.

He battled his demons throughout his life and never spoke of his time in service, except on ANZAC day when he was with his mates and remembering their mates who did not make it back.

He led an unremarkable life but, to me and his family, he was a remarkable man.

Every year, I try to make it back to my hometown, his resting place, Yungaburra and attend the dawn service at the Afghanistan Avenue of Honour that commemorates the fallen in Afghanistan.

In a way that completes a circle for me, remembering my old man, a World War Two serviceman, on a day of remembrance at a place that commemorates our recent fallen heroes.

If I am in Yungaburra on ANZAC day, my ritual is the dawn service and then a visit to the Yungaburra Cemetery to sit with my dad, have a rum and milk, or two, talk to him and just remember him.

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.

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