ANZAC memories

My family has a military tradition as do many Australian families. My childhood memories are strong with attendances at ANZAC Day parades and dawn services. As an adult living in Canberra my best memory of a dawn service was around this reflection pool at the Australian War Memorial..

That was in the days when only a few hundred people turned up. Now there are thousands and it has to be held outside.

I grew up knowing the excerpt from the poem For the Fallen by Laurence Binyon (1869 - 1943), that is always recited on this day that commemorates Australian and New Zealand soldiers who landed on the beach at Gallipolli in Turkey on 25 April 1915...

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.

...which always ends with everyone saying 'lest we forget'. 
I have my mother's photo album that she lovingly compiled when her father returned from the Middle East at the end of World War 2. 

It's old and battered just like it should be. My father served in the Army enlisting as a very young man and fought in Papua New Guinea...he still suffers from recurring bouts of malaria.  My sister was in the Army, her husband served in Vietnam...twice, I was in the Army but thankfully long before the time women were allowed to serve in combat zones. I wouldn't want either of my children placed in harm's way like that but I honour and respect those who do, today, yesterday and unfortunately tomorrow. 

But...I need to put that outside and go and clean up from last night's dinner party...oh you should see the mess... and make some ANZAC biscuits for the first born...she insists and who am I to argue!