Anzac Day 2014: Lest we forget

On Anzac Day, we commemorate the lives of our military personnel and all the sacrifices they made on our behalf whilst serving in times of conflict. The men and women of our nation who laid down their lives in the line of duty should never be forgotten.

We should also pause to remember not only those who served, but their families as well, as the sacrifices and heroism of our military personnel affected not only their lives, but those of their children, partners, parents, and extended kin.

The Western Australian poet “Dryblower” Murphy once wrote

They have gone in the crowded transports,
They have fought the fight – and fell;
They have felt on their fevered faces
Draughts from the deeps of hell.
Thinned by the hidden horror,
Drowned in the shot-swept blue,
They have closed up the gaps of glory,
Steadied, and thundered through.
And into that mounded country
Where the work of war was done,
Where the blood-red trenches blur and blend.
With no wav’ring, weak’ning sigh I send
My son,
My son.

Lest we forget.