Sunday, April 27th, 2008
I was up at 4.14 am on the 25th. And like about 50,000 others I went down to the Shrine of Remembrance on St Kilda Road for the annual Dawn Service of Remembrance. It is very moving and is an emotionally highly charged half an hour as the dawn slowly breaks. It dates back 93 years to the beaches of Gallipoli were 12, 000 Australian, 3,000 New Zealand soldiers (and 85,000 Turks too) were killed in a futile attempt to establish a bridge head in northern Turkey. It now commemorates all those Australian and New Zealand men and women who died in all conflicts since then.
This photo was taken as the crowds dispersed.
If you want a flavour of Gallipoli, then this letter from the front is extraordinarily powerful.
The service helps us all make some kind of meaning with something meaningless and connects us across the decades with people whose lives never grew into fulfillment. A great morning.