Candles Bring Light to Earlier Dawn Service
BY JEM ANSHAW
The earlier start for the Muswellbrook Anzac Day Dawn Service didn’t deter attendees, with around 1000 people gathering at the Cenotaph last Tuesday morning.
The Muswellbrook RSL Sub-branch made the decision to bring the service forward half an hour so formalities would still take place in darkness, this year with candles handed out.
Short services then took place at the Muswellbrook War Graves and the Vietnam Memorial.
Moving forward a few hours and the community gathered for the march and main service, which was attended by around 2,000 people.
It was an honour to have Leading Aircraftman Eugene Ramos, 2OCU RAAF Williamtown as the guest speaker for the service.
“It is right and proper that on Anzac Day we gather not only to honour the dead, but also to remember and renew the bonds that existed between them (soldiers) during war,” he said during his address.
“Anzac Day doesn’t have the same meaning for everybody. It can have a sense of grief, pride, triumph, tragedy, comradeship, conviviality, a sense of immeasurable personal loss, or religious sense and historic sense, a national sense. All those thoughts and feelings set in train by memories make up our National Day.”
No doubt many of these emotions were stirring throughout the crowd that included returned servicemen and women, loved ones of those returned and those who have not, currently serving defence force personnel from the School of Infantry Singleton, RAAF 2OCU from the RAAF Base Williamtown and the Royal Australian Navy Australian Clearance Diving Team 1, and the community showing their respects.
“While it is very fitting that we remember the dead and recapture old memories of Anzac Day, it is also important to remind ourselves of our responsibility to do all in our power to jealously and passionately guard the freedom which is retained for us at such a high cost,” he implored.
“It would be a national tragedy if the younger generation Australians ever grew cynical of the sacred celebrations of Anzac, we may not be called upon to die for our country, as did those whom we commemorate today. But we are called upon to do perhaps a harder thing to live so that Australia’s national and moral life may flourish, to live as to promote all that is highest and most sacred in the life of our nation.”