Scaces Place

Lest We Forget - Dawn Service

It was ANZAC day on Saturday and Stu, Roberts and I made the early start to the Australian War Memorial for the dawn service. The weather was not great and the ACT was welcoming in winter with snow in the alps and wind and rain in Canberra but it was definitely worth the early start and conditions to go to the service, which was quite a surreal experience and I recommend to all those that can make the effort to attend a dawn service. In the dark there was thousands of people standing around and when the announcement was made that the service was due to start in 5 minutes the crowd was silent from then on and throughout the service. The clouds parted for the service, the morning star glowed bright notifying of the impending dawn and cockatoos and magpies roused from there nests to make for an exceptional morning. the sun rose after the service as we walked down memorial ave towards our car and really made me think of what had been sacrificed by so many.

I can not do write as well as many so have included a famous poem composed by Wilfred

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped⁵ Five-Nines that dropped behind.

Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.