FED:Anzac Day dawn services stir emotions

AAP General News (Australia)
04-25-2011
FED:Anzac Day dawn services stir emotions

By Steve Gray, Michelle Draper, Max Blenkin, Tim Dornin, Patrick Caruana and Adam Gartrell

SYDNEY, April 25 AAP - Margaret Gunnell remembered her son. Lawrence Dempsey remembered
his mates. And Margaret Taylor, like thousands of other Australians, remembered the young
diggers who didn't make it home.

Ninety-six years after the Gallipoli landing and 88 years after the first Anzac Day
dawn service, tens of thousands of Australians turned out on cold mornings to honour the
more than 110,000 Australians who have died in conflicts around the world.

Grief mixed with pride for Margaret Gunnell as she attended Brisbane's Anzac dawn service,
the first since her son, commando Tim Aplin, was killed in Afghanistan.

Private Tim Aplin was serving with the Special Operations Task Group when he was killed
in a helicopter crash on June 21, 2010. Privates Benjamin Chuck and Scott Palmer were
also killed, and seven other Australians injured in the crash.

"I didn't ever imagine this would be happening to me, or to us, losing our boy," Ms
Gunnell said as she struggled to hold back tears.

"I really just wish I was here just as a person who came to feel for the Anzacs.

"I didn't quite feel that my son was going to be part of that group of people that
we're mourning.

"I'm extremely proud of him, and I miss him."

Lawrence Dempsey, now 82, was just 16 when he signed up for World War II, which took
him to Papua New Guinea to ward off the Japanese and later to the Korean War, where he
was a prisoner of war for almost a year.

Mr Dempsey, from Adelaide, rarely cries, but the service at Melbourne's Shrine of Remembrance
caused him to reflect.

"It brings back a lot of sad memories," he says, his voice cracking.

"The dawn service is a happy moment and a sad moment."

At the main ceremony at the Australian War Memorial in Canberra, RAAF chaplain Wing
Commander Mark Willis told the 20,000-strong crowd that they were paying tribute to those
who put freedom for others before their own interests.

Wing Commander Willis said unlike other nations where monuments honoured great statesmen,
Australia's monuments honoured a dog on a tuckerbox and in numerous towns, a soldier on
a cenotaph.

"Just ordinary people doing their job, ordinary men and women who were prepared to
make personal sacrifices for the freedom and quality of life that we enjoy today," he
said.

Margaret Taylor was one who remembered, although she is not the relative of a digger
and knows nobody killed in war.

Nonetheless, Ms Taylor was crying for the young Aussies who never made it back.

"These men were barely out of their teens and they made the ultimate sacrifice," she
told AAP after the service at Sydney's Martin Place, where thousands - including Australia's
latest Victoria Cross recipient Corporal Ben Roberts-Smith - turned out despite pouring
rain.

"Can you imagine the horror they endured? The terror ... would have been something
we will hopefully never experience.

"And we have them to thank for that."

In Adelaide, people were called on to also remember those killed in training, preparing
to face the enemy, including Lance Corporal Mason Edwards who was preparing for his third
deployment to Afghanistan when he was killed in a live firing exercise near Port Augusta
in 2009.

"You will not find the names of these men and many like them on the honour roll of
the Australian War Memorial but their loss is, quite simply, in our service or as a direct
consequence of it," Anzac Day committee chairman Bill Denny said.

"Corporal Edwards' mother has expressed her sadness and disappointment.

"She said that her son made the ultimate sacrifice for his country and she worries
that in time his nation may forget him."

He also called for recognition of service-related mental illness which he said took
a huge and increasing toll on veterans and created a "moral, physical and emotional burden"

for all.

The crowd at Hobart's Anzac Day dawn service has been asked to remember those who perished
in natural disasters in the past year.

Fahan High School student Heather Johns said it was also important to remember the
victims of more recent tragedies around the globe, including the tsunami in Japan and
the Queensland floods.

"It is important that we pause in our daily lives to acknowledge the hardships others
are experiencing and even to acknowledge our own luck."

In Perth, young families and veterans gathered to show their respect on Anzac Day.

Prime Minister Julia Gillard led the service at the South Korean War Memorial in Seoul,
Governor-General Quentin Bryce attended a service at Hellfire Pass in Thailand, and, later
on Monday, services will be held in London, Gallipoli and Villers Bretonneux.

New Zealanders have also commemorated the day, with dawn services across the country.

The dawn services will be followed by Anzac Day marches around Australia.

AAP jlw/mm/jsh

KEYWORD: ANZAC DAWN WRAP

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