This Saturday is ANZAC day, a chance to take a moment and remember that all the freedoms we enjoy today are a result of the men and women who fought to provide them for us over the last 100 years. ANZAC Day is also the epitome of what it means to be Australian: pride, courage, mateship, and everything I am offered simply by being lucky enough to call this beautiful country home.
I think if there is one thing that unites all Australian’s like nothing else, it’s the spirit of the ANZAC. In recent weeks, it’s never been clearer to me how much the ANZAC spirit is still very much alive in everyday Australians… It’s in the #illridewithyou campaigns… It’s in the man who stopped to help me collect my textbooks after they slipped out of my hands on the way to the bus stop… It’s in the Palm Sunday marches for refugee rights, and it’s in the nation-wide celebrations after the boys won the Cricket World Cup.
As someone who has never fought in a war (and who hopefully never will) it’s difficult to put into words the immense gratitude, and respect I have for those men and women who sacrificed their own lives for the sake of all Australians, and the generations of Aussies to come.
It’s a debt that we can never repay, but one that we must always remember and commemorate by attending the services, by observing the minute of silence, and, most importantly, by ensuring that the ANZAC spirit never fades, because we let it live on through our own actions.
Lest we forget.
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Click here for more information on this Saturday’s ANZAC ceremonies.
