We gather in this solemn place, and we gather in peace.
Peace is not a given. For many across the world right now, it is tragically elusive.
We do not take peace for granted.
The peace that we gather in here today is the gift to us from generations of Australians who have taken up arms in our name.
It is a peace shared now with the places where so many of them fell.
Beaches where the waves roll in the sea’s eternal rhythm.
Meadows of flower and birdsong.
Places where there is little to hint at the killing fields they once were.
Yet they are mapped out in our hearts in an atlas of loss and sacrifice.
Places where mud and dust, jungle and ocean received the bodies of young Australians sent in our name.
We remember them – not just for their courage, even though there were times their courage was almost beyond our comprehension.
But we also remember their fear. The fear of young Australians far from home, confronting the unimaginable as it became reality.
We acknowledge the extraordinariness of what they did, but they were human beings of flesh and blood.
We remember them, every name, every face, every future changed forever, every future lost.
We remember all who served in our name – and all who serve now.
The great multitudes who were cast into the ranks of the unknown soldier as they were torn from life.
And those whose families were afforded that one slender consolation of knowing their earthly remains had been identified, and conveyed to their final rest.
Just one was Private Robert Edward McIntyre, a butcher from Horsham in Victoria. As the marker on his grave at Gallipoli tells us, he served in the 8th Battalion Australian Infantry.
Even the bare bones of what is carved into his tombstone is enough to make you pause.
His life ended on 7 August 1915, barely four months into the Gallipoli campaign. He was just 22.
But then you come to a solitary line, a message from his parents:
“How much of love and light and joy is buried with our darling boy.”
An entire eulogy in just 14 words.
The story of war is often painted on a large canvas, in broad brushstrokes of generals and battles, leaders and campaigns, the dead drawn together in a haze of numbers.
And so often it is framed in the rhetoric of nobility and sacrifice, lit up with the abiding resilience of the national spirit.
But how much of our national spirit is to be found on those modest tombstones like Private McIntyre’s, the scale of what Australia lost spelt out in expressions of grief and tenderness.
Personal universes of life and love and loss captured in the spare eloquence of a broken heart.
It’s captured in diary entries and in letters of reassurance and love to those at home – scraps of paper alive with voices laconic, lyrical, and plain-spoken alike.
Each year, as we gather in this place of memory, we strive to hear their voices still.
We gather amid all these names arrayed in constellations of grief that never fade and never set.
All who went in our name, and never came home.
Those who came home, but were unable to escape the shadow of what they’d seen.
And those who went to war and, having seen the worst that humanity is capable of, were forever guided by a sense that despite everything, the best of humanity is inextinguishable.
We have seen what horrors Australians have defeated. We have seen the difference Australians have made in the world. And the difference they continue to make.
We thank all serving members of the Australian Defence Force.
And we thank all veterans.
Just as they stepped up for us, we must step for them.
As we await the going down of the sun, we thank and pay tribute to them all.
We have faced moments when the light has seemed so very far away, but because of them, it is only nightfall that can ever gather us in darkness.
Lest we forget.
We gather in this solemn place, and we gather in peace.
Peace is not a given. For many across the world right now, it is tragically elusive.
We do not take peace for granted.
The peace that we gather in here today is the gift to us from generations of Australians who have taken up arms in our name.
It is a peace shared now with the places where so many of them fell.
Beaches where the waves roll in the sea’s eternal rhythm.
Meadows of flower and birdsong.
Places where there is little to hint at the killing fields they once were.
Yet they are mapped out in our hearts in an atlas of loss and sacrifice.
Places where mud and dust, jungle and ocean received the bodies of young Australians sent in our name.
We remember them – not just for their courage, even though there were times their courage was almost beyond our comprehension.
But we also remember their fear. The fear of young Australians far from home, confronting the unimaginable as it became reality.
We acknowledge the extraordinariness of what they did, but they were human beings of flesh and blood.
We remember them, every name, every face, every future changed forever, every future lost.
We remember all who served in our name – and all who serve now.
The great multitudes who were cast into the ranks of the unknown soldier as they were torn from life.
And those whose families were afforded that one slender consolation of knowing their earthly remains had been identified, and conveyed to their final rest.
Just one was Private Robert Edward McIntyre, a butcher from Horsham in Victoria. As the marker on his grave at Gallipoli tells us, he served in the 8th Battalion Australian Infantry.
Even the bare bones of what is carved into his tombstone is enough to make you pause.
His life ended on 7 August 1915, barely four months into the Gallipoli campaign. He was just 22.
But then you come to a solitary line, a message from his parents:
“How much of love and light and joy is buried with our darling boy.”
An entire eulogy in just 14 words.
The story of war is often painted on a large canvas, in broad brushstrokes of generals and battles, leaders and campaigns, the dead drawn together in a haze of numbers.
And so often it is framed in the rhetoric of nobility and sacrifice, lit up with the abiding resilience of the national spirit.
But how much of our national spirit is to be found on those modest tombstones like Private McIntyre’s, the scale of what Australia lost spelt out in expressions of grief and tenderness.
Personal universes of life and love and loss captured in the spare eloquence of a broken heart.
It’s captured in diary entries and in letters of reassurance and love to those at home – scraps of paper alive with voices laconic, lyrical, and plain-spoken alike.
Each year, as we gather in this place of memory, we strive to hear their voices still.
We gather amid all these names arrayed in constellations of grief that never fade and never set.
All who went in our name, and never came home.
Those who came home, but were unable to escape the shadow of what they’d seen.
And those who went to war and, having seen the worst that humanity is capable of, were forever guided by a sense that despite everything, the best of humanity is inextinguishable.
We have seen what horrors Australians have defeated. We have seen the difference Australians have made in the world. And the difference they continue to make.
We thank all serving members of the Australian Defence Force.
And we thank all veterans.
Just as they stepped up for us, we must step for them.
As we await the going down of the sun, we thank and pay tribute to them all.
We have faced moments when the light has seemed so very far away, but because of them, it is only nightfall that can ever gather us in darkness.
Lest we forget.
