At the going down of the sun, and in the morning,

Every year I go to the ANZAC parade or service but this year I decided to go to the dawn service.

So at 6.30 I was stood on the hillside at the side of Lake Hawea waiting for the dawn, with approximately 400 others!
Rather appropriately on such a solemn occasion it was raining, thundering and lightning. I cried as I listened for half an hour to a lone piper and then again as the names of the men who had fallen. We smiled as the kids sang a song and again when a bi-plane did a fly past.
It was bloody hard work standing for an hour on uneven ground but each time a whinging thought went through my mind I remembered the men who had waded through waist deep mud in the trenches, who saw the horror that they saw. Only to die in those self same trenches, or to be lucky enough to come home indelibly marked.

It's a crap photo I know - taken with my iPhone but it says what this day is about.

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.
Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.
They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,
They fell with their faces to the foe.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.

They mingle not with their laughing comrades again;
They sit no more at familiar tables of home;
They have no lot in our labour of the day-time;
They sleep beyond England's foam