Gunnedah has begun its heart-felt tribute to Diggers past and present with events already under way ahead of Anzac Day on Saturday.
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Two plaques were unveiled today at the Gunnedah Cenotaph in an emotional ceremony that included people from veterans to school students.
The plaques commemorate the centenary of Anzac and Gunnedah’s role in World War I.
Gunnedah Shire mayor Owen Hasler said the ceremony was not to “glorify war”, but to honour the memory of those who laid down their lives for Australia.
“Their sacrifice is a reminder of what we have lost in war, and what we have gained,” Cr Hasler said.
“We have lost more than 100,000 lives, and with them, all their love of this country and all their hope and energy.
“We have gained a legend; a story of bravery and sacrifice and with it a deeper faith in ourselves and our democracy, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian.”
Cr Hasler told the people gathered at the ceremony that the Gallipoli plaque did not paint the landing as anything other than what it was, “a disaster for the Anzacs”.
Records show more than 160 of the 8141 allies who died at Gallipoli were from the Gunnedah district, with many others wounded.
The plaque includes a poem from the headstone of Private Percy William Martin from Gunnedah, who
died of illness at Dernacourt, France in 1917.
“Private Martin may have been one of those who believed the Great War would be an adventure too grand to miss,” Cr Hasler said.
“He may have felt that he would never live down the shame of not going.
“But the chances are that he went for no other reason than that he believed it was his duty – the duty he owed his country and his King.
“Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle distinguised more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second, even more terrible war – we might think that this young private died in vain.
“But in honouring our war dead as we always have, we declare that this is not true.
“For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary.”
The ceremony also included presentations by school leaders and Reverend Scott Dunlop from Gunnedah Minister’s Fraternal.
Gunnedah High School captain Meg Jaeger read an inscription from the second plaque “In the Line of Fire” which commemorates the Great War.
