On ANZAC Day our nation wakes to dawn ceremonies gathered around those who put their lives on the line for us and for our freedom. It’s a paradise here in New Zealand but history has shown our freedoms and Kiwi way of life have a high cost … young men, fathers, husbands, and brothers have protected and paid for that and we remember them today.

Some stood in the cold dark morning air – at attention – like statues while we paused to honour them and remember our ANZAC’s.

Some were not there – they lie silent in other lands – they never returned after giving their lives for to protect and defend.

Lest we forget …

With their hair a little whiter, their step not quite so sure

Still they march on proudly as they did the year before.

Theirs were the hands that saved us, their courage showed the way

Their lives they laid down for us, that we may live today.

From Gallipoli’s rugged hillsides, to the sands of Alamein

On rolling seas and in the skies, those memories will remain.

Of airmen and the sailors, of Lone Pine and Suvla Bay

The boys of the Dardenelles are remembered on this day.

They fought their way through jungles, their blood soaked desert sands

They still remember comrades who rest in foreign lands.

They remember the siege of old Tobruk, the mud of the Kokoda Trail

Some paying the supreme sacrifice with courage that did not fail.

To the icy land of Korea, the steamy jungles of Vietnam

And the heroic battle of Kapyong and that epic victory at Long Tan.

Fathers, sons and brothers, together they fought and died

That we may live in peace together, while at home their mothers cried.

When that final bugle calls them to cross that great divide

Those comrades will be waiting when they reach the other side.

Ken Bunker