Australians recognise April 25 as a day of national remembrance, one of the most solemn days of the year with commemorative services held across the nation.

For me, finding a way to make true meaning from Anzac Day has been difficult. I have no brave grandfather or great uncle who fought in battle, I haven’t heard stories of life in the trenches passed down through the generations or medals to wear in honour of the fallen. Our family is utterly devoid of a military history.

But, as a mother I have found meaning in the sense of loss. I wonder how parents bore the burden of losing a child on the battlefield or worse in a hospital bed days or week’s after they were mortally injured, then not knowing of their fate until months sometimes years later. It would have been unbearable.

Those who boarded ships bound for war, truly epitomised the nation we were – young and free. We hear stories of young men in their prime signing away their lives, believing they were headed off on an adventure of a lifetime.

Gerringong’s Wally Sharpe (left) grew up on a dairy farm. He was said to be popular, likeable and handsome. At the age of 24, he enlisted in 1915, joining the 6th Light Horse Regiment,16th reinforcement.

He embarked from Sydney on May 3, 1916, on His Majesty’s Australian Transport Hymettus. He was never to lay eyes on his home, ‘Aorangi’ in Gerringong again.

On the morning of March 27, an attack began on Amman. About 3000 allied soldiers faced 4000 Turks, who, bolstered by the German Asia Corps, proved impossible to overcome. 

According to a Red Cross report, Sharpe was hit by machine gun fire during an advance on March 28, 1918. It took more than a year for his family to find out his fate. Sharpe was just one of the more than 60,000 Australians killed in WWI.

For each and every one of us Anzac Day means something different, each shaped by tales told and passed down through generations, taught at school or heard at memorial services. 

Since learning more about the prevalence of PTSD among returned soldiers, for me, Anzac Day is a reminder that we must help them in their personal battle after they have faced the ravages of war, so the struggles they faced are left behind. Lest we forget. 

Hayley Warden.