Today, November 11th in Australia is Remembrance Day. We honour the lives of all who have served this nation with a minute of silence at 11am.
I remember and honour my late mother’s father, who lied about his age in 1915 and went to war in France and Belgium aged 17. He was wounded in his left leg and walked with a limp for the rest of his long life before being claimed by pneumonia in his 91st year. He worked seven days a week to keep his family safe, secure and educated and was never financially secure until he and his wife were on the aged pension.
I remember and honour my late father, who served in Syria, Egypt, New Guinea and Borneo between 1941 and 1946. Never a big man, in the Shaggy Ridge campaign in New Guinea, he lost four stone (28 pounds) in weight when he contracted malaria. Once you’ve had that, it never leaves your system. He suffered frequently from this in later years, succumbing to cancer twenty years ago.