ABOUT 7000 people have gathered alongside the water at Redland Bay to commemorate Anzac Day 2017.
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Speaking in the pre-dawn light, Bayside South RSL Sub Branch president John Clifton said the 300,000 Australians who served on the Western Front during 1916 and 1917 were not professional soldiers as we imagine soldiers today, but were volunteers with limited training.
“They were ordinary young men and women, from towns and cities across Australia, who fought, nursed, cooked, dug tunnels and trenches, drove ambulances and did whatever else was necessary in the service of ‘king and country’,” Mr Clifton said.
“Each one of us here today owes our way of life to those men and women who paid the supreme sacrifice, as we do to all those who have served this proud nation in time of war.
“We honour them, we salute them and we won’t forget them.”
Bugler Peter Francis played the Last Post and piper Mathew Fisher played the Piper’s Lament, while Bayside South RSL Sub Branch vice-president Kevin Gollschewski read the Ode to the Fallen.
Navy cadets from the TS Diamantina formed the catafalque party and Mount Cotton Scouts and Venturers formed a guard of honour and assisted during the service.
Redland City Band and Mount Cotton State School performed and Leah Lever sang the Australian and New Zealand national anthems. Students from Redland Bay State School recited Not a hero.
