The impact world wars have had on the Wimmera have been subtle yet substantial.
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This is something Brian Lampard appreciates deeply, as the son and brother of soldier settlers.
To give returning soldiers a head-start establishing their post-war lives, the state and federal governments began a scheme whereby those with farm experience could apply for a block of land.
By 1919, 2933 ex-servicemen had taken up the opportunity in the Wimmera, and this process was repeated after World War II.
Brian's father James, who served on both sides of Suez canal during World War I as a trooper in Eighth Light Horse, was one of 13 returned servicemen to settle at Ballyglunin Park, east of Horsham.
"He had about 200 acres - about the same as the 12 other settlers there," Mr Lampard said.
"After a few years, he sold out to his neighbours - the Bailey brothers - and bought a larger property at Coromby. He lost that in the first couple years of the Depression, and he went back and worked for the Baileys until he started again out on a farm at the north end of St Helens Plains in 1932, and I was born there in 1935."
Mr Lampard's brother Roland farmed at another group settlement at Lubeck after World War II, when he served with the Air Force in New Guinea. Mr Lampard himself is a serviceman, having trained at Puckapunyal in 1954.
He said the soldier settlers made a lasting contribution to the region's infrastructure and identity.
"The settlements formed close communities because of schools and halls set up around them," he said.
"Bus routes became available for primary and secondary education, and a lot of ex-servicemen, after the First World War, formed the Wimmera-Mallee irrigation system. They worked on Pine Lake, Taylors Lake and Lake Wartook, building the walls on the edges."
Mr Lampard said the settlement of 28 families at Drung after World War II was one example of a close, successful community.
This is something Ruth Ballinger knows well. As a 10 year-old, she moved from Horsham to the new settlement when her father Percy Blake was put in charge of overseeing the fencing project.
Mrs Ballinger said she remembered farmers visiting her family home for a bath or to do some washing, such was the hardship they faced when they began.
"The first settler to come was Oliver Williams, who passed away about three weeks ago," she said.
"He came to work with my dad because they didn't have their blocks up and going at that stage. They lived in their garages, which were small - probably about a one-car garage - and had no running water, no way to heat much.
"Oliver (came to bathe and wash) for several years, I think, until he got established with his cows."
Mrs Ballinger said the purpose of the Drung settlement was to establish dairy farms to supply the Wimmera with milk. However, some of the settlers didn't stay long.
She said Oliver Williams and Frank Kelm were the last soldier settlers to move from Drung, while her parents Percy and Gladys bought the place they had been given after building finished and stayed until 1981.
"In the '50s they were very wet years and it was a very boggy area, so I'm not sure why they built a dairy farm there, and it was a really hard slog for them," she said.
"But they built a little school there, which we didn't go to, but the kids from the settlement went, and I think it was in the school they used to have people getting married and kitchen teas there. It was their social meeting place.
"They were wonderful people and worked hard."