UPDATE 12PM:
Subscribe now for unlimited access.
$0/
(min cost $0)
or signup to continue reading
For a brief moment on Thursday morning, Horsham came to a standstill.
The 2019 Anzac Day Parade stopped traffic on Firebrace Street, but it also stopped mothers, fathers and their children, who flocked to Horsham Aquatic Centre for a good view.
Dozens more young people took part in the parade.
It was only ten minutes before the parade and its fanfare moved on towards Sawyer Park, to be replaced by the cars and utes purring through the CBD, but the moment was still significant.
It suggested while the events of Anzac Day will grow more distant with time, there will always be people who will march to keep the memory of the soldiers' sacrifices alive.
Related:
EARLIER: More than 1000 people attended the 2019 Anzac Day Dawn Service in Horsham on Thursday morning, where they remembered the service and sacrifice given by Australia's diggers.
Amid the calls of Corellas, Commodore Craig Bourke, of the Royal Australian Navy, told the crowd the courage and conduct of the Anzac soldiers in the face of hardship symbolise the very best of Australia.
"At around 4.30am on April 15, the first Anzacs landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula," he said.
"By the end of the first day, over 16,000 men had surged ashore, and more than 2,000 were dead or injured. These men did not set out to be immortalised, but their conduct on that day and the subsequent months of hardship they endured on the shores of Gallipoli have set them apart in our nation's consciousness. Australians are quite rightly proud of the Anzac spirit."
Forty-eight Wimmera soldiers were among those who lost their lives in Gallipoli.
Commodore Bourke also urged the crowd to reflect on the grief felt by those who lost loved ones to war, a grief that he said did not diminish with time.
The service was also important to people not from Horsham who wanted to pay their respects. Daniel Rowe, of Mildura and Tetirah Tetirah of Scoresby in Melbourne, are both working on the Murra Warra wind farm.
"I usually attend memorials, given I've served myself peacekeeping in the Solomon Islands, and done nine years int eh reserves as well," Mr Rowe said.
"I hope people remember those that are fallen and those that are still serving. I also have a brother and sister in law that are serving and have been deployed to Dubai and Townsville. I think people still don't appreciate what people give up to serve and the sacrifices you make."
Mr Tetirah has uncles that served in Borneo and Vietnam as part of the New Zealand Army. "It's important to remember the sacrifices they made to give us peaceful lives, and this is a good ceremony to be a part of," he said.
Glenda Allen, from Melbourne, said she had been coming to the Horsham dawn service for four years.
"I have friends and relations here and I try and organise to come up for this weekend every year. My uncle, Norm Trotter, is on one of the plaques," she said.
"If I'm not here, I go to the shrine in Melbourne on Anzac Day, so wherever I am it's very significant. I just remember the community spirit and the number of young people that attend."