April 25 is Anzac Day in Australia. It is 100 years after thousands of Australian soldiers lost their lives in Gallipoli and the Australians still pay an amazing tribute to fallen soldiers. At dawn today people gathered at war memorial shrines everywhere. There were afternoon marches and parades with veterans from all wars participating, from age 24 to 100. Descendants marched with their forefathers medals proudly on their lapels. Businesses were closed all morning. It's the amount of people that turned out that really impressed me. 120,000 people in Canberra! That's one third of the city's population. That's at dawn! More than 30,000 in Sydney. 50,000, 90,000 in other cities. Wow! This country's youth participated.
Watching all this remembrance brought a lump into my throat many times today. I remembered my dad's stories about WW II when I was little. We went fishing and I played with my dolls in the boat while my dad fished. He told all kinds of stories about the war. I listened as I played somehow knowing that he was healing from deep wounds.
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