Respectful: The crowd at the Colbinabbin Anzac Day service.
The guest speaker at Colbinabbin’s Anzac Day service was a Year 7 student who described the experiences of three national servicemen posted to Vietnam.
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Ayla Thompson, 12, interviewed the three men and further researched the details of their experience.
Her presentation was received with applause.
Colbinabbin Primary School students Frankie Ryan and Rylan Roughly read the poem In Flanders Fields.
About 120 people attended the morning service organised by former serviceman Robert Ryan and a group of volunteers.
Mr Ryan said 2023 marked the anniversary of a number of significant events, including 100 years since the establishment of Legacy, 80 years since the sinking of the prisoner of war ship Montevideo Maru (the subject of the new Stanhope mural) and 30 years since the deployment of Australian troops as peacekeepers in Somalia.
Rhonda Risstrom sang a song called Letters from War about a mother who farewells her son to fight in a war.
Ayla recounted the experiences of her grandfather Frank Stewart, who was conscripted to Army service in 1966 at 20 years of age.
“Frank said he wasn’t scared, and found the experience of being in the Army to be maturing, fulfilling and educational,” she said.
“He said the worst part of the Army was waking up at 6am every day.”
Never forgotten: Private George William Robinson, from Corop, who died in Belgium in 1917 at the age of 25. He served with the 60th Australian Infantry Battalion.
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