Boxing champ Danny Green remembers his family’s story with AnzacLive

BOXING champion Danny Green is backing a “great concept” that is a long way from the ring — but is all about blood, sweat and tears.

BOXING champion Danny Green is one of the toughest warriors in Australian sporting history but he’s the first to admit his three world championships pale beside the bravery and determination of our first Anzacs.

Green’s grandfather, Frank Green, who eventually became a baker in the small West Australian town of Burracoppin, was one of more than 300,000 Australians to fight overseas in World War I.

Danny Green’s grandfather served under Lieutenant General John Monash.

And Green is thrilled with News Corporation’s AnzacLive project, which starts today and is bringing some of the most fascinating characters of the Great War to life through Facebook.

“Australia owes the men and women of that war a great debt,” Green said.

“The courage that those young men and women showed in places like Gallipoli should never be forgotten and the AnzacLive project will bring their stories to a whole new generation of Australians. Everyone in this country needs to hear what our men and women went through on behalf of Australia and to appreciate the fact that it’s because of them we enjoy our way of life today.

“War is a terrible thing but it’s only because many Australians of an earlier time were willing to risk their lives that we have such a great country now and we don’t want to ever forget that.”

Green, who is prolific on social media, said he had many friends in the defence force and was a great fan of Perth’s Victoria Cross recipient Ben Roberts-Smith.

Danny’s grandfather, Frank Green, served under Australia’s commander Lieutenant General John Monash on the western front at places such as Villers-Bretennoux and Amiens. Frank later settled in Burracoppin on the road to Kalgoorlie and his son Mal, Danny’s father, took up farming in the West Australian wheat belt. Three AnzacLive characters — sensitive artist Ellis Silas, inspirational nurse Alice Ross-King and undersea adventurer Charles Suckling — have links to WA.

Sea you there ... sailor Charles Suckling has connections to Danny’s state.

General Monash’s first command was at Gallipoli where Australia endured what has been called its first “baptism of fire” as a new nation. Monash will be one of the 10 characters featured in AnzacLive, telling their stories — the heartbreak, the tragedy, the humour, the excitement and even the boredom — of life in the greatest conflict man had ever seen.

AnzacLive launches on Facebook on March 29. The project follows the lives of Australian troops in Egypt as they make their final preparations to storm Gallipoli in an attempt to open up Allied supply lines from the Mediterranean to Russia.

Ten real men and women will tell their stories day by day, as if 100 years had vanished and it were happening right now.

They will also interact with other Facebook users, taking questions and revealing their most intimate thoughts, concerns, fears and triumphs as battles rage around them.

“It’s a great concept,” Danny Green says.

“Every Australian needs to know these stories of the heroes who went before us.”

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Originally published as Boxing champ Danny Green remembers his family’s story with AnzacLive