Anzac Day 2017: The remarkable story of young Lance Corporal, Dylan Tanner

AS the sun dawns on Anzac Day, young Lance Corporal Dylan Tanner will observe a minute’s silence for his family, who have held the line for almost 120 years.

Aussie Digger Lance Corporal Dylan Tanner says Anzac Day is about mateship. Picture: Gary Ramage

AS he stands guard in the Iraqi desert over his fellow Australian Diggers, the weight of the kit on Lance Corporal Dylan Tanner’s shoulders is as heavy as his burden of history.

The 22-year-old has had a relative in uniform in every war across the globe since the 1899 Boer War and now it’s just him to proudly wear the Rising Sun and carry on that line in the family tree.

On Sunday, he said that for him both pride and burden were never more felt than on Anzac Day.

“When we have a moment of silence I think about my family and what they have been through and now I think about my own service too and what it means and as long as I’m doing a good job, I know I’m serving my country well,” he said.

Aussie Digger Lance Corporal Dylan Tanner from Armidale NSW on operational service in Iraq. Picture: Gary Ramage

“I wanted to join because of the longstanding family history, there’s a bit of tradition there and since I was a little kid it was something I was always interested in. I didn’t really hear stories growing up until I was a certain age when I could really appreciate it and I joined up about three years after my late grandfather’s passing, there was stuff I wished I could have asked him.

“I just hope I am in that step and definitely with this (Army combat fatigues) I can trace back everything and can hand it off to the next generation of Tanners, whoever they may be, maybe my sister’s children.”

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World War I soldier Francis Sydney Tanner. Picture: Supplied

Ln Cpl Tanner, from Armidale in the NSW Northern Tablelands, said without a doubt Anzac Day was about mates and in his current role, deployed to a forward base north of Baghdad the Australian Defence Force has now formally asked not be named, he is tasked as “force protection”, the eyes and ears over his comrades as they go about training Iraqi troops.

The infantryman’s job is not without risk, every morning his squad is reminded to watch for anything untoward be it in the ranks of Iraqis being trained, most of who have been pulled from across the country for frontline duty in Mosul and the Al-Anbar province, or from the open expanse of desert with ISIS jihadists having mastered arming off-the-shelf quad-copter drones with explosives.

Australian soldiers have been deployed to a new remote base in north western Iraq, as a mobile training team to be closer to train and direct counter terrorism operations against ISIS in and about Mosul. Picture: Gary Ramage

It’s a different theatre, a different enemy but the pride in his nation is the same as his forefathers over the past more than 100 years.

There was his great great grandfather (mother’s side) Private Leslie John Reeves in the First World War and his great grandfather 2/30th Australian Infantry battalion Private Raymond Leslie Reeves who survived as a prisoner of war in Malaya.

Then grandfather Raymond Walter Reeves signed up for the Vietnam War when he was 17 years as well as his mother’s brother William Edward Weston who died in Borneo in March 1945 let alone those on his father’s side of the family including great great grandfather Francis Sydney Tanner who embarked for the front in February 1917.

Dylan Tanner is proud to be part of the Australian Diggers. Picture Gary Ramage

“Every time I put on my uniform, I imagine the time they would have put on their uniform, and marching out of Kapooka I got my photo taken in front of the Australian flag with my slouch hat on and that, exactly as my other family had done as well in the past,” the soldier said.

“It’s just unreal it really is … I always sort of backed myself that ‘it’ was there and I could do it because my family had done it before me. Now I’m part of my own Anzac Day, as opposed to just wearing my family’s medals in the march when I was a younger, there’s just that pride, I’ve joined that history and that’s just unreal.”

Anzac Day will largely be like any other for the ADF men and women on active duty in Iraq although they will pause and reflect briefly in a small service and perhaps post duties, teach other coalition forces stationed on the base the merits of a Two Up game.

Originally published as Anzac Day 2017: The remarkable story of young Lance Corporal, Dylan Tanner