Sea Eagles prop Brenton Lawrence reveals his proud Anzac connection

WHEN the Last Post is played in the Anzac Day NRL game against the Knights, it will a poignant moment for Sea Eagles prop Brenton Lawrence.

Brenton Lawrence before Manly Warringah Sea Eagles training at Narrabeen Sports Centre , Narrabeen .Picture Gregg Porteous

WHEN the bugler plays the Last Post in his first NRL game on Anzac Day against the Knights in Newcastle, it will a poignant moment for Manly prop Brenton Lawrence.

The occasion will have a very personal meaning for Lawrence who has a strong family connection with the Australian military and a real affinity for our troops past and present.

His grandfather Neil Harden served in Vietnam and his father Marty retired last year after a long career in the air force.

Lawrence’s brother-in-law Michael Vickers is in the Australian Army and is currently stationed in Fiji doing relief work after previously serving in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“I have some men there that I respect and am very close to and have served their country through the military,” Lawrence said.

“The Last Post is a powerful piece of music that you can’t help but be taken back the time of the Anzacs I think.

Manly's Brenton Lawrence at Sea Eagles training. Picture Gregg Porteous

“And it always makes me think about those young men a long time ago who went off to war with great gusto and excitement I guess not knowing what we know having such media coverage of everything.

“A lot of the poor buggers never came home.”

The reflection that comes with Anzac Day and the sacrifices so many young Australians made on the battlefields across the world puts everything into perspective for Lawrence, who has been through a wretched run with injuries and had major back surgery last year.

“A football injury is one thing, but it is nothing compared to what those diggers endured and what a lot of the current serving men and women in the Australian Defence Force now endure,” Lawrence said.

He thought about the Australian troops at Gallipoli who climbed the mountain and jumped over the trenches to certain death.

“Almost 100 years ago those kids would have probably been on a different level to the kids now,” he said.

A view of a lifeboat carrying men of the Australian 1st Divisional Signal Company as they are towed towards Anzac Cove at 6am on the day of the landing. Picture: Australian War Memorial

“But at the same time a lot of them were 19-year-old kids, it’s hard to imagine really, it would have been horrific.

“But across the First World War and then again the Second World War there was mass murder on a scale we have never seen before on this earth.”

And there are the more recent battles.

“Then again Vietnam with young fellas going over as national servicemen who didn’t want to be there in the first place- you were told you had to go,” he said.

“That I can imagine would be terrifying.”

Lawrence has been in the jungle in Vietnam and said it’s nothing like the bush in Australia.

“You might get lost in the bush but you at least know where you might be going, but the jungle is so dense you really don’t know 5 metres in front of you, that would have been pretty scary,” he said

Brenton Lawrence and his Lest We Forget tattoo. Picture Gregg Porteous

Lawrence has a permanent reminder of all those events with the words “Lest We Forget” tattooed on his arm.

“I was a lot younger and wanted to get a tattoo and I wanted to have something respectful and not stupid,” he said.

“Having that close connection within my family I thought that might have been something nice to get.

“I didn’t know anybody who had one exactly like that and I still don’t.

“I thought that is the way I would go.”