Anzac Day school commemorations help launch discussion on Melbourne Legacy community support
Almost one hundred years on from its founding, Legacy is still working quietly behind the scenes to care for the families of dead servicemen and women.
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Not every fatality suffered during Australia’s longest war can be put down to a firefight with the enemy, or an IED.
For Annabelle Wilson, her husband, Josh Chalmer, returned from a nine-month tour of Afghanistan, she said, with cancer in 2008.
He died just two months before the birth of daughter, Primrose in 2017, from brain cancer.
“He came back from Afghanistan with cancer, so I truly believe he gave his life for his country,” Ms Wilson said.
This is when Legacy stepped in to help the family of a fallen serviceman.
“I don’t know what I would have done without Legacy,” Ms Wilson, of Carlton North, told Leader.
“It is important for people to know about the work we actually do — everything we get goes into supporting our families.”
Ahead of Anzac Day every year, Legacy runs a commemoration ceremony for school students to pay their respects for those who have served and the active personal — this year the ceremony hosted 65 schools and 3000 students on April 6
Legacy is one of the oldest charitable organisations linked to the Australian military, and continuously supports to families of serving and fallen members of all Australian armed forces.
Ms Wilson first became involved with Legacy after the death of her husband, and now works with the charity as a leader of their operations team.
“To be able to talk about him [Josh] from that lens, and talk about our family from the support that we’ve received, even with everything that’s happened, I look back and I feel really grateful and happy and really loved and supported,” she said.
It’s unique to Melbourne Legacy, that focus on family, as it doesn’t often happen. Many other organisations are understandably focused around the veterans, so this targeted support to families is really important. Often families get forgotten … even when people are serving and deployed.”
“I’m so proud of Josh’s service and what he sacrificed for his country, but we have received no support from the government because Josh didn’t die overseas.
“That’s where Legacy stepped in. Once you’ve passed the eligibility check you receive help. From my position, where I was extremely time poor and very confused, it was really helpful. The way that the charity is set up, it makes it easy.”
Ms Wilson said with Legacy holding the Anzac Day commemoration it gave students a chance to start conversations about their own family history and to think about those still serving today.
“Military history is synonymous with Australian history,’’ Ms Wilson said.
“Military history and understanding WWII and Anzac Day are both huge things for Australia, but it’s really important to talk about contemporary history and serving veterans, because sometimes people don’t even realise that war widows like me exist
“People have this image of war widows in their minds, but there are young war widows, there are young male war widowers, and the picture just looks different now and we do need to talk about it in a different way.”
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