Dandenong-Cranbourne RSL president John Wells’ passionate message for Anzac Day
We can’t attend Anzac Day dawn services or parades this year, but the president of Dandenong-Cranbourne RSL has urged the community to “deeply reflect” upon the day and what it means to be Australian.
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The president of an RSL in Melbourne’s southeast has urged the community to “deeply reflect” upon what Anzac Day really means this year.
Dandenong-Cranbourne RSL president John Wells, who served in Vietnam in 1967 in the artillery regiment as a forward observer signaller, said while the community couldn’t attend dawn services or parades, they could still honour veterans from home with a simple gesture.
“It is very disappointing for us but at the same time this is an opportunity for us to reflect this year much more deeply than normal on what Anzac Day really means,” Mr Wells said.
“We can think about what it means to be Australian and I’ll be a down at the end of my driveway at 6am and I encourage others to do so.
“My next door neighbours will be out with their children too. I will have a small sound system and I will play the Last Post. We’ll have a silence then a reveille.”
Mr Wells said there was a lot of sorrow among veterans and RSL members because they wouldn’t be able to take part in Anzac Day services this year.
“We have four old chaps that carry our banners ahead of our march, mostly in wheelchairs and they’ve been doing it for a minimum of 30 years,” he said.
“One of them, whose a World War II veteran, said ‘John I don’t know how many years I’ve got left doing this’, so he is devastated.”
Mr Wells said it had been a difficult time for veterans during COVID-19 isolation.
“We are very worried about the impact of social isolation and they really need to be mixing and mingling with their mates and feeling connected … we are offering support to them.”
He said Anzac Day marked when Australia really came of age.
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“It’s the day we all reflected on a ghastly tragedy and at the same time realised that we had done our bit on the world stage,” Mr Wells said.
“I think it’s a time that we really begun to celebrate the fact that we’re a nation of volunteers, we are people that will put their hand up when there’s a bushfire, flood or war.”