Diggers fought to keep us all safe

By Jack Clarke, Year 3, St Rita’s Babinda

ANZAC Day is always a special day of remembrance for the students and staff of St Rita’s School, Babinda.

Decorating our sacred space at our school liturgy were images from the War Memorial in Canberra, a Bible, a sprig of rosemary, candles, a pair of army boots, a slouch hat and military medals.

We had a special guest speaker during the liturgy, Ben Stone from Babinda RSL.

He spoke to us about the importance of Anzac Day and the values of respect, mateship, courage and trust — these values are always on display at St Rita’s.

I felt very sad when I heard how many Australians died fighting during World War I.

They died to keep us all safe and protect our Australian way of life.

By the end of the liturgy I was almost crying. I felt sad for all those brave Anzac soldiers who had died or been terribly hurt so far away from their homes in Australia so long ago.

I was very sad for them and their families.

At the Babinda Anzac Day commemorations, my dad walked me across to the RSL where the local schoolchildren were getting organised in school groups to march.

While waiting for the parade to start, I stood admiring the old men and women proudly wearing their medals.

Soon we were marching through town to the cenotaph at Anzac Park.

I thought about my great, great grandfather who went away to the war and how he might have felt when he marched to go away to fight.

Even though it was hard to hear the speeches that morning, I still enjoyed listening to them.

I waited patiently to lay my wreath on the cenotaph.

As I laid it, I thought about my family members who had bravely fought during wars.

Fortunately, many survived and returned to Australia.

Later in the afternoon I remembered how much I had liked listening to The Last Post played by the bagpipes.