Collect a piece of coin history

THE last surviving male veteran from World War I died in Perth in 2011 at the age of 110.

British-born Claude Choules enlisted for the Great War at just 14 years of age, an incredible feat for someone so young.

He was one of the lucky ones — life was cut short for more than 16 million men, women and children on all sides of the bloody fray.

History has shown that the socalled “war to end all wars” they thought they were fighting was anything but.

Since its conclusion on November 11, 1914, the names of so many men and women who gave up everything have been etched into our history books where, by and large, they remain until they are all but forgotten.

The Russian Civil War, Egyptian Revolution, World War II, Malayan Emergency, Korea, Borneo, Vietnam, Gulf War, Afghanistan, Iraq, East Timor, the Middle East — these are all conflicts in which Australians have risked their lives on the line since the end of World War I.

While we may not always remember their names, we do not — and cannot — forget their sacrifice.

That is why initiatives like the Cairns Post’s Anzac Spirit coin collection are so important.

Each of these 15 limited edition coins is a piece of history.

Every one tells a story which can be handed down from generation to generation, keeping the flame alight for another hundred years, and another hundred after that.

A collection of coins cannot do it alone, but we must do everything we can to keep the Anzac spirit alive and in the public psyche.

Only through memory can we hope to avoid the mistakes and recall the triumphs of the past.