Up to 2000 people, many of them children, thronged into Belmore Park for the Dawn Service. Not even mid-morning rain daunted the large crowd that lined Auburn Street for the Anzac Day march and ceremony afterward. Children craned their neck and sat on parents’ shoulders to get a better look.

Goulburn’s inveterate photographer Tony Lamarra secured a bird’s eye view from on top of his truck. Another well-known character ‘Rosie’ waved to the crowd as she marched, while city favourite, Wendell Rosewarne walked beside, with his best friend and dog, Max.

Carried in a taxi, 98-year-old World War Two veteran John Cannon acknowledged an appreciative crowd. The Warrigal Care resident is perhaps the city’s oldest serviceman. His grandchildren excitedly waved as he passed and then enveloped him in a sea of pride afterward.

Standing watching was Phil Fowler, carrying his grandfather Arthur Fowler’s 1917 war diary. It detailed his time serving on the Western Front.

Goulburn RSL Sub Branch patron, 96-year-old Peter Lloyd AC OBE, took the march salute. As usual he made the trip from his Basin View home back to his hometown. The World War Two veteran, who fought in Palestine and Syria, never misses an Anzac Day.

“I think in a nation as young as ours, it’s something to be treasured by all ages,” he said.

“I get a great kick out of seeing the children of immigrants enjoying it. That to me makes everything worthwhile.”

Young people played a major role in proceedings, much to the delight of RSL Sub Branch president Gordon Wade.

“I’m very pleased with the crowd,” he told the Post.

”The participation by Goulburn people is always outstanding.”

Elsewhere in the crowd, the Cox family was remembering their loved one.

They well will never forget the day the chaplain came calling at their Ellesmere Street home.

He was there to tell them their son and brother, Raymond, had been killed at Nui Dat in December, 1968 while serving in Vietnam. He had stepped on a landmine.

Private Cox had only six weeks remaining on his National Service after leaving for Vietnam the preceding May. His sister, Margaret Mortimer said he’d come home in the October on a surprise visit. She recalled him rocking the family’s roof and laughing afterward.

Raymond was the fourth eldest of 11 children in the family. His mother, now 95, never got over his death.

“We remember him every day. It’s when we all get together…,” Mrs Mortimer said, her voice trailing off.

Private Cox was given a full military funeral at Saint Saviour’s Cathedral, complete with gun carriage and was buried in Goulburn.

His family, including sisters Margaret, Lyn Charlton and Joy Taylor attend every ANZAC Day, without fail. For the first time in years, their mother was not able to join them due to ill-health.

It was the type of sacrifice Mulwaree High School vice-captain Ollie Anable was speaking during his Dawn Service address. He said he was proud and honoured to deliver the address. His ‘nan’ was doubly so. Ollie spoke about his great grandfather, David Jones, who was lucky to escape with his life following the 1942 Japanese bombing of Darwin Harbour.

“The greatest sacrifice is when you sacrifice your own happiness for the sake of someone else’s future happiness. This says is all for what our war veterans did,” he told the crowd.

“...A soldier doesn’t fight because he hates what is in front of him, he fights because he loves what is left behind. We as Australians feel honoured to live in such great nation.”

During the morning service Wing Commander Steve Laredo said the ANZAC spirit lived on in today’s campaigns. As air commander for joint task force 33 in the Middle East in 2014, he watched as Operation Okra delivered vital supplies to the Kurdish Yadzidi on Mount Sinjar, who had been isolated by ISIS.

“We live in a world where we see our servicemen and women in almost real time. But one thing remains the same. When you look into their eyes, you see that same determination, that same pride that was born in the ANZAC tradition,” he said.

As Mayor Bob Kirk rose to thank Wing Commander Laredo, an RAAF F18 did a fly past over Belmore Park, frightening a flock of corellas into the air. It was the first ANZAC Day fly past at a Goulburn commemoration.