Neither age nor distance could keep Peter Lloyd AC OBE away from Goulburn's Anzac Day commemoration.
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The 101-year-old Goulburn RSL Sub Branch patron and distinguished World War Two veteran was the centre of attention as he took his seat at the city's morning service in Belmore Park.
Mr Lloyd made the annual trip with wife, Jan, from his Basin View retirement village to his hometown from which he only moved in the past eight years. He served with the Seventh Division in the Middle East and New Guinea and was mentioned in despatches for his "gallant and distinguished service" in the southwest Pacific.
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Mayor Peter Walker described him as a "legend" and said everyone greatly respected him.
He was feted by Sub Branch members, politicians and a large crowd that thronged into the park for the commemoration.
"It's one of the largest turnouts I've seen. They just kept coming," Goulburn RSL Sub Branch president Malcolm Ritchie said.
Earlier, people packed into Auburn Street to watch the march led by Royal Military College Duntroon cadets.
Goulburn Soldiers Pipes and Drums and the Australian Defence Force Academy band added to the atmosphere.
Veterans marching and riding in vehicles drew strong applause, as did a strong turnout of local schools whose students waved to the appreciative crowd.
Former QC Tom Hughes rode in a vehicle, while Ted and Pat Moore walked arm in arm and Grant Thompson marched for his father.
Former Goulburn City mayor Tony Lamarra photographed the action from atop his ute, but children settled for the sidelines or parents' shoulders.
Captain Matthew Ritchie, the son of Malcolm Ritchie, delivered the mid-morning address.
The naval director of Australia's submarine requirements spoke about Anzac Day's beginnings in 1916, on the first anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. By the 1920s it was held across right Australia.
"While we can never forget the service and sacrifice on the Gallipoli Peninsula and on the Western Front over a century ago, it is important to acknowledge that this is only part of the Anzac story," he said.
By 1942 another "terrible war" was being waged on our doorstep. In the months preceding, HMAS Sydney was sunk by the German raider, Kormoran and Japan entered the war with attacks throughout South East Asia and the Pacific.
New Year 1942 brought "worse news" with the fall of Singapore and the 8th Division's surrender. By Anzac Day that year, Australia was facing its "darkest hour" but still, our servicemen and women sailed to the nation's defence.
"I believe they showed the characteristics to which we all must aspire; cooperation in the face of adversity, courage to engage against an enemy without weakness, and determination to learn, to overcome and to succeed," Captain Ritchie said.
"...So the freedoms and prosperity we now enjoy are to me all the greater because they were borne not in times of easy success, but came forged in the fire of defeat, tempered in the trials of weakness and failure, and honed through arduous campaigns in the air and across the waters and islands of the Indo-Pacific."
It was not a day to glorify war but honour almost 103,000 people who lost their lives in the service of Australia, he told the crowd.
Joy Taylor and Keith Cox knew this only too well as they laid a wreath for their brother, Raymond Cox. He was the first Goulburn man to be killed in the Vietnam War. It was the second time the siblings had made the dedication since their mother, Stella's passing in 2020.
For the first time, the service ended with the Australian and New Zealand national anthems, sung by ADFA Midshipman Charlotte Mauviel.
Hume MP Angus Taylor and Member for Goulburn Wendy Tuckerman also attended the service, which was followed by a lunch for veterans at the Goulburn Soldiers Club.
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