It feels like this year we really need Anzac Day.
Events in the wider world and here at home too have thrust the topic of war into the spotlight.
Conflict rages in Ukraine and the Middle East, with Australian service personnel on duty in the region.
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Back on home soil the news that Ben Roberts-Smith, a Victoria Cross recipient, has been charged with war crimes — which he vigorously denies — will have rocked many, especially in the service community.
So Anzac Day this year can be a moment for us to reset, and remember why it is we observe the day and why the reason for that continues to be as relevant as ever.
The first Anzac Day was held a matter of months after the Diggers withdrew from Gallipoli, where they had landed in a heroic but doomed operation which began on April 25, 1915.
The Anzacs were evacuated in late December 1915. Almost three more years of the bloody fighting of World War I was still ahead.
The Australian War Memorial recounts that the first Anzac Day commemorations on April 25, 1916, were marked by services across Australia, a march through London by more than 2000 Australian and New Zealand troops, and a sports day in the remaining Australian camp in Egypt.
In London a newspaper dubbed the Anzacs “the knights of Gallipoli”.
During the 1920s Anzac Day became established as a national day of commemoration for the more than 60,000 Australians who had died during WWI.
The AWM says that by the mid-1930s all the rituals we now associate with the day — dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions and two-up games — were firmly established as part of Anzac Day.
Yet though it seems unthinkable now, there was a time when the day seemed to be fading from the national agenda.
By the late 1960s the commemoration was under serious question. War memorials were often hit by graffiti before the dawn service amid claims the day glorified war.
Opposition to the Vietnam War further undermined the day and, shamefully, meant those who had served in Vietnam did not receive the recognition and thanks they deserved until 1987 when 22,000 Vietnam veterans marched through the streets of Sydney in the Welcome Home Parade.
It was perhaps the turn-around point. Anzac Day is now firmly embedded and in a promising sign for our future, is observed by multiple generations.
So on Saturday all around the nation children will be roused from their slumbers to join their families at dawn services, or will line streets to cheer veterans on their march.
With Australia Day trapped in ongoing controversy, in some ways Anzac Day can be seen as our national day — a day when the community can truly unite.
A day when we can stop and remember how grateful we are to have the men and women who wear the uniform on our behalf.
