The men whose names are carved into this memorial, were the hope of their day; just as you young people, who are gathered here right now, are the hope of ours.
To us, they are Anzacs; but in their day, they were fathers, sons, parents, children, cousins and mates – just as you are now.
You walk among their headstones, you read the inscriptions, you hear the epitaphs and you hear their families speak.
In these inscriptions, in these epitaphs, we hear the echoes of our country, a century ago.
We feel that spirit beckoning us, to bigger, more honest and less selfish lives.
From this place, from those who are buried here, we draw sustenance and inspiration.
We don’t come here merely to lament.
We come here to show respect – because their stories have become our stories.
Our nation is not just a place on a map, or a mass of people who happen to live somewhere.
Our nation is shaped by our collective memory; by the compact, between the dead, the living and the yet-to-be-born.
And this is the mystery, and the wonder of Lone Pine: this home that is so far away from our home; this place of peace that was once a battlefield.
The Gallipoli of August 1915 reeked of death
It was a place of disease and lice, of dysentery and flies, of headaches and fevers from dehydration, of frayed nerves from living under months of gunfire.
Lone Pine was a battle of bayonets, hand held bombs and knives; and when there was nothing left to fight with, fists, knuckles, boots and teeth.
Of all the bastards of places, this is the greatest bastard in the world, wrote a soldier who had lived the horror.
Woe is to be found everywhere, wrote another.
The Lone Pine attack was meant to be a distraction, while a larger operation took place elsewhere on this peninsula.
Of itself, it had little strategic purpose.
But that didn’t stop both sides fighting with an intensity that shocks us and moves us, even a century on.
In just four days in August 1915, some 800 Australians lost their lives; and 1500 were wounded in and around the trenches that run across this cemetery.
The Turkish casualties were almost three times ours.
It’s hard to fathom so much loss for what seems so little.
Yet it was not for nothing.
It was for country, empire, king, and the ideal that people and countries should be free.
It was for duty, loyalty, honour and mates: the virtues that outshine any cause.
So here, at Lone Pine, we remember those men called upon to do things in their country’s name that took them to the very edge of their physical and emotional limits, and beyond.
We remember them and how they somehow found strength in each other.
We wonder at their selflessness.
We wonder at their capacity to face death, and not to falter.
We wonder at what possessed them to charge into machinegun fire, or to push friends out of the way of unexploded bombs.
And we remember everyone who served on this peninsula: Australians, New Zealanders, Britons, French, Indians, Canadians – and Turks too.
We remember the brave, the scared, and the confused.
We remember the good and the bad; the greatness and the smallness of it all.
For when the battle is over, when the wounds have healed, and when the ground has cooled, great warriors can see their enemies’ virtue.
The care taken of this place reflects the foe that is now a friend.
So today, I salute a noble adversary and I thank the Republic of Turkey for accepting our sons with theirs.
On the headstones here, on the graves with no name, are etched the words: their glory shall not be blotted out.
It is taken from the Scripture: Their seed shall remain forever. Their glory shall not be blotted out.
A century on, we re-affirm this truth.
Our nation has grown from their seed.
Australia thrives and prospers, nourished by their example.
Here at Lone Pine, the pact between the past and the present is renewed for the future; for all who seek to understand what it means to be Australian.
[ends]