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A huge crowd estimated at more than 2000 people descended on the Ulladulla ExServos Club on Saturday morning to commemorate the centenary of the landing on Gallipoli during a moving dawn service.
The new venue proved to be a hit as the event attracted a record crowd.
They heard Captain Jacqui King from the Royal Australian Navy talk about the feelings and experiences of the young men who took part in that first landing 100 years earlier.
“We owe them respect and remembrance,” Captain King told the crowd.
Earlier in the service as light slowly illuminated the sky, many wreaths were laid to decorate the newly erected memorial.
The Last Post rang out through the early morning air, before Freddie Simon sand the New Zealand national anthem God Defend New Zealand, and Barbara Fletcher sang Advance Australia Fair.
However one of the most poignant moments came when the Anzac dedication was read to the crowd.
Recited by Milton Ulladulla RSL Sub-branch president Paul Warren, it said, in part, “At this hour, on this day one century ago, the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps, at Gallipoli, made immortal the name of ANZAC and established an imperishable tradition of selfless service, or devotion to duty and of fighting for all that is best in human relationships.
“We who are gathered her today in this dawn vigil remember with gratitude the men and women who have given and are still giving, in our armed and supporting services, all that is theirs to give in order that the world may be a nobler place in which to live.
“And with them, we remember those left behind to bear the sorrow of their loss.
“Let us therefore dedicate ourselves to taking up the burdens of the fallen, and with the same high courage and steadfastness with which they went into battle, set our hands to the tasks they left unfinished.
“Let us dedicate ourselves to the service of the ideals for which they died,” Mr Warren said.
“Let us, with God’s help, give our utmost to make the world what they would have wished it to be, a better and happier place for all its people, through whatever means are open to us.”