LOCALS gathered across the region last Friday to attend the first in-person Remembrance Day services in three years.
In Sale, around 70 people attended the service under clear skies at the Sale Memorial Hall on Macalister St.
The ceremony was officiated by acting Sale RSL president Ross Jackson, with a brief speech from RAAF Base East Sale Group captain Nigel Ward also heard.
Following his remarks, wreaths were laid on the Sale & District Cenotaph by those in attendance, including Gippsland South MP Danny O’Brien, Wellington Shire Council Mayor Ian Bye, members of local veterans associations and pupils of Araluen Primary School.
The Last Post was then played on cornet by Sale City Band’s Caroline Monck, proceeded by a traditional minute’s silence.
Mr Jackson was pleased with the number of attendees at the Sale service, noting that inclement weather had been forecast for the day.
He also told the Gippsland Times why it is important to commemorate Remembrance Day.
“What a lot of people do not realise is that the names that are on some plaques and memorials, those people have been a family, and they have loved ones – mothers, father, brothers, sisters – and for them… every day is Remembrance Day,” Mr Jackson said.
“There’s a whole lot of people out there with a whole lot of questions that have been unanswered in regard to war dead – especially during the Great War, because there was so many of them missing, so many of them lost, (and) so many of them died over in places that a lot of people can’t even pronounce.
“And back during the Great War, a lot of those people didn’t have the money or the means to go and visit a grave – all they got was a photograph of a grave, in a place that they’d never, ever heard of, that was … thousands of miles away, that they could probably only access by sea.
“That, to me, is one of the reasons why it’s so important that we remember these people.”
This year’s Remembrance Day marked a change from the previous two years for Mr Jackson, which saw himself and then-Sale RSL president Martin Tanzer acknowledge the occasion by laying a wreath at the Sale Cenotaph without a crowd present.
Remembrance Day is held on November 11 each year, taking place on the anniversary of the World War I armistice.
This year marks 104 years since the armistice.
Photo: Tom Parry
