Australian Ambassador to the USA, The Hon. Kim Beazley, AC ANZAC Day Message 2014
Channel: Department of Foreign Affairs and Trade
Date: 2014-04-23

ANZAC Day 2014 - Message from Australian Ambassador to the USA, The Hon. Kim Beazley, AC.

Well ANZAC Day in Washington this year -- this is Australia's great day.
This is the day that we commemorate the sacrifice of Australian men and women in several conflicts throughout the last century, continuing into this one, in which we reflect on the fact that we owe many generations a very great deal - in terms of our freedom but also in terms of the development of our national character.  
Australians are an appreciative people.  Australians comprehend how significant the actions of many of their ordinary fellow Australians have been; how gallant they have been, how self-sacrificing they have been and how impactful they've been on families -- the folk down the street, the men and women that we grow up with, the communities that we grow up with.
ANZAC Day in Australia is a sombre occasion.  There are no marching bands.  What there is is silent reflection -- right around the country.  Community with veterans appreciating what has been done and appreciating what has been defended.  
We're approaching some seminal years now in our ANZAC Day commemoration.  Next year's will be the 100th of the original source of ANZAC Day, the landings at Gallipoli.  Australians really do know how to understand our military history and its significance for us and that will be much on display over the course of the next five years as the War Memorial, the Department of Veterans Affairs, the government of the day, and the RSL, the broader community work out how the events of the creation of the original ANZAC tradition should be commemorated and learned from.
So you'll have an opportunity to see a great deal of that over the next little while.  But here in Washington we'll be going about our affairs in the way in which we have come to do normally.  We will be joined, as we do it, by many of our American friends who from the outset of the First World War have played such a key role in coalition with us, in defending those values of freedom and ensuring that our communities can survive and prosper. 
Of course as the century proceeded and through till now, the United States has assumed more and more responsibility.  They have a global responsibility for the defence of freedom and Australia in alliance with the United States has been supportive of those objectives.
So, on the day, as we think about the sacrifices of Australian men and women, as we express our appreciation for our fellow Australians, as we look at the way in which our national character is developed, we think too of those who are our friends - the sacrifices they have made and that they continue to make.  And it is a privilege for me, here as Ambassador to Washington, to know that during the course of the day I will be sitting with many senior American folk responsible for the defence of their nation, and the defence of ours.  I appreciate that fact they take their relationship with us so seriously that they are there in our commemorations with us.  And as well as them I appreciate what I know will be hundreds of Americans aware of our day who will join us and express their appreciation of the relationship that they have had with us.
It is a day of enormous significance to Australians.  It's a wonderful thing that can be a day of significance to our friends as well.