Seventy-five years ago there was a young man no older than 26 named Gordon Sawers. He came from the small town of Nethercote in southern NSW, a sporting kid with a bright future on the land.
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When the call went out - posters pronouncing slogans like; ‘How she will prize your letters from overseas… Join the A.I.F’ and ‘He’s coming south! It’s work, fight or perish’ as a Japanese foot treads on the Australian soil - the young man began to pack his bags.
Proudly swinging his small bag of possessions on his shoulders, he stood amongst the many young men ready to enlist for his country. And as the men sent him away, claiming that there would be no flat footed soldiers fighting for Australia, he stared back at them in despair.
However the young Sawers boy knew he had a battle to fight, so for the second time he slung his bag upon his shoulder yet this time enlisted as Mr Gordon 'Sawyer'. This time he was cleared, and he was off to war.
Gordon was shipped off to Singapore where he fought bravely as part of the Military Police.
He and his many comrades were taken as Prisoners of War to the Burma Rail Line. He died as a corporal at 29 years of age. His body still lies in a hole at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery in Thailand, thousands of miles from home.
This is an account from my grandmother Elizabeth Cole, whose brother was Gordon Sawers, whom my father was named for.
That is my story: that is history: history preserved and honoured; how one letter in a name could change the fate of one young man's life, and consequently the lives of a whole family.
In Gallipoli, more than 620 Australians died on the first day of this protracted campaign against the Turks. By December, more than 8000 Australians were killed.
The First World War has almost entirely deserted living memory, and yet this memory stays strong, and in some ways grows ever stronger, decades after.
Thousands of people still visit the battlefields in northern France, the Gallipoli shores, the concentration camps in Germany - Why? So we don’t forget.
There are many that criticise how the war was enacted, the lives that were lost and the ways in which we fought, the propaganda that encouraged young naive men, such as my great uncle, to go to great lengths to enlist.
What is beyond dispute is the sacrifice of those involved and the power of mateship in times of extreme adversity.
Men and women gave their lives, often for the stranger next to them on the battlefield. The impact these losses had and continue to have on their countrymen left behind is profound.
And the ones who remain, the ones we now call our veterans, the ones who march every April 25, each year remembering their own stories with glory shining upon their tears - until age wearied, their final march complete - have been lost to time.
But the spirit of what they and the thousands of other Australians in conflicts throughout the world fought for continues on, through the ages, passed down by those who chose to educate their children what was lost and what was gained, public consciousness strengthens with each passing year.
In the morning, I will remember them.
