I guess they're all gone now...I think Australia's last WW1 Vet died in the last few years...our last Gallipoli Vet quite a few years before that.
But growing up, as I did, in the 60s and 70s in Australia they were still extant in huge numbers...they were not even particularly old...most in their late 60s early 70s...of course the WW2 and Korean Vets were our fathers and our older brothers and cousins were in Vietnam.
Certainly in those days it was not unusual in Australia for the old gent next door or two doors down the street to be a WW1 Vet and many were at Gallipoli.
Society in Australia in the 60s and 70s was a more close knit thing so neighbours often spent considerable time together...many were the dinners where a Gallipoli/Western Front vet who lived two houses away was our guest...a Lighthorseman who charged the guns at Beersheba (last successful horse cavalry charge in history?) was also a neighbour.
Edit: I just went a googling Australian Lighthorse and found this.
1630: The 4th and 12th Australian Light Horse Regiments drew up behind a ridge. From the crest, Beerhseba was in full view. The course lay down a long, slight slope which was bare of cover. Between them and the town lay the enemy defences. The 4th was on the right; the 12th was on the left.
They rode with bayonets in hand. Each drew up on a squadron frontage. Every man knew that only a wild, desperate charge could seize Beerhseba before dark.
They moved off at the trot, deploying at once into artillery formation, with 5 metres between horsemen. Almost at once the pace quickened to a gallop. Once direction was given, the lead squadrons pressed forward. The 11th Australian Light Horse Regiment and the Yeomanry followed at the trot in reserve.
The Turks opened fire with shrapnel. Machine guns fired against the lead squadrons. The Royal Horse Artillery got their range and soon had them out of action. The Turkish riflemen fired, horses were hit, but the charge was not checked. The Lighthorsemen drove in their spurs; they rode for victory and they rode for Australia. The bewildered enemy failed to adjust their sights and soon their fire was passing harmlessly overhead. The 4th took the trenches; the enemy soon surrendered.
The 12th rode through a gap and on into the town. Their was a bitter fight. Some enemy surrendered; others fled and were pursued into the Judean Hills. In less than an hour it was over; the enemy was finally beaten.
From his headquarters, Chauvel had watched the battle develop. He saw the New Zealanders swarming the Tel; on their right the 9th and 10th LH Regiment were trotting in pursuit under shrapnel. On the Wadi the 2nd and 3rd LH Regiments were pressing forward in their attempt to take the town from the east. The Royal Horse Artillery were firing in support. Then over the ridge rode the 4th and 12th . . . shrapnel . . . the signal to charge! Not for almost an hour did Chauvel learn that Beersheba had been won.
Then disaster. The 9th and 10th in pursuit were bombed by a lone German aircraft; they suffered heavy casualties. The Desert Mounted Corps watered at the wells of the patriarchs and in the pool. For days, the charge was the talk of the camps and messes.
The Australian Light Horse had galloped into history.
It was not easy for this excited teenager to get them talking but on odd occassions they would...spine chilling stuff from very modest men. Now as
I sit in a glass cockpit jet flying (often over the Sinai area and Gallipoli Peninsular) in a push button 21st Century I almost find it impossible to believe I once knew an old man who rode against machine guns and cannon in a horse cavalry charge...it just boggles the mind and compresses history in an amazing way.
I once spent a week as a guest of the extended family of my best mate at school in a little town between Canberra and the coast in the early 70s. We were picked up in Canberra and driven there by my mates uncle who had recently retired...a WW1 vet. We spent two weeks with this gentle, but incredibly tough, old man while he taught us city kids to ride, shoot, trap etc...he could open a rabbit trap with one hand...we rode horses up into the hills south of the valley one day and he showed us where he lived after returning from the war...a bark hut he built at the end of a track in a remote but very beautiful valley...an old model T ford rusting away beside it.
He had gone up there after returning from France and stayed there alone for nearly 20 years...rarely venturing into town for a few supplies. He eventually worked through his demons and rejoined society, got married and had children. We spent a couple of days up there camping out, hunting and just sitting around an open fire at night and talking...35 years ago now....just magic.
Kids these days don't get the exposure we did so they are less well informed...but then 5 years ago when I was based in Singapore the Australian International School, which my then 13 year old was attending, organised for some Australian Changi prison/Burma railway vets to visit the school and talk to the children on Anzac Day...it made a pretty positive impression on my daughter. That night they were interviewed and filmed walking around the old part of the prison...she watched with rapt attention saying "I met them today...they were really nice men..and so brave"
I don't think the vets would be that put out by the seeming lack of intimate knowledge of the current generation...I think they would say they fought so that future generations would not need to know to much.