We had an excellent Anzac march in Perth, with the crowds seemingly at steady levels of around 30,000+ every year. The WW2 vets are very thin on the ground, and the Vietnam Vets are looking very aged now. The cadets all largely look promising, and the Navy and AF boys and girls looked very spiffy.
Nearly didn't make the march - my partner I were booked on a reasonably tight schedule, to travel QF767 from BNE to PER and a vital crewmember called in sick at the last minute.
We weren't informed until right on the death knock, 10 mins before takeoff at 20:05HRS. We were informed a replacement crew had to drive in from Surfers Paradise. That took nearly 2 hrs. Didn't get airborne until 22:40HRS (BNE time) and got into PER at 02:40HRS local time, after a smooth flight by the replacement crew. Thanks to those blokes who gave up their holiday time. Got a bit of shuteye and just made the start of the march-off through the city at 09:30HRS.
Can't whinge too much - a lot of blokes suffered much greater deprivation than delayed flights, and a shortage of shuteye, while defending the country from despots.
Interesting to see the varieties of people supporting ANZAC day - Vietnamese, Chinese, Nepalese, Koreans, Poles, Sikhs, you name the cultural variety, they were there.
We even had some real foreigners in the form of Kiwi and U.S. Veterans.
They all joined in the hymns, listened to the prayers, the local leaders speeches and the schoolkids singing, and waved Australian flags furiously - thus showing their support for the nation that gives them refuge from terrorism, and despots.
Of course, there was one group missing from all the ANZAC supporters - and we all know who that group is.
They have a tendency to take advantage of our easy-going culture, but prefer not to support it, and would rather introduce their own violent culture they brought with them.
We didn't miss them.