Report on the Rotary Club Meeting on 20th January 2015.
The meeting was opened by President Tom who welcomed Roger and Clare  Climpson, Frankie Cartwright, Jenny May’s nephew who is motor-biking around Australia, Alicia and Brent who are now regulars at the meeting, as well as welcoming back various travellers- Adrienne who has been everywhere and Martin and Margaret from Hong Kong.  He also thanked Lindsay again for his masterful presentation last week on the Sydney to Hobart yacht race.
Rtn Ron presented a brief report on the Club’s RYLA nominee. He indicated that the 2015 RYLA leadership program was not only outstanding, but much appreciated. We will soon have the opportunity to hear personally from our nominee.
PP Martin reported on the 2015 Walk Around The World (WATW) program and praised the wonderful organisation by the Council’s Carol Sinclair and Katie Christiansen. Rob Palmer will again be the celebrity spokesperson. The formal launch will be in the Plaza on Saturday 14th February with the Mayor, Rob Palmer and President Tom jointly “launching” the program. Our target is to reach 125 million steps over 1-31 March 2015.  Rotarians are asked to be there in force for the launch but also to be there on 10am to 12noon on the following Saturdays;  31st January, February 7th, 14th, 21st and 28th to encourage people to participate and pre-register. PP Martin will send around some more details and would very much appreciate if everyone could contribute some time in this very important lead-up to the WATW program.
President Tom asked for volunteers to help at the Australia Day barbecue, organised by the Scouts.
The Sergeant’s session was led by Rtn John Cronly who fined people left, right and centre for having birthdays and committing other misdemeanours and in doing so raised $70. The Sergeant’s challenge to the Club is to beat the $1900 raised in fines last year and achieve a target of $2000.
Guest Speaker
Rtn James introduced our speaker, Linda Brown JP, who works as a Funeral Director for the highly respected funeral service, TJ Andrews. It was through her work that she was introduced to the role TJ Andrews played in bringing the remains of the Unknown Soldier to Australia. She described how during the Great War of 1914-18, on the battlefields of northern France, an Australian soldier perished. He was among 61,720 troops killed in action during the war. Despite the meticulous records of the Commonwealth War Graves Commission at the end of the war, his body was unidentifiable.
Rob Allison, former Managing Director of TJ Andrews Funeral Services, offered his services to the Australian War Memorial as an “honour consultant”. He acted as a funeral director in the ceremonies at Villers-Bretonneux, at the Menin Gate at Ypres in Belgium, and also at Cambrai Air Base in the north of France. After these services, ‘The Unknown Soldier’s’ remains were boarded into a specially named Qantas 747, ‘The Spirit of Remembrance’, for the return to Australia. The final and most important ceremony began on the morning of November 11, exactly 75 years after the war he had fought in. It was on this day, the then Prime Minister, Paul Keating read the eulogy and “The Unknown Soldier’ was entombed in the Hall of Memory in the Australian War Memorial, coming to be officially recognised as a poignant and powerful symbol of all Australians who have died in war.
Linda Brown, after describing many of the theatres of war Australia has been involved in, then read the eulogy delivered by the Prime Minister, The Hon. P.J. Keating MP, at the funeral service of the Unknown Australian Soldier, 11 November 1993. The Club members were transfixed by the eulogy and the meeting was marked by quiet contemplation and a greater understanding of the symbolism of the Unknown Soldier in defining Australia’s appreciation of the sacrifices made by ordinary men and women in the service to our country.
The actual transcript of Paul Keating’s eulogy is as follows:
“We do not know this Australian's name and we never will. We do not know his rank or his battalion. We do not know where he was born, nor precisely how and when he died. We do not know where in Australia he had made his home or when he left it for the battlefields of Europe. We do not know his age or his circumstances – whether he was from the city or the bush; what occupation he left to become a soldier; what religion, if he had a religion; if he was married or single. We do not know who loved him or whom he loved. If he had children we do not know who they are. His family is lost to us as he was lost to them. We will never know who this Australian was.
Yet he has always been among those whom we have honoured. We know that he was one of the 45,000 Australians who died on the Western Front. One of the 416,000 Australians who volunteered for service in the First World War. One of the 324,000 Australians who served overseas in that war and one of the 60,000 Australians who died on foreign soil. One of the 100,000 Australians who have died in wars this century.
He is all of them. And he is one of us.
This Australia and the Australia he knew are like foreign countries. The tide of events since he died has been so dramatic, so vast and all-consuming, a world has been created beyond the reach of his imagination.
He may have been one of those who believed that the Great War would be an adventure too grand to miss. He may have felt that he would never live down the shame of not going. But the chances are he went for no other reason than that he believed it was his duty - the duty he owed his country and his King.
Because the Great War was a mad, brutal, awful struggle, distinguished more often than not by military and political incompetence; because the waste of human life was so terrible that some said victory was scarcely discernible from defeat; and because the war which was supposed to end all wars in fact sowed the seeds of a second, even more terrible, war - we might think this Unknown Soldier died in vain.
But, in honouring our war dead, as we always have and as we do today, we declare that this is not true. For out of the war came a lesson which transcended the horror and tragedy and the inexcusable folly. It was a lesson about ordinary people – and the lesson was that they were not ordinary.
On all sides they were the heroes of that war; not the generals and the politicians but the soldiers and sailors and nurses – those who taught us to endure hardship, to show courage, to be bold as well as resilient, to believe in ourselves, to stick together.
The Unknown Australian Soldier we inter today was one of those who by his deeds proved that real nobility and grandeur belong not to empires and nations but to the people on whom they, in the last resort, always depend.
That is surely at the heart of the ANZAC story, the Australian legend which emerged from the war. It is a legend not of sweeping military victories so much as triumphs against the odds, of courage and ingenuity in adversity. It is a legend of free and independent spirits whose discipline derived less from military formalities and customs than from the bonds of mateship and the demands of necessity.
It is a democratic tradition, the tradition in which Australians have gone to war ever since.
This Unknown Australian is not interred here to glorify war over peace; or to assert a soldier's character above a civilian's; or one race or one nation or one religion above another; or men above women; or the war in which he fought and died above any other war; or of one generation above any that has or will come later.
The Unknown Soldier honours the memory of all those men and women who laid down their lives for Australia. His tomb is a reminder of what we have lost in war and what we have gained.
We have lost more than 100,000 lives, and with them all their love of this country and all their hope and energy.
We have gained a legend: a story of bravery and sacrifice and, with it, a deeper faith in ourselves and our democracy, and a deeper understanding of what it means to be Australian.
It is not too much to hope, therefore, that this Unknown Australian Soldier might continue to serve his country - he might enshrine a nation's love of peace and remind us that in the sacrifice of the men and women whose names are recorded here there is faith enough for all of us.”
The Hon. P.J. Keating MP
Prime Minister of Australia
 
After the presentation there were only a few questions as most of the members remained in quiet contemplation. Linda Brown made the comment that efforts to determine the identity of the Unknown Soldier should never be attempted.
PP John Palmer thanked Linda Brown most sincerely and the members showed their grateful appreciation in the usual way.
The meeting closed with the raffle being won by PP Robert Cartwright (who donated the wine to the speaker). The meeting was attended by 20 Rotarians and 4 guests.
 
Scribe
PP Martin Silink