Student address at Anzac Day ceremony moves acting editor Tim Howard
Student address at Anzac Day ceremony moves acting editor Tim Howard Adam Hourigan

OUR SAY: Speeches revitalise Anzac

IT'S not often you're standing in the sun at an Anzac Day service and you want to hear more from the speakers.

McAuley Catholic College student Brad Chapman's address relating his experience walking New Guinea's Kokoda Track in September last year, to the heroics of the Australian forces that held the line so gallantly in 1942, was one of the highlights of the service.

The themes he worked with: mateship, courage, endurance and sacrifice never grow old, every generation needs to refresh them.

Brad's speech did that, touching on the individual courage of soldier like Bruce Kingsbury who won a posthumous Victoria Cross for saving the day, but losing his life at at the Battle of Isurava.

He also touched on the endurance that drove those desperate Australians, negotiating the treacherous terrain while under fire and weakened by disease and hunger by making sure your mate was in nor worse a position than you were.

The combination of these four elements broke the invincible aura the Japanese soldier had gained as they marched through Asia in the early years of the war.

The other speakers at the Grafton service - Lotte Pereira Shanae Crispin and Victoria Clarke - were similarly inspiring.

They reinforced to the listening veterans, they're efforts were not in vain.