Australia’s worst trauma, World War 1, left a legacy of sorrow felt to this day. Buderim was no exception. The tiny farming community lost ten of its young men from the 49 who saw active service.
These words are part of the address to be delivered by veteran Drew Miller at Buderim’s Remembrance Day service on Sunday 11 November, marking the 100th anniversary of the Armistice of 1918.
Mr Miller, who served with the UN in the Australian Peace Keeping Contingent in Rwanda and is now a science teacher at Sunshine Coast Grammar School, will lead the service that takes place at the E.J. Foote War Memorial Sanctuary in Park Lane, Buderim commencing at 10.30am.
He goes on to say that with 61,700 men and women killed in action the flower of a generation was lost, with literally not a single Australian family left untouched.
“Following the Armistice deaths of Australian servicemen continued from wounds and illness, and would in the decades to follow, with, in 1920, one Australian dying every day from war related causes.
“How did the survivors feel? One wrote home to say it was a cruel war…a rotten business…now it is finished I am not sorry I came…and I am one of the luckiest to be here now.
“An Australian historian spoke of dreams abandoned, lives without purpose, women without husbands and fiancées…never to marry or marry again… and as 60 year olds stare at a photo of a young man with bright eyes and wearing a rough woollen tunic.
“Ceremonies like ours now span a century…where each of us honours and pays respect and never forgets those Australians who gave their lives for us, “he concludes.
