Why Is Anzac Day Important

Australian and New Zealand Army Corps Day, most commonly called Anzac Day, is arguably Australia’s most important holiday. Anzac Day is celebrated every year on the 25th of April, and it celebrates “the first military action fought by Australian and New Zealand forces during the First World War” (Hall 83) in 1915. Anzac Day started to become a national occasion in the 1920’s to honour the 60,000 Australian casualties during the war (Hall 83). Anzac Day became a national occasion because it is meaningful to the Australian people, therefore unifying them, and bringing Australia a sense of national identity. It also is packed with tradition and is an organised and structured occasion. Finally, it increasingly has a large amount of participation. As Hall says, “Country life in Australia became the mystic symbol of a
Anzac Day was first celebrated in 1916 with multiple ceremonies, services, and marches. Nowadays Anzac Day comes equipped with not only a dawn service, but also dawn vigils, marches, memorial services, reunions, and games. It became popular to commemorate through a dawn service on Anzac Day, for the soldiers landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey at dawn (Hall 83). Dawn Service commonly includes a minister who leads ‘hymns, readings, pipers, and rifle volleys’ (“Anzac Day Tradition”) Other types of dawn services are simpler and include a military routine, two minutes of silence, followed by a bugle playing “The Last Post,” then “Reveille.” There is also a National Ceremony. The format for The National Ceremony has an introduction, hymn, prayer, address, laying of wreaths, recitation, bugle playing “Last Post,” moment of silence, bugle playing “Rouse” or “Reveille,” and the National Anthem. Finally, families of the soldiers puts red poppies next to their family member’s name on the Memorial’s Roll of Honour or next to the Tomb of the Unknown Australian Soldier (“Anzac Day