Fed: Rain falls on Canberra service, but 30,000 still attend=2

AAP General News (Australia)
04-25-2007
Fed: Rain falls on Canberra service, but 30,000 still attend=2

The RSL's ACT branch president Gary Brodie read the Anzac dedication, saying Australians
owed a great debt of gratitude to the soldiers who landed at Gallipoli 92 years ago today.

"The Australia and New Zealand Army Corps at Gallipoli made immortal the name of Anzac
and established an imperishable tradition of selfless service, of devotion to duty, and
of fighting for all that is best in human relationships," he said.

"Let us dedicate ourselves to the service of the ideals for which they died.

"Let us, with God's help, give our utmost to make the world what they would have wished
it to be - a better and happier place for all of its people, through whatever means are
open to us."

Governor-General Michael Jeffery attended today's dawn service at the Australian War
Memorial, continuing a tradition he began almost 50 years ago as a cadet at the Duntroon
military college.

"It never fails to move me, to be up here from this beautiful shrine looking down Anzac
Parade to the Old Parliament House and the new Parliament House," he told the Nine Network.

"To see the gathering and the increasing number of people coming to pay their respect
and, I guess, their homage.

"I think they (the Anzacs) up there are part of it, I think this is a spiritual place,
our war memorial, and I think the public feel that."

Major-General Jeffery will deliver the commemorative address during the main Anzac
Day service in Canberra later this morning, which Prime Minister John Howard and Opposition
Leader Kevin Rudd will attend.

AAP dcr/cjh/jlw

KEYWORD: ANZAC CANBERRA LEAD 2 CANBERRA

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