By Jed Lanyon
The Victorian Aboriginal Remembrance Service was held on Friday 31 May at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne.
The Victorian Aboriginal Remembrance Service was founded by Aunty Dot Peters, a respected Aboriginal Elder in the Yarra Valley community.
The service honoured the thousands of Aboriginal service men and women who have served and continue to serve in the Australian Defence Force.
“I think it’s good to remember them. The service gives us a chance say thank you to the boys who came back over,” Aunty Dot said.
“And for those who didn’t, their bodies are not here but their spirits are here and it touches my heart.”
Aunty Dot said she hopes that anyone who attended the service learned a little bit more than what they knew beforehand about Indigenous soldiers who served for Australia.
“A lot of people don’t know what happened to these Aboriginal people, even some of our own people don’t know. It’s about telling them what has happened and what is still happening now.
“When Aboriginal people tried to join the services, the authorities wouldn’t let them because of the colour of their skin.
“If it was really dark they wouldn’t let them join. But when the Japanese bombed Darwin, they changed their mind,” Aunty Dot said.
Aunty Dot said she was upset to hear that some returning Aboriginal servicemen were excluded from having a beer at a hotel with other non-Indigenous soldiers they had fought alongside.
“I approached the local RSL and asked them to get involved with Reconciliation Week.”
A didgeridoo was played alongside the ode at Healesville RSL as a way of honouring Aunty Dot’s father, who had died as a Prisoner of War on the Thai Burma railway.
“The next year it was here, and it was the first time the shrine raised the Aboriginal flag to recognise Aboriginal issues, and then it went Australia wide,” she said.
“I’m hoping we can bring my father’s body back one day so he can be in Australia and recognised as Australian.”
“My brother harry fought in New Guinea… they were 16 and in those days a lot of them put their ages up because they thought it’d be great fun to be in the service, but when they all came back from the war none of them were the same.”
“It had affected them terribly.”
The first official Aboriginal Remembrance Service took place at the Shrine of Remembrance in Melbourne in 2007 to recognise the contributions made by Aboriginal people who have served in every conflict and peace keeping mission involving Australia for over 100 years.
This year, the service featured Private Kirra Grimes as the guest speaker, with Deborah Cheetham AO performing Eumeralla, a war requiem for peace with the Dhungala Children’s Choir.
