On Remembrance Day, we observe a minute of silence in honour of the moment the guns fell still across Europe 108 years ago.
Amid the trauma, exhaustion and indeed elation that marked the end of the Great War, that silence held the hope that the world would never again know such horror.
More than a century on, it is a hope we are yet to realise, but we hold on to it with every fibre of our being.
It is a hope embodied by generations of Australians who have served in our name, and Remembrance Day stands for every single one of them.
It is indeed for every Australian denied the chance to grow old, and every Australian who came home, changed forever.
It is for every family torn by loss, and every corner of the earth made hallow by the sacrifice of their loved ones.
And as we think of all who have served, we think of all who serve now.
Across Australia today, from our biggest city to the smallest country town, we will gather in solemnity and gratitude.
And we will think back to that first silence in 1918 and how, along the Western Front, the first sound that broke that sacred quiet was birdsong.
For all those soldiers freed from the horror, imagine how that melody filled their hearts.
We hold them all within our own hearts, just as we hold all who have followed – for this generation and all the generations to come.
Lest we forget.