“I Did My Best” – An ANZAC Reflection

There are stories that shape a life quietly. They are not always told in full, nor spoken often, but they live in the spaces between words, in glances, in habits, in what is left unsaid.

My father was eighteen when he went to war.

He left from a small town called Lithgow in New South Wales with five other boys – young men, though still boys in every way that mattered. Only three of them came home. It is a simple sentence, but it carries a weight that no number of words can fully hold.

When my father later came to New Zealand, he worked at the Burnside Freezing Works in Dunedin. Many of the men alongside him had also served, in the Second World War, in Korea, in Vietnam. They would visit our home from time to time. I remember them sitting together, sharing space, sharing silence. What I remember most is not what they said, but what they did not say. They rarely spoke of war.

That silence was not emptiness; I understand now that it was a burden. Memory. The kind of knowing that words cannot carry.

My father was a tough man. A disciplinarian. He carried himself with the firmness of someone who had learned early that the world could be unforgiving. At times, that toughness came into our home. My mother would remind him, gently, but firmly, “You are not preparing these kids for war, Bill. This is not the army.”

And she was right.

What we saw was only the surface. Beneath it was something deeper; hurt, resilience, and a quiet determination to build a life beyond what he had endured. I cannot fully imagine the weight that soldiers carry when they return to civilian life. The war may end, but something of it remains.

What I do remember, vividly, are the marks that never left him. The rough, faded regiment tattoos on his skin. And on his forearm, a simple image; a portrait of his mother with these words beneath it:

‘I did my best.’

Those words have stayed with me.

Not as a declaration of victory, but as a statement of humanity. Of effort. Of survival. Of doing what one could in circumstances no one should ever have to face.

Here at Wellington College, we remember that 411 of our boys gave their lives in service for our country. They gave their tomorrows for our today. Four hundred and eleven young men who once walked these grounds, who laughed, learned, and dreamed as our current boys do now.

ANZAC Day is not only a day of remembrance, it is a day of reflection.

The ANZAC spirit is often spoken of in terms of courage and endurance. But it is also something quieter. It is about getting up each day and stepping forward into uncertainty. It is about facing formidable odds without knowing what the day will bring or whether you, or those beside you, will return.

It is about standing alongside others when it matters most.

But we must also be clear: war is a terrible outcome. It leaves scars that last lifetimes and echoes that pass through generations.

One of our most distinguished old boys, General Bernard Freyberg, once said, “Our generation is going to war so generations after us don’t have to.”

That hope and that sacrifice places a responsibility on us all.

My thoughts are with those who are currently serving in conflict areas, far from home, carrying both duty and uncertainty. But equally, my thoughts are with our boys, those here today.

You are not being prepared for war.

You are being prepared for something far more important.

To shape a future where war has no place.

A future where courage is measured not by the ability to fight, but by the strength to choose peace. Where resilience is not forged in conflict, but in compassion.

Where the hands of our young men are filled with friendship, not arms.

A future where light pervades darkness.

And perhaps, if we honour the past not by repeating it, but by learning from it, then one day the words, ‘I did my best’ will carry a different meaning.

Not survival through war, but the building of a world without it.

Glen Denham

Headmaster