Thursday marked 104 years since the Australia New Zealand Army Corps landed at Gallipoli.
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But the passing of time, and the fading of that era from living memory, does not mean a lessening of remembrance.
Thousands of Forbes residents turned out to pay tribute at local services, with hundreds marching and many more lining the streets.
Guest speaker and retired serviceman Scott Stephens urged people to use the time carefully.
"In services like this we regularly take pause for a minute's silence, to think seriously about those veterans passed, and individual sacrifices," he said in the mid-morning commemorative address.
"Where do you 'go' in your mind?
"I go to the ceaseless dust, tedious weight of body armour and completely random nature of a rocket attack," he said.
"From the tedium of Coalition reporting and communications to the gut-wrenching ... panic of an international casualty extraction."
Those who have served, whether recently or decades ago, may return to the jungles of Papua New Guinea or South East Asia, to oppressive heat, days of bombardment under fire, separation from family and friends.
Each generation of veteran - WWII, Korea, Vietnam, Peacekeepers, East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan - has unique experiences of radically different zones of conflict, Mr Stephens said.
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"Moving forward from the timeframe of the Centenary of ANZAC won't mean a lessening of remembrance," he reflected.
"The effort of holding these events imparts the knowledge and collective memory of these events to a new generation.
"There are a great many things to be remembered, so much so that your minute's silence can't be wasted."
Mr Stephens has been part of events marking the centenary of battles across the Western front in both France and Belgium.
"Standing upon the battlefields of Thiepvale and Polygon Wood gave me an understanding of the ANZAC contributions in those theatres that I would not have had," he said.
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