ANZAC Day in New Delhi

We celebrated ANZAC Day this morning at the Delhi War Cemetery (about 20min from our house).

It was a lovely service - organised by yours truly (I can now add "events co-ordinator" & international relations builder to my resume). I spent the last two weeks organising ambassadors, defence attaches, expats & the Indian military to attend the service.

The Indian military (particularly the buglers) proved to be the hardest because they would never formally commit to attending (certainly not in writing).

You always knew they would - they've never let us down yet but it was SO infuriating. In the end, it all came together perfectly....well....sort of. There was a bit of a mix up with us handing the Deputy US Ambassador the Papua New Guinean wreath & vice versa. The Deputy Ambassador took it very well. Here are some photos:

The wreaths all lined up

Dr Lachlan Strahan (DHOM) speaking at the ceremony

Some of the local Australian military contingent

The ceremony

The buglers that I was fretting over

My boss - the Defence Advisor (DA)

The DA with the priest. The priest is a regular feature of the ANZAC Day ceremony

The Indian Air Force laying their wreath

The buglers doing what they do best

Standing at attention

Standing at attention (2)

Standing at attention (3)

The buglers were a very proud pair

In a nice touch, the caretakers at the cemetery placed a rose on top of all the Australian & New Zealand graves