From tough beginnings, it was the chance of an adventure that led both of Marilyn Keirle's grandfathers to enlist 100 years ago after the war broke out.
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Looking back Mrs Keirle said she was often filled with admiration when she thought about the lives they led.
Her paternal grandfather, Edgar Charles Mitchell was orphaned at the age of four (his brother was two) when his mother died.
Raised with other children on a ship docked in Balmain (called the Sobroan), Mrs Keirle said while his stories sounded strange growing up, she was finding more and more that history backed them up.
His brother died of pneumonia at the age of 11 and Edgar Mitchell went to work at a dairy farm on the South Coast at the age of 14, receiving threepence a week.
"Like so many, he just wanted a chance to see the world," Mrs Keirle said.
"When the war broke out it was the chance to escape."
He enlisted as a driver with the Australian Imperial Force and celebrated his 21st birthday on the Red Sea and Christmas 1914 in the shade of the Pyramids at Mena. He also climbed the Sphinx.
He was nearly sent to Gallipoli, but the ship didn't land and from there he was sent on to France.
At Fleurs he was wounded in action and reported dead but his horse saved his life, dragging him back to the station.
Mrs Keirle and her brother Tony Mitchell said they remembered him as a real character who would always burst into song at any opportunity.
Mrs Keirle's maternal grandfather Charles Edgar Hill, was born in Cornwall, attending Wadebridge Boys' School and the Congregational Sunday School.
He was a member of the Band of Hope, a temperance movement centered on the Congregational Church, and he was a teetotaller his whole life.
After the death of their father, he and his brother Reggie emigrated to Australia and went straight from Sydney to Orange to live.
When Charles Hill was 25, the pair enlisted in the Australian Imperial Force on March 6 at Bathurst.
In May, Charles received gunshot wounds to the left arm and chest during the second battle of Bullicourt in France.
He was evacuated to England and later transferred to the 3rd Australian Auxiliary Hospital at Dartford in Kent.
He returned to Australia in November. His brother Reggie who had been wounded and repatriated on the same ship, was discharged on the same day.
For Charles, it had been a year and 302 days of service.
The pair were returned to Orange by train where they were welcomed by the mayor.
Among the crowd who had gathered at the station to greet them were two young ladies, Ruby Waterson and Elsie Gowan. Elsie and Charles later married.
He was a chief carpenter at Bloomfield Hospital in Orange and worked right up until his death.
"I have a lot of admiration that they could put up with the hardship," Mrs Keirle said.
"I would like to think that I have a bit of their tenacity and courage."
Anzac Day is always a quiet day for Marilyn and her siblings Jennifer, Susan, Grant, Tony and Kate.
"It's a day of sadness and reflection and it is going to be a quiet day of memories of all these selfless people," she said.
"We are all very proud of the many family members who have served in the Australian Military Forces over the past 100 years up to the present day.
"I think they would all be very pleased that we still remember the sacrifice they made for our freedom and our Australian way of life and values."
