Their son can't be there, but proud parents Doug and Kaye Baird have carried his Victoria Cross to Gallipoli for the 100th anniversary of the Battle of Lone Pine.
Corporal Cameron Baird died fighting in Afghanistan in 2013 and became Australia's 100th VC recipient when the medal was awarded posthumously for the 32-year-old's bravery during an engagement with insurgents.
At Thursday's service at the Lone Pine cemetery, Mr Baird will wear his son's medal and read a soldier's description of Lone Pine in August 1915.
The bloody battle across several days resulted in more than 2000 Australian casualties and led to the awarding of seven VCs for bravery by diggers as they fought to dislodge Turkish troops from their trenches.
To mark such bravery 100 years on, three living VC recipients - Corporal Mark Donaldson, Corporal Daniel Keighran and former warrant officer Keith Payne - have also travelled to Gallipoli for the service, along with Governor-General Peter Cosgrove.
At Lone Pine on Wednesday, Mr Baird told AAP he and his wife were proud to represent their son on "sacred ground" where men died fighting hand to hand in the trenches.
"My son was involved in close-quarter battles on many occasions, so I think it's quite fitting that his memory be here today," he said.
Mr Baird said such occasions were emotional for him, but he felt it was his duty to honour his son and others who died fighting for Australia.
"We hope we'll never see a World War I again, we certainly don't want another Afghanistan," he said.
Cpl Donaldson, who was awarded a VC for bravery during an enemy ambush in Afghanistan, said he wondered how many unreported brave actions occurred at Lone Pine that may have deserved a VC.
"As someone who's received an award for courage, I think sometimes that gets forgotten, but it's important to remember that," he said.
Cpl Keighran, who was also awarded a VC for bravery during an engagement with Afghan insurgents, said the soldiers who fought at Lone Pine were "doing it for their team, for their mates".
"It's hard to imagine what they went through, the experience of that horrendous warfare, the smell of decaying bodies, to losing your mates and not sleeping, to not getting anything to eat, to having limited water - and then still having to fight," he said.
Mr Payne, now 81, was awarded his VC for his actions in Vietnam in 1969 when he got wounded men to safety after his unit was attacked.
"When I look at this battlefield, I almost cry," he said of Lone Pine.
"The whole thing should never have been fought. They were just running into rapid-fire weapons, machine guns.
"As a young nation of seven million people, we lost far too many young Australians in that terrible war."
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