The decision that women should lead this year's Darwin Anzac Day march for the first time was a popular one with crowds loudly cheering current or former female defence force members.
The Returned and Services League recently decided women should lead the march, both as an endorsement of inclusivity and to highlight the work women do in the armed services and as veterans.
Darwin is a military town with 12,000 forces living there, out of a population of 140,000 and large numbers of male and female serving personnel participated in the march.
Among those women was Lara Bullpit-Troy, commanding officer of the joint logistics unit for Australia's north including the NT and northern WA and includes activities to sustain the army, navy and air force.
The mother of an 11 and nine-year-old boy served in East Timor and the Middle East.
"Anzac Day is interesting, Darwin is such a small unique community it really has that extra special family feel, that community feel that you often can't get in bigger cities," Ms Bullpit-Troy told AAP.
"The defence presence means we are an important part of the community up here in the Northern Territory with including (serving member's) children, partners, families and the rest of it."
Ms Bullpit-Troy, who was inspired to join the defence force as a child seeing her uncle graduate in the air force, said she had had an exciting career that she believed contributed positively.
"As well as the operations work , we work in local communities such as after Cyclone Marcus (in March) where a lot of defence units up here pitched in to assist in clean up activity for people that needed help around their home," she said.
For women to lead the march was very significant, Ms Bullpit-Troy said.
"Women have served for many years, even back in the world wars in the nursing corps and other service," she said.
"This is just highlighting there is that diversity in defence, there are a lot of women serving members, they deserve recognition as well.
