Ceremonies and National Service of Thanksgiving
The arrival of the bodies in Australia on 5 April 2005 was marked by a ceremony at Sydney Airport. Families of the deceased were joined by the Governor-General of Australia, Major General Michael Jeffery, the President of Indonesia, Susilo Bambang Yudhoyono, Australian Prime Minister, John Howard, Chief of Defence Force, General Peter Cosgrove and the Chiefs of the Army, Navy and the Air Force.
Each of the deceased were honoured with Service funerals.
A National Service of Thanksgiving for those killed in the crash of Shark 02 was held on Friday, 15 April 2005 in the Great Hall of Australian Parliament House in Canberra.
The service was attended by family members, friends and colleagues of all nine members killed, and by both survivors.
The service was led by the Anglican Bishop to the Australian Defence Force, Tom Frame. Others who spoke at the service included: John Howard, Australian Prime Minister; Kim Beazley, Leader of the Opposition; and, Imron Cotan, Indonesian Ambassador to Australia.
Services were also held in Defence's headquarters in Canberra, and at other Service establishments across the country.
Read more about this topic: 2005 Nias Island WS-61 Sea King Crash
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“Society is frivolous, and shreds its day into scraps, its conversation into ceremonies and escapes.”
—Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)
“All ceremonies are in themselves very silly things; but yet, a man of the world should know them. They are the outworks of Manners and Decency, which would be too often broken in upon, if it were not for that defence, which keeps the enemy at a proper distance.”
—Philip Dormer Stanhope, 4th Earl Chesterfield (1694–1773)
“National isolation breeds national neurosis.”
—Hubert H. Humphrey (1911–1978)
“The ruin of the human heart is self-interest, which the American merchant calls self-service. We have become a self- service populace, and all our specious comforts—the automatic elevator, the escalator, the cafeteria—are depriving us of volition and moral and physical energy.”
—Edward Dahlberg (1900–1977)
“Ah! on Thanksgiving day, when from East and from West,
From North and from South, come the pilgrim and guest,
When the gray-haired New Englander sees round his board
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And the worn matron smiles where the girl smiled before.
What moistens the lip and what brightens the eye?
What calls back the past, like the rich Pumpkin pie?”
—John Greenleaf Whittier (1807–1892)