{"id":851,"date":"2015-05-27T21:52:01","date_gmt":"2015-05-27T13:52:01","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/?p=851"},"modified":"2020-05-01T11:53:52","modified_gmt":"2020-05-01T03:53:52","slug":"peel-health-campus-supports-local-youth-to-attend-anzac-services-in-thailand","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/?p=851","title":{"rendered":"PEEL HEALTH CAMPUS SUPPORTS LOCAL YOUTH TO ATTEND ANZAC SERVICES IN THAILAND"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\t\tIn keeping with the true Ramsay Health Care spirit, the team at Peel Health Campus have made a community contribution which has had a big impact on the lives of some local service cadets.<\/p>\n<p>Peel Health Campus\u2019 sponsorship of the Burma Thailand Railway Memorial Association (BTRMA) has contributed to a total of 37 young Australian Defence Force cadets aged between 15 and 17 taking part in ten -day tours across Thailand over the years. The Quiet Lion Tour aims to perpetuate the memory of the privations and sacrifices of Australian and Allied prisoners of war and the selfless dedication of the medical personnel during the construction of the Burma Thailand Railway.<\/p>\n<p>As part of the tour the cadets attend a Anzac Day Dawn Service at the notorious Hellfire Pass in Thailand, the deepest and longest cutting along the entire length of the <a href=\"http:\/\/hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au\/building-hellfire-pass\/\">railway<\/a>.\u00a0 This area now symbolises the suffering and <a href=\"http:\/\/hellfire-pass.commemoration.gov.au\/the-enemy\/treatment-of-prisoners.php\">maltreatment of Australian prisoners<\/a> of war, who were forced to cut through the rock terrain often suffering from illness and malnutrition. The Dawn Service is followed by a Wreath Laying Service at the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery.<\/p>\n<p>Rhiannon Mackay, a local army cadet who attended the 2015 Tour said the walk through Hellfire Pass was breathtaking. \u201cYou could sense the mixed emotions as you walked through; hurt, sadness, fear and hope. The torture the prisoners experienced can never be forgotten. Now that I have been on this tour the memory of this place will never leave me,\u201d said Rhiannon.<\/p>\n<p>The cadets visited many historical sites including the Kanchanaburi War Cemetery where an estimated 6,980 Allied prisoners of war (1,362 Australians) who died building the railway are buried. They also visited the Chunkai Cemetery where 1,740 non-Australian prisoners are buried. In total 2,710 Australians died of the 13,000 who were captured.<\/p>\n<p>Hospital CEO Dr Margaret Sturdy said it\u2019s been wonderful to be able to help these young cadets to experience the Quiet Lion Tour and enable them to visit historical sites creating life long memories.<\/p>\n<p>The tour is named after Sir Edward \u201cWeary\u201d Dunlop, who was an Australian army surgeon, a prisoner of war and who, with his men, was forced to work on the Thai Burma Railway.\u00a0 He earned the title of the \u201cQuiet Lion\u201d through his selfless devotion to his men and courage in the face of his captors.\u00a0\u00a0 The aim of the BTRMA is to educate current and future generations about the self-sacrifice, courage and compassion that was displayed during the construction of the Thai-Burma railway.<\/p>\n<p>\u201cI hope that through supporting our local cadets to participate in these tours we have helped them with this insight,\u201d said Margaret Sturdy.\t\t<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>In keeping with the true Ramsay Health Care spirit, the team at Peel Health Campus have made a community contribution &hellip; <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-851","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-category-article"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=851"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2157,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/851\/revisions\/2157"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=851"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=851"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/www.btrma.org.au\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=851"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}