Members of the Pallaconian Brotherhood gathered at Sparta Place in Brunswick on Sunday to remember fallen soldiers. Standing at the foot of King Leonidas’ statue, the small group came together to honour the memory of those fallen at various battles, including Gallipoli, the ancient battle at Thermopylae and on Papua New Guinea’s Kokoda Track.
Coinciding with the Anzac tributes this week, Sgt Ken (Kyryiakos) Tsirigotis, a veteran of East Timor and Afghanistan, read the ode: “They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn; at the going down of the sun, and in the morning, we will remember them. Lest we forget.”
Sgt Tsirigotis also represented the 8/7th Battalion of the Royal Victoria Regiment – elements of the battalion had fought during the battles of Greece and Crete in WW2.
Ex-servicemen Con Glekas and Peter Adamis attended a simple ceremony to remember those Australians who delayed a determined enemy on the doorstep of Australia’s northern shores on the Kokoda Track.
Chris Paikopoulos, President of the Pallaconians, paid tribute to those who fought and died at Thermopylae in Greece and reminded the gathering that the statue of King Leonidas also represented those Australians who had fought and died on the Kokoda Track in Papua New Guinea, Australia’s Thermopylae.
After the small service, 250 Peloponnesians gathered at the Pallaconian Brotherhood to meet the ex-servicemen.