The emotionally laden atmosphere of the minute's silence after the bugler played the Last Post was so quiet that the air could have been cut with a knife.
Naval Commander John Butcher of Matua gave the New Zealand Defence Force's Anzac Day address, saying how 100 years ago New Zealand and Australian soldiers went into their first joint military action, a campaign that introduced the name Gallipoli and the word Anzac into the lexicon of both nations.
"We remember the dead, but we also remember the living, those veterans who return from military deployments, often carrying, unseen, the mental scars and trauma of what they have experienced."
Commander Butcher also said they needed to remember and acknowledge today's service people who were on operations around the world.
"They have the same values, same ethos, and in many cases direct links to those that have served their nation.
"We might come from a greater mix of ethnicities, and there may be more women, but a New Zealand service person about to deploy to Iraq today is the same as the person coming ashore at Gallipoli 100 years ago or fighting in the defence of Greece 74 years ago.
"Forged under fire at Gallipoli, in North Sea naval battles and on the Western Front, the values of courage, comradeship and commitment have endured since the First World War and form the core of the modern military which has proudly represented New Zealand for 100 years," he said.
A poem composed by Tauranga Girls' College Year 13 student Annie Connor captured the mood of this morning's Anzac Day service at the Tauranga RSA.
The poem, read by Tauranga Girls' College Head Girl Ana Morris was called 'And Still the Poppies Grow'
Up, over the trench,
the men that we lost
poison the Earth.
And still the poppies grow.
The murderous air
wrenches the heart,
of too many souls.
And still the poppies grow.
In the art of defiance,
the irony we face,
to believe in a silver lining.
But still the poppies grow.
