This was the case for 21-year-old George Silvester Goward, a policeman of Eden, who was killed in action three years later in Belgium aged 24.

He was the son of Robert Goward and fought as part of the First Pioneer Battalion in the Australian Army.

He now rests at Menin Road South Military Cemetery.

Mr Goward was enlisted in Liverpool in November 1914, where he joined the Fourth Battalion in Mena in March 1915.

It was here where he was wounded, presumably at Gallipoli as one of the original Anzacs who landed on its beaches.

In 1916 he was with the divisional military police, attached to the first infantry brigade and there, temporarily promoted to lance-corporal and escorted a prisoner to Mudros on Aragon, later rejoining the first infantry brigade headquarters in Gallipoli.

An Army Corps Routine Order in February 1916 read: “the army commander is pleased to place on record his appreciation of the capable and satisfactory manner in which the undermentioned non-commissioned officer carried out his duties during the evacuation from Anzac: - No 31 L-Corpl. Goward, M.M.P., 1st Asutralian Division.

That same year Goward was transferred to the first division headquarters Tel-el-Kebir and boarded the Alexandria on Bohemian to join BEF later disembarking in Marseilles.

As with many soldiers disease and infection was rampant and he was struck down with tonsillitis in July 1916 which developed into diphtheria. 

Once recovering from this he returned to the first division headquarters and was transferred to the first Australian pioneer battalion where he was appointed Lance-Corporal.

One month later he received a promotion to Corporal. 

While on leave, he contracted gonorrhoea and was again admitted to hospital.

When he rejoined the First Pioneer Battalion in August 1917, it would be one-month later that he was killed by a shell explosion while he and others were engaged in road construction on the Menin Road near Ypres, Belgium.

His body was received by reverend A. C Townsend.