This year will be especially significant though, and not just because it is the 100th anniversary of the Gallipoli landings. 

Warrant Officer (class two) Staton, who is based at Ballarat’s Ranger Barracks, has wanted to share the Anzac Day experience with his one-year old daughter Leah. That couldn’t happen last year because Leah was born with a life-threatening illness, which meant she spent her first month of life in hospital.

This year, Leah will join her father at Ballarat’s Anzac Day commemoration services at dawn, at the POW Memorial at 9am and then the city’s main service at 11am. 

“The centenary will be special but it’s more special for me because Leah will be there,” said the 38-year-old, who has been a soldier most of his adult life.

“I take Anzac Day very seriously and have been involved in services in other countries.”

Mr Staton’s military service has taken him to the Solomon Islands. 

He returned to Melbourne to be with his partner Mariah Williams, 26, for the birth of their first child last year.

Leah was born at the Royal Women’s Hospital on April 18 with an abdominal wall defect, gastroschisis, which meant her intestines were protruding from her body. She was transferred an hour later to the Royal Children’s Hospital for urgent surgery. 

While Mr Staton’s family missed the Anzac Day march last year, he did dress for the occasion in hospital, wearing his uniform and medals. It was a symbolic gesture but Saturday will be a greater one.

gavin.mcgrath@fairfaxmedia.com.au