They are the ones who did grow old.
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Unlike those who will tragically be remembered as forever young, these are the men and women who, after serving their country, lived for years afterwards.
Now they lie not in Flanders Fields or Kokoda, but in the civilian cemetery at Shellharbour. And their memory often draws less fanfare on Anzac Day.
That's the view of Warilla RSL club past president Don Briggs OAM, who decided these veterans should receive more recognition.
On Anzac Day we remember them - but the people n the cemetery, we forget them
- Don Briggs, Warilla RSL sub-branch
Mr Briggs set out to identify all the veterans in Shellharbour cemetery, and on Wednesday he was marking each of the 66 graves with an Australian flag.
"On Anzac Day we remember them - but the people in the cemetery, we forget them," he said.
"Here's other people who died after the war, who may also be victims of the war - maybe they died from illness or injury, or maybe they had long lives.
"What they went through - the mind boggles.
"They fought for a principle - and now we have idiots bombing people for no good reason.
"All we hope is that the future generations of Australians - because we're such a multicultural country - embrace and realise what we've got was hard-gained, and realise people put their life on the line to save it, to make it ... to make easier for everyone.
"We all enjoy the good life but people had to pay a price for that good life."
Headstones tell snippets of their stories, from a teenager who died in the late 1800s - to the more recent additions, whether their service came in conflict or in peacetime.
Working with Mr Briggs was Tongarra Heritage Society president Paul Hockey, who got to place a flag on the grave of his father Ray, who died 16 years ago.
"I was three months old when he first saw me, on Dunmore Station - he'd just come back from New Guinea," Mr Hockey said.
And he pointed out a happy fact about the flags.
"It's nice to see the Australian flags are Australian made," he said.
Mr Briggs wants to hear from any families of people buried at Shellharbour who were veterans, but didn't have the official badge on their headstone, to contact him so the RSL could look to include them.