Copied from http://iwvpa.net/f-boglee/dedica.htm (The International War Veterans' Poetry Archives)

DEDICATION DAY
(©Eric Bogle, June 1996)

August in Mildura, and winter's on the run.
There's an early taste of springtime in the warm mid-morning sun.
As the men march past, from first to last, the crowds cheer every one,
And war seems somehow very far away
On this sunny Dedication Day.

They march to a Memorial, built by and for their own,
A simple Wall of Remembrance, of brick and steel and stone,
With the names inscribed of those who'd died while those who had made it home
With a debt of love and honour to repay
Had all gathered there on Dedication Day.

REFRAIN:
It's Dedication Day.
It's Dedication Day.

There was a concert held that evening. me and others sang our songs
While the boys drank beer and reminisced, laughed and clapped and sang along.
As I was standing there with my guitar just waiting to go on
A man grabbed my arm and said, "Please, would you play
A song for my mate Hans this Dedication Day."

He asked me to sing "Welcome Home," and I saw tears in his eyes.
I knew there was a story there, but I did not want to pry.
And then he said to me, "I want that song, you see, for this morning my mate died."
Faced with his grief, there was nothing I could say,
So I sang for Hans on Dedication Day.

They say that Hans took his own life, but I don't know if that's true.
But if it is, that's no surprise. too many Vietnam Veterans do.
Only those who were there can know the despair and the pain that he went through.
For who can understand it more than they?
Those who knew the cost of Dedication Day.

Though that Asian war's long over, they're still burying their dead.
Yet somehow their bond grows stronger with each broken thread.
What poison stole into Hans' soul to taint the years ahead?
In that war so long ago and far away,
Until he died of wounds on Dedication Day.

[Sung by Eric Bogle on "Small Miracles," Greentrax CD #130, 1998.]