Once-Forgotten WWI Veterans Honoured a Century Later

A supplied image obtained on Dec. 21, 2023, of the Minister for Veterans' Affairs Matt Keogh laying a wreath at a Commonwealth war grave created as part of the Headstone Project in Tasmania. A government grant has allowed veterans organisations to commemorate World War I veterans who did not die on the frontline. AAP Image/Supplied by Department of Veterans' Affairs, Forgotten Diggers

They went to war as chipper young men, only to find themselves in regional Australia a handful of years later: shattered, isolated and haunted by memories of the trenches.

World War I (WWI) soldiers who died in combat and were laid to rest in official Commonwealth war graves, but no one has similarly honoured the survivors—until now.