Symbolism
The Returned & Services League of Australia (RSL) uses several symbols.
RSL BADGE
The badge is a symbol of readiness at all times to render service to the country and to former comrades. No wealth or influence can purchase the RSL badge which may be worn only by those who are members of the RSL.
The SHIELD shape is symbolic of the protection which the RSL gives to its members, their dependents, and widows/widowers and orphans of those who paid the supreme sacrifice.
RED represents the blood ties of war that exist between comrades.
WHITE stands for the purity of the motives in joining the League – to render service without thought of personal gain or ambition.
BLUE indicates a willingness to render that service to a comrade anywhere under the blue sky – wherever he or she may be.
The WATTLE is symbolic of Australia. The leek, rose, thistle and shamrock represent the link with Wales, England, Scotland and Ireland respectively.
Depicted in the centre of the badge, and encircled by the name of the organisation, are a sailor, soldier, airman and servicewoman marching together with their arms linked in friendship. This is to show that within the circle of the League, all Services and all ranks march together in unity and comradeship.
Learn more about the RSL badge design and how it has changed over the last 100 years.
“The Price of Liberty
is Eternal Vigilance.”
RSL MOTTO
The motto of the RSL has an interesting history. In the fourth century, BC Demosthenes enunciated the spirit of the motto although he used these words: "There is one safeguard known generally to the wise, which is an advantage and security to all, but especially to democracies as against despots. What is it? Distrust."
In 1770 the following words were apparently first used by John Philpot Curran in his speech upon his election as Lord Mayor of Dublin: "The condition upon which God hath given liberty to man is eternal vigilance."
Then Wendel Phillips, in an address before the Massachusetts Anti Slavery Society in 1852 said: "Eternal vigilance is the price of liberty."
Some people have attributed this also to Thomas Jefferson but no one has found any records of Jefferson using the sentence.
In the early 1920's the Victorian Branch of the League suggested that the League should have a motto and the NSW Branch of the League recommended: "The Price of Liberty is Eternal Vigilance." In November 1923 the 8th National Congress of the RSL agreed on the motto recommended by RSL NSW.
rSL Banner
The background colour of the RSL Banner is the same blue as is depicted in the Australian National Flag.
Each of the stars depicted on the Australian National Flag shall be depicted and positioned on the RSL Banner in the same position as they are on the Australian National Flag except that they are coloured ‘wattle’ yellow.
The RSL Badge occupies the upper quarter next to the staff in lieu of the Union Jack and is centrally placed above the Federation.
The Poppy
The poppy is used on Remembrance Day and the use of this flower as a symbol of remembrance goes back to 1915. Why a red poppy?
The red poppy, the Flanders poppy, was first described as the flower of remembrance by Colonel John McCrae, who was Professor of Medicine at McGill University of Canada before World War One. Colonel McCrae had served as a gunner in the Boer War, but went to France in World War One as a medical officer with the first Canadian contingent. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote this poem in pencil on a page torn from his dispatch book.
The verses were apparently sent anonymously to the English magazine, Punch, which published them under the title . "In Flanders' Fields". Colonel McCrae was wounded in May 1918 and died after three days in a military hospital on the French coast. On the eve of his death he allegedly said to his doctor, "Tell them this. If ye break faith with us who die we shall not sleep".
The Ode
The Ode is taken from the elegy For The Fallen, by English poet and writer Laurence Binyon and was published in London in The Winnowing Fan; Poems of the Great War in 1914.
The fourth verse, which became the League Ode, was already used in association with commemoration services in Australia in 1921 and not only adorns War Memorials throughout the British Commonwealth but is at the heart of all rites of the RSL.
"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning, We will remember them."
RSL SALUTE
In London on Armistice Day 1920, during the ceremony to unveil and dedicate the Cenotaph in Whitehall, a funeral procession accompanying the remains of The Unknown Soldier, which had arrived from France the previous day, was to halt at the Cenotaph during the ceremony before proceeding to Westminster Abbey for interment.
The official party included the Empire’s senior soldiers, sailors and politicians and as many Victoria Cross winners as could be assembled. The ceremony concluded with a march past. The Regimental Sergeant Major of the Guards Regiment conducting the ceremony, faced with a gathering of highly decorated and high ranking military men (including the Victoria Cross winners), all wearing rows of medals, decreed that all would salute the Cenotaph as they marched past by placing their hand over their medals, signifying that “No matter what honours we may have been awarded they are as nothing compared with the honour due to those who paid the supreme sacrifice.”
The RSL maintains that tradition to honour the dead by placing the right hand over medals (not our heart, our medals) during a march-past at a ceremonial occasion, or at a wreath laying ceremony.
The Memorial Scroll and Plaque
The Memorial Scroll and Plaque were issued after the First World War to the next-of-kin of all allied service personnel who were killed as a result of the war.
The Memorial Scroll bears the Royal Coat of Arms and a message paying tribute to the soldiers who gave up "their own lives that others might live in freedom".
The plaques were made of bronze and were popularly known as the “Dead Man’s Penny”, because of the similarity in appearance to a penny coin. It shows Britannia and a lion on the front and bears the inscription: "He died for freedom and honour". The full name of the dead soldier is engraved on the right hand side of the plaque. No rank, unit or decorations are shown, befitting the equality of the sacrifice made by all casualties.