The event followed a well-attended dawn service and morning services at Hillgrove and Dangarsleigh War Memorial.

It is the first time marches and dawn services have been open to all in two years.

Armidale Sub-Branch of the Returned and Services League of Australia president Max Tavener welcomed those assembled saying Anzac Day is a national day of remembrance in Australia and New Zealand that broadly commemorates all Australians and New Zealanders 'who served and died in all wars, conflicts, and peacekeeping operations' and 'the contribution and suffering of all those who have served'.

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The guest speaker representing the Australian Defence Force for 2022 was Rear Admiral Robert Plath AM, who was assigned Commander Defence COVID-19 Taskforce in June 2021.

Rear Admiral Plath joined the Royal Australian Navy (RAN) as a Midshipman in January 1983. He graduated in 1985 and served in several ships before specialising in mine warfare, clearance diving and explosive ordinance disposal in 1990.

A graduate of the RAN Staff College and the Indonesian National Institute of Resilience, he also has a Masters' Degree in Business Administration from the Queensland University of Technology.

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In his address on Monday, Rear Admiral Plath said on the dawning of Anzac Day in 1942, the defence of Australia was in its darkest hour.

"It was truly a bleak picture for the nation," he said.

"And none more so than for our service people. They did not have the comfort we have now - the comfort of knowledge of their eventual victory.

"They sailed not into a clearer and brighter future but to one filled with uncertainty, fear and possibly death.

"But they did, and they made the most of what they had, and in doing so, showed all the grit and determination of those very first Anzacs who stormed the beaches in 1915."

The freedoms and prosperity we now enjoy are all the greater to Rear Admiral Plath because they were not born from civilised discourse, he said, but because they 'came forged in the fire of defeat, tempered in the trials of courageous endeavour and honed through the determination to stand tall beside your mates'.

"It's often said that the Anzac Spirit was created at Gallipoli," he said.

"But I don't think those first Anzacs found anything on those beaches except misery, deprivation and blood.

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"The character and the courage that saw them triumph to rise above the adversity - they took that with them - we just didn't have a name for it until then."

Rear Admiral Plath said we should rely on this character as we look toward the world's future and its current uncertainty, opportunity and challenges.

"The Anzac Spirit ...is in all of us," he said.

"It is part of our national fabric, and it is simply who we are."

This year marks the first time since 2001 that Anzac Day has been commemorated in Australia without the Defence Force being involved in any active operations.

The last Australian troops were pulled out of Afghanistan last year, having been there since 2001.

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