The Canberra Services Club was on Saturday unable to hold public events to mark Anzac Day for the first time in 80 years.
Club president Mike Kinniburgh said members had been very pragmatic about the disruption to the club's biggest day of the year.
"The older members have been through a lot, some remember rationing. Some are old enough, very, very few, but some would remember the depression. But certainly a number of them remember World War II, and they remember hardship, and they say this is nothing compared to what people have put up with in Afghanistan, Vietnam, Iraq, and so it goes on," Mr Kinniburgh said.
"This is a very small price for us to pay to do something for our country."
The club, which was established in October 1939 amid the outbreak of the Second World War to provide comfort and assistance to local servicemen and women, has held commemorative events each Anzac Day since 1940.
"We're thinking of our members that are with us and that have gone before, and the people that went through the club on their way out to war and never came home," Mr Kinniburgh said.
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Mr Kinniburgh said this year would be offer a "breathing space".
"I think on the original Anzac Day, and my grandfather fought at Gallipoli, and on his Anzac Day, and the second and third and fourth Anzac Day, I think they would have loved to have been home with their families," he said.
