ANZAC Day 2020

Tomorrow is ANZAC Day. Every year people gather in huge numbers, in major cities, in country towns, in ex-pat communities around the world, to commemorate the Diggers from Australia and New Zealand. Not this year, though. This year will be different.

We will still commemorate, but it will be more private. Residents of a street standing in their driveways. Members of a household standing for a minutes silence. There will be no grand pageantry. But I think that's somehow just as fitting.

For me, ANZAC Day has always been about the moments of solitude, remembering those who fought, who maybe didn't come home, or came home completely changed by the experience. Many returning soldiers, especially from World War II, don't like to speak about what happened to them. My grandfather never talked about it. All I have are his service records to show something of what he did. They don't want to burden their loved ones with the horrors of war.

While I don't think it is healthy for anyone to keep completely silent about the traumas they have endured, regardless of the type of trauma, I do think it's important for us, the civilian population, to cherish those moments of silence, to reflect, and to consider the impact of those events on the people, on our communities and our countries as a whole.

With our World War I ANZACs all gone, and our World War II vets low in number, it is up to us to remember, to commemorate and to carry the baton forward. We must use our moments of solemnity to bring to mind the reasons for their sacrifice, the lessons learned from these tragedies and the promise we must make not only to ourselves but to our family, our friends and our future generations to not repeat the mistakes of history, to not surrender an entire generation to the futility of war, and to not ever be at peace with the loss of so many for the sake of greed and selfishness.

Lest we forget.

Lest We Forget: ANZAC Day 2015

I wanted to write something profound tonight. I have sat and stared blankly at the lines on the page for quite a while now. I looked over previous piece I have written for some kind of inspiration but all I found were tears and a lump in my throat.

This ANZAC Day I don't feel profound, or even eloquent. Today I feel raw and sad and simply unable to convey half of that which I normally would.

The magnitude of everything that ANZAC stands for has overwhelmed me. I am laying in bed, tears dripping from the end of my nose onto my pillow, silently sobbing as I write, wishing for a flash or clarity, the thought striking me that I have no reason to feel this way.

I have never lost anyone to war.

I have never lived through war.

I have never know the hardship of war.

Yet I cry. I cry as if my heart were breaking.

Maybe because it is. It breaks for the millions of families who have suffered and do suffer. It breaks for the children who grow up never knowing one or both of their parents. It breaks for the displaced people who seek shelter over borders and across seas. It breaks for every soldier who can never fully explain what they did, why they did it or how it made them feel.

But mostly it breaks for selfish reasons. It breaks my heart for the little girl I used to be, sitting at my grandfathers feet, telling him my stories when now all I want to do is hear his.

R.I.P. Richard Arrowsmith (1903-1989), Leading Aircraftman, RAAF

 





For Previous ANZAC posts, please use the following links:

ANZAC Day 2014

Not Fighting the Tears: ANZAC Day 2013

Missing the war

I don't want to talk about war. I don't want to talk about its hardships or its atrocities. I don't want to talk about the fit, healthy men and women who come home with broken minds and bodies, or the ones who never come home at all.

I do want to talk about my Grandfather. His memory weighs heavily upon me on days such as ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day. I want to talk about him. I want to regale you all with stories of his service to his country. I want to, but I can't.

The memories I have of him are patchy. Calling him for dinner. Showing him pictures of my life. Happy memories but never memories of his life. Never memories of him as a young man, memories painted through stories told with old lips and tired eyes.

I was 9 years old when he died. Two and a half decades later, if I could go back and talk to any of my grandparents, it would be him. It has always been him. I want to fill in the blanks of his life. I want to know the answers to all the questions I was too young to ask.

I think, having read many an account of war from other veterans, I'm not sure I would have been ready to hear his stories when I knew him. I don't know if the reason he never talked about was that it was too upsetting for him or if no-one really asked. Whatever the reason, his stories are now lost to the winds and my heart aches for him and for his story.

Maybe that's why I write. Maybe I don't want my story to be lost. Maybe I'll never go to war, or become famous, or do something of note, but I will have a story to tell. It will be my little story, and it will be a story my grandfather would be proud of.

Lest we forget.

R.I.P. Richard Arrowsmith 1903-1989

Anzac Day 2014

I have never once considered, in all seriousness, joining any of the armed services. The thought of going to war terrifies me. I'm not ashamed to admit that. It's precisely this feeling that makes Anzac Day so momentous to me. The idea that someone I have never me, nor am I likely to meet, feels strongly enough about this country and its citizens that they would put their own life on the line is mind-blowing to me.

I have known people who have served or still serve. Friends, family, former boyfriends. It's not an easy life, for them or for their families, but it's one that people sign up for, not because they have to but because they want to. It may not be volunteering, in the strictest sense of the word. It is a job, after all, but a job that is far bigger and more important than the monetary recompense they receive for doing it.

Yesterday, I had to read The Ode, which is taken from "For the Fallen", a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon. It is a mere four lines long. As a writer, I try to be eloquent and evoke emotion when and where I can, yet reading those four lines almost had my in tears. Even the process of writing about it brings a tear to my eye, and i haven't even known anyone who was lost in battle. If i had, i would be an absolute wreck.

Today, I was also in tears. Watching the Anzac Day service from Gallipoli made me wish that i had more time to ask my Grandfather about him time in service. I was 9 years old when he died and it didn't occur to me as a child to ask. As a teenager, i was told that he didn't talk about it. I wish I'd had the opportunity to ask.

I can't imagine how hard it must be for vets to talk about what they went through. What they saw and who they lost must weigh heavily upon them. I'm not sure that talking about it or writing their memories or thoughts down would ever convey the extent of the emotions involved but for those of us who have never known the ravages of war first hand, it's the closest we will ever come to knowing and understanding.

So, to my grandfather specifically and all other vets, regardless of what arena your fought in or how long you served, not matter what your role or what reason you enlisted, be proud of your service and never let the memories die with you because your stories are our links with your past and your past shapes our future in ways that you will never know.

Thank you for your service. Thank you for your energy. Thank you for your determination. And thank you for your sacrifice. But mostly, thank you for being our loved ones.

Lest we forget.

Not fighting the tears ... ANZAC Day 2013

 

ANZAC Day. For any Australian it conjures up images of mud-stained diggers, slouch hats and Gallipoli, but it is so much more than those fragmented images. I'm not sure that there are any words or images which can truly do justice to what this day means not only to our country as a whole but to every single individual citizen who stands shoulder to shoulder with their fellow man to remember the times of hardship that gave us the freedoms we now enjoy.

 

 

ANZAC Day is celebrated on April 25th, the anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli in 1915.

 

Nearly 9,000 Australians and nearly 3,000 New Zealanders lost their lives in the campaign that lasted until 9th January, 1916.

 

A further 24,000 combined ANZAC troops were injured.

 

In population of approximately only 6,000,000 people in both Australia and New Zealand, 36,000 casualties of war is a significant number in a campaign that lasted less than a year.

 

In total over 60,000 Australian troops lost their lives during World War I.

Nearly 40,000 were lost in World War II.

Since then a further 2,000 troops have given their lives.

 

ANZAC Day commemorates not only those who died during that fateful campaign in Gallipoli. It commemorates all casualties of war. It commemorates all who have served; it commemorates all who currently serve; and it commemorates all who will serve.

 

 

"This is not a day of celebration but of national memory. It is a day when we learn, and learn again, of the horror of purposeless war. It is a day for looking after your mates, cherishing your home, your neighbourhood and family ... It's a day for realising how rare this wonderful country of ours is and how precious it is." Bob Carr, Minister for Foreign Affairs (2012 - date)

 

Australia has, time and time again, stood taller than statistics say it should have been able to. It has sacrificed more than it should ever have to. More families have lost sons and daughters than should need to. More brave soldiers have returned broken by things they should never have to see or experience.

 

The liberties we enjoy, the freedoms we all too often take for granted, are gifted us by the monumental sacrifices of those who have gone before us. Troops far outnumbered, holding the line. Fighter pilots reaching their targets against tremendous odds. Naval commanders outmanoeuvring far superior fleets. Today we thank those mates and neighbours who braved the elements, those family and strangers who were courageous under fire; those leaders who made those impossible decisions that none of us should ever have to make.

 

 

"The ANZAC spirit runs through todays Australians. We see it, of course, in our forces. But we also see it, every day, in our rural, remote and urban communities. Australians are coming together to mark ANZAC Day, to honour the loss of precious life, to ponder the gift of service." Quentin Bryce, Governor-General of Australia (2008 - date)

 

The ANZAC spirit is an oft talked about feature of what it means to be Australian. it encompasses the battle-worthy qualities of endurance and courage as well as those qualities needed in order to survive not just physically but mentally, including ingenuity, good humour, larrikinism, and mateship. These qualities are not reserved for that minority who take up arms in order that the majority need not. These qualities are within every single Australian.

 

Every day, Australians band together to help those who are less fortunate, those who have experienced hardship, those who are struggling for whatever reason. Every day, we see those efforts and rarely are they rewarded but none are done for reward, or even recognition. Those efforts are made because it is what is right. It is what should be done. It is what needs to be done.

 

 

As I have written this piece, I have struggled with what words to use, what images to conjure. There are many traditional images I have used throughout this post - the rising sun, red poppies, the war memorial, the Australian flag, the grave of the unknown soldier - but perhaps the most powerful image I could ever leave you with is not something I can see. It is that which your own mind brings forward. It is that which is in your heart and in your soul. It is that which is stronger than any picture on any screen, and more relevant and more personal than any blog entry I could write.

 

I have shed more than a few tears as the words have flown but more tears will fall as I write the closing lines. It is the Ode of Remembrance, taken from Laurence Binyon's poem, "For the Fallen".

 

They went with songs to the battle, they were young.

Straight of limb, true of eyes, steady and aglow.

They were staunch to the end against odds uncounted,

They fell with their faces to the foe.

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.

Lest we forget.