Published The Advocate, April 23, 2005
THE war remembrance business is booming. Each year, more of us make the effort and go to an Anzac Day dawn service. In the early light, families, with parents pushing prams, are the fourth and fifth generations of those who fought at Gallipoli 90 years ago. The young in growing numbers are also making the pilgrimage to Gallipoli itself, trying to understand what happened there and what it all means now. When you visit the place, where 8000 Australians lost their lives, there is something desolate about their absence from the world. A vivid sense of eternity. In walking the battlefield, we are searching for what it means to be Australian because something really significant occurred in the life of the country with the landing at Anzac Cove on April 25, 1915. What our troops achieved was a statement of national character. Their deeds created the Anzac spirit and legend: self-sacrifice, loyalty, bravery, honour, humour and mateship. In the pre-dawn at The Nek, they were ordered ``silently and without rifle fire’’, bayonets fixed, to rush the Turkish machine gunners. Four lines of troops, one after another, ran defenceless towards the Turkish trenches and within the hour their dead bodies lay in piles row upon row. Who now would sprint headlong and unarmed into a hail of machinegun fire? They must have attacked with an air of resignation, waving their unloaded guns and clenched fists at the old men who sent them there to fight. The original Anzacs were not political zealots driven by a sense of destiny. I doubt they weighed the imperial implications against their predicament in the trenches. Afterwards, embittered, many of them would never give tuppence for governments of any persuasion. Yet, at the time, they were eager to go to war with their mates, to be well thought of as good citizens, the grand gesture, even to the extent of accepting the lies that governments told them. For a country that considers itself peaceful and laid-back, Australia's armed forces often seem to be heading off to conflicts in one place or another around the world. What gets into us? Every time I hear our politicians mouth the sombre words of wartime statesmanship - responsibility, duty and leadership – my heart sinks. The Romans had the right idea. If the Roman Senate decided to invade a country, one of the Senators had to go with the centurions into battle. There is nothing romantic about war. Standing at the grave of the unknown soldier might have romantic connotations but how he got to be there was not in the least romantic. The Anzacs would prefer to live than be dead heroes. Yet they gave their last breath for a future they would not see. Why did they make such a blood sacrifice? Because they believed they were fighting for freedom, that’s why. Never, ever take your freedom for granted, especially not on Anzac Day. Give thanks and be grateful. Lest we forget.
