Lest We Forget

Yesterday was ANZAC day and to my own shame, I didn’t go to the dawn service, even though getting up at 4am is the norm for me. Instead I allowed a headache and my own desire for sleep and comfort to override my desire to get up and go and honour not only both of my grandfathers, but all the men, women and animals who have given their lives to fight the wars that have afforded me the very luxury of that warm comfortable bed.   

I walk past ANZAC Square almost every day though, and every time I do, I look deep into that eternal flame that burns for all of them. 

This week, as they do every week before ANZAC day, they have big screen TV’s set up showing a rotation of images of soldiers and the desolate, charred landscapes and realities that they lived, day in day out, as they fought and died to change the course of not only history, but the world that I live in.  

I try to imagine, what would it be like to be the person in those frightening conditions and situations? I can’t do it, not without being overwhelmed by emotions. They were on a relentless task, living day in and day out, in survival mode.  

Our Aussie soldiers of WWI, and those who stormed the beach of Gallipoli, were enlisted civilians, with just a few months of basic training before they were sent out to fight: they were just there, doing their best, mustering up their courage and pushing ahead! 

It’s impossible to imagine the pain and suffering they felt when they were injured or lay dying in battlefields, a long way from their home and loved ones, as the battles continued to rage all around them. 

How do you describe such men and women….brave? Is there even a word that could accurately describe them? How did they feel, what did they have to find within themselves to do what they did? Brave seems such a flimsy and inadequate word, doesn’t it? 

Yet making it through to the end of their tour of duty and going home was not the end of it was it? Their remarkable ability to cope with adversity continued long after they returned home with the emotional, mental and physical scars embedded in deep in their neurology and nervous system forever. 

And what about the remarkable ability to cope with adversity and emotional scarring felt by their loved ones who had waited on tender hooks for the knock at the door that they hoped was their loved one coming home and not news that they’ve been injured, where missing or dead?

ALL IN THE FAMILY 

It was only 5 years ago that I realised something that I had always known, but never really understood. 

I'd never actually connected my family to war, even though I knew both my grandfathers had fought for our country, I'd never thought of us as a family who was touched by war.  

But war has played a major role in the dynamics and foundations of my family, how could it not? 

My dad’s father, my Pop, rode in the Light Horse Brigade in WWI. He survived to go on and become the father of 3 boys, one of whom grew up to become a soldier, and was in Darwin when it was bombed in Feb 1942. He was deeply affected by the injuries he received there and they impacted not only his life, but the life of his family, until the day he died. 

I'd never really understood my dad’s fascination and interest with all things about war, until that moment. My dad had lived the stories and the effects of war, his dad/ my Pop, (who was the kindest, most gentle man). Pop was gassed during WWI and spent a lot of my father’s childhood years in and out of hospital. My dad really was a child of war. 

My mum’s father fought and died in WWII. He was a brave man and was one of the Rats of Tobruk and he died in New Guinea from wounds he received from a sniper attack. He received several medals including the Oak Leaf Cluster and he was mentioned in dispatches. I had no idea what any of that meant, until I looked it up. He was a very brave man.  

Both my parents were born during the Great Depression and lived through a time that you and I will never have the misfortune to experience, if we’re lucky. 

The effect that war had on my parents and their family’s surely had an impact on who they all became, how they thought, what was important to them and the way they lived their lives. That in turn has become part of the values I and my brothers and sisters, were raised on and have woven into our own lives. 

I may not have made it to the dawn service, but I remember my grandfather’s every day. 

Thank you to each and every man, woman, animal and family who have, and still do, give so much so that we can all live a free life.