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Anzac Day centenary
Apr. 25th, 2015 09:32 pmOne hundred years since the Australia and New Zealand Army Corps stormed the cliffs of Gallipoli. They weren't the only, or even the largest, group to land. They weren't even all Australians and New Zealanders. But so very many of them were from two small and new nations. And so very many of them didn't come home.
I'm old enough to have watched as some of those who did come home marched on Anzac Days past. Old enough to have seen the days when the Vietnam War veterans didn't march alongside the Great War and the Second World War returned services, because it was still too raw and bitter a memory for them. Old enough to have seen Peter Weir's film on a school outing as part of our history lessons that year, and been in tears on the way out along with my classmates, girls and boys both.
Not old enough to have seen the last of fresh generations to march. But there is also this -- Anzac Day is a symbol of both remembrance and reconciliation. The ones who didn't come home have been looked after all down the years by their former enemies, who lost so many of their own young men. And there are memorials to Ataturk in both Australia and New Zealand. Would that all conflicts could end with such determination to set aside our differences in recognition of our common humanity.
I'm old enough to have watched as some of those who did come home marched on Anzac Days past. Old enough to have seen the days when the Vietnam War veterans didn't march alongside the Great War and the Second World War returned services, because it was still too raw and bitter a memory for them. Old enough to have seen Peter Weir's film on a school outing as part of our history lessons that year, and been in tears on the way out along with my classmates, girls and boys both.
Not old enough to have seen the last of fresh generations to march. But there is also this -- Anzac Day is a symbol of both remembrance and reconciliation. The ones who didn't come home have been looked after all down the years by their former enemies, who lost so many of their own young men. And there are memorials to Ataturk in both Australia and New Zealand. Would that all conflicts could end with such determination to set aside our differences in recognition of our common humanity.