Back in Auckland I used to diligently attend the dawn service at the War Museum, even though I had little trouble hauling my sorry backside out of the sack to do so. Just like thousands of other young people I'd find a park a km away and trudge through the all-too-often crappy weather and wait for the ceremony to start.
I remember one year a letter from a war bride was read, one of those letters that never made it to the bloke because he'd had a unfortunate run in with that inevitable side effect of war, people shooting various sized chunks of metal at you. Cheek aside, the letter was touching, I could see the tears welling up in the eyes of people around me, and it made it even more important when the old geezers shuffled past towards the beer that was waiting for them. Important because you knew they could have been the guys who almost never made it home, or were mates with the ones who were left behind.
Feeling the need to pay due respect to other veterans, in 2000 I repeated this same process in Melbourne at the Shrine of Remembrance. I shouldn't have bothered. For some reason the service just didn't carry the same kind of emotive content as my New Zealand experience. Now, once again I'm opening myself up to cross-Tasman slanging, but when you attend one of these things and they decide to make announcement like, “and now, the haunting and poignant tones of the Last Post”, you decide it may not be worth the effort.
Christ Almighty... Thanks for telling me that. As it was I thought the Last Post was the playlunch siren.
Essentially, the whole ceremony had that same contrived feel about it, like we were there to glorify the acts of these guys, instead of being there to remember that they had to go to a kind of place my generation has never had to experience.
And that's always been the key thing to me. Say whatever you want about the Cold War, there was oppression and anti-Commie hysteria, the USA still tried to kick a few arses with folly like the Vietnam War, they spent trillions of dollars on crap designed to kill us all in fiery inferno, blah blah blah.
But I never had to hide behind a rock because some fucker was firing a gun at me, and anyone else dressed like me.
One of the things ANZAC Day is not about is glorifying death, nor is it about affirming what these guys had to do. Just in case you're wondering, or just in case you choose to overlook it, these guys went somewhere and butchered people. There is nothing, absolutely nothing, glorious about war. Men kill one another in the most disgusting, bloody ways, be it with the bayonet or the bullet.
But what makes things different today is that we were never asked to stand up and commit sanctioned murder. Because these old blokes went somewhere and suffered untold and unspoken horrors, you and I didn't have to. And that's why I go to the Dawn Ceremony.
And that's why I can't stand the Victorian Returned Services League (RSL). That place was populated by old bastards like Bruce Ruxton, the guy who vilified Cathy Freeman when she ran with the Aboriginal Flag, and the Australian Flag, after her win at the Commonwealth Games. To his credit, I did see an interview where he was ranting about how we should only get 'good British immigrants', and not these wog-types. I say to his credit because when the interviewer pointed out that the poms just come to Aussie and go on the dole, Bruce laughed. So at least he has a sense of humour.
You can understand my dismay then at reading today the the current state Secretary of the Victorian RSL is opposing Turks and Italians marching in the ANZAC parades in Melbourne. The phrase that springs to mind is 'close-minded git'. Again, the parade is not about the glorification of the ANZACs, it is about solidarity with what they experienced, and making an affirmation of their loss.
Loss of things like youth.
One of my complaints about Australia is that they seem to have a jingoistic streak that sees Howard trotting out every five minutes to see the troops go off. Maybe it's the uniforms that do it for him. Anyhow, what mystifies me is that should anyone die, there's this national out-pouring of grief.
I find this bizarre in the extreme. People, being in the military is about pointing guns and having guns pointed at you. Why is everyone shocked when someone actually dies?
But, thankfully I'm back in Aotearoa, where our warriors are remembered, and trumpeted by people who know what it means to see loss in the lines of an old mans face, and not tied to a inglorious future repeated by fools who forget the past.