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[Nev Bartos]

Fuck!  I hate days like this when I should take things seriously.  Never been sure how to deal with this sort of stuff.

Just watched a video montage with a song on TV.  It was lame if you're media savvy.  Actually, it was pretty lame fullstop.

But the Last Post was pretty fucking chilling.

Lest we forget.

[.]

I'd like to start an annual "Peace Festival" that starts after midday every ANZAC Day.

Then we can spend our mornings being sombre about fucking idiot governments who sent poor bastards off to die, and spend the afternoon chilling out, listening to some good live music, and be all 'peace, love and mungbeans, baby'.

It's weird...I asked my class yesterday what they knew about ANZAC Day. Two kids knew it had "something to do with the war". Our school's not even having an ANZAC Day service until Friday....and even that's just going to be some small, crappy 10 minute thing instead of our normal assembly. I remember being well and truly indoctrinated by then.

[Keridwen]

What year is your class, Yak? I remember from a very early year - possibly even the start of school - having the message drummed into us every year - speeches, the Last Post continuously... reading little stories written for kids about it - ie peoples fathers/grandfathers having fought and remembering them...

[:-) Fred]

Daughter and I watched first to tapes of ANZAC mini series (the ones with hoges being funny) tuesday afternoon/night I told her about her great grandfather leaving for war at age 16 and read her some of his book. She woke up at 4am this morning and was quiet respectful and alert throughout the Dawn service.

Lest We Forget

Spent the afternoon riding dirt bikes, hitting doorknobs around paddock with golf club, eating lamb chops.
I hope its what the diggers would have wanted

[.]

What year is your class, Yak? I remember from a very early year - possibly even the start of school - having the message drummed into us every year - speeches, the Last Post continuously... reading little stories written for kids about it - ie peoples fathers/grandfathers having fought and remembering them...

Year 3...but it's a highly multicultural area and the two kids who knew anything about it were the two "white" kids who had grandparents who'd fought.

We've got lots of Korean and Vietnamese kids - obviously their grandparents would have been touched by those wars - yet they seemed to know very little about it. Maybe it's not valued as much in those cultures?

[Truckarella]

I spent the morning nursing a hangover, and worked in the afternoon.  I thought I could get drunk enough to find my glasses.  

Gold 104.3 had a countdown of 'ANZAC' songs by Australian and New Zealand artists.  My brother played in the services in Melbourne for the first time.  I'll ask him what it was like.

[Star Fish]

We've got lots of Korean and Vietnamese kids - obviously their grandparents would have been touched by those wars - yet they seemed to know very little about it. Maybe it's not valued as much in those cultures?

Maybe not...but certainly ANZAC day wouldn't be high on their agenda
Anyway, I did my bit and went for a scuba dive on a warship...

Well, OK, I did that the other weekend too. Oh, and the one before that... and on about 20 other weekends. But it was still special, OK!!!!

[Thaluikhain]

It's weird...I asked my class yesterday what they knew about ANZAC Day. Two kids knew it had "something to do with the war". Our school's not even having an ANZAC Day service until Friday....and even that's just going to be some small, crappy 10 minute thing instead of our normal assembly. I remember being well and truly indoctrinated by then.

Hmmm...whose fault is it if the kids have not been taught stuff like that?  The teachers perhaps?

Seriosuly, though...what gets me is al the people saying "they died for us/their country".  What purpose did their deaths serve?

In my view, ANZAC Day should be a day of shame, when we remember how fucking stuoid we can be sometimes.  Fair enough that we take some sort of pride in our soldiers, and fair enough to remember fighting in places like Tobruk in WW2 as good things this country has been involved in (given that not much of the population was actually there)...but remembering the Gallipoli campaign should involve more collective shame and burning of Winston Churchill effigies.

[pseudonym]

A WWII digger came into the bottle shop I was working in yesterday and was chatting away about ANZAC Day, and what it meant to him.  I love talking to the old soldiers.  He made a  point about WWI that I hadn't thought about before - we invaded Turkey, and they welcome us back every year to remember our defeat on their shores.    Nice people.  I can't imagine too many Australians welcoming the Japanese into Darwin each year to remember their attack on us.

Anyway, to me it's not a celebration.  It's a day of remembering, pure and simple.  As a kid, I was a girl guide, and then I was in a choir for years, so I either marched in, or sang at, every dawn service from the age of 7 to 17.  I love it, if only to be reminded of how good it is here, and being able to reflect on how we got to be where we are as a country.  The bad bits as well as the good.

I like to think of ANZAC Day as a day of remembering those people who were passionate enough about the future of Australia that they were willing to die for it.  And hopefully it inspires some pride in the country that we call home, as we do spend a good portion of our time being critical and bagging it out.  It's a day to think about the fact that, by and large, we've got it pretty sweet here.  It's not about glorifying war, but celebrating the lives of those people who loved this country and its people so much that they died doing what they thought was best for it, and for us.

(Is that saccharine enough?  I only do this once a year.)

[Truckarella]

Hey, I can do saccharine too......

As a trumpet player, I got the guernsey to play the last post for a few years at the dawn service in my town of birth when I was at school.  As way of back handed compliment, one year an old guy said to me, 'You could tell it was played by a girl, but it was very good.'

Then back at the RSL they all had cups of tea with Bundaberg rum in them, because it was freaking cold at that hour of the morning.

Oh no, forgot the saccharine.

[Lord Biscuit©]

Hmmm...whose fault is it if the kids have not been taught stuff like that?  The teachers perhaps?

Seriosuly, though...what gets me is al the people saying "they died for us/their country".  What purpose did their deaths serve?

In my view, ANZAC Day should be a day of shame, when we remember how fucking stuoid we can be sometimes.  Fair enough that we take some sort of pride in our soldiers, and fair enough to remember fighting in places like Tobruk in WW2 as good things this country has been involved in (given that not much of the population was actually there)...but remembering the Gallipoli campaign should involve more collective shame and burning of Winston Churchill effigies.

You miss the point.

ANZAC day is remembrance of a day when a great number of Australian and NZ soldiers were killed - a tragedy (caused by the Brits needlessly sending them there). Over 8,000 Australian and 2,700 New Zealand soldiers died - a significant tragedy in anyone's book. Soldiers don't choose where & when they get killed, and ANZAC day is not commemoration of someone's lousy strategy.

The day is also used to remember all soldiers killed while fighting for the country. So, the day serves a dual purpose. I don't see any problem with this.

[Thaluikhain]

For most people, though, it's about Gallipoli, and the people there who "died for our country/way of life".

Yes, they were soldiers and didn't get a say where they were sent...but it should be reinforced that they didn't die for any worthwhile purpose.

[Lord Biscuit©]

For most people, though, it's about Gallipoli, and the people there who "died for our country/way of life".

Yes, they were soldiers and didn't get a say where they were sent...but it should be reinforced that they didn't die for any worthwhile purpose.

Really? That would be a new tact. People going out and promoting/reinforcing stuff-ups. Not sure it will catch on though.

I think your view may be clouded by that fact that you don't really understand the times (WW1) that well. Why would you after all?

[Pink Cup]

As a trumpet player, I got the guernsey to play the last post for a few years at the dawn service in my town of birth when I was at school.  As way of back handed compliment, one year an old guy said to me, 'You could tell it was played by a girl, but it was very good.'

tooooot toot, tooooot tooot, toot toot toot toot toot toot toot to toot, toooooot toot

pretty good huh

[Thaluikhain]

Really? That would be a new tact. People going out and promoting/reinforcing stuff-ups. Not sure it will catch on though.

I think your view may be clouded by that fact that you don't really understand the times (WW1) that well. Why would you after all?

I didn't say "promoting stuff ups".  I meant that we shouldn't for a moment lose sight of the utter futility of all those people dying.  They didn't die to protect the country or our way of life or anything, which some people seem to think they did.