Today’s Anzac Day. A day for remembrance and gratitude. And contemplation. Here are some of my thoughts about Anzac Day 2009:
World War I was a rotten and ignominious war. A hell. It’s called the Great War, but there was nothing great about it.
Australians fought in it only because of Australia’s subservient allegiance to Britain.
Australia wasn’t under attack, so I don’t know how my nation and I would be different had World War I not occurred.
Did Germany lose World War I only because of the influenza pandemic?
All the Anzacs are now dead. I can’t tell you the name of the last one to die, or the year he died.
Does the nature of Anzac Day change, or need to change, now no Anzacs are alive?
I’ve never been to an Anzac Day dawn service, and I've no ambition to attend one.
I’ve never seen the 1985 film ANZACS. And currently it’s not on my list of films to see.
The ANZACs’ Gallipoli landing, on 25 April 1915, doesn’t commemorate heroism and bravery, but rather blind obedience to negligent authority.
I don’t know how close the myth of Simpson and his donkey, is to reality.
The pilgrimage to the Anzac Day dawn service at Gallipoli evolved into a ritual on the watch of John Howard who as prime minister had the moral rectitude of a cowpat.
The Collingwood-Essendon football match is another Anzac Day ritual.
I’ve resolved to read Les Carlyon’s 2001 book Gallipoli and 2006 book The Great War before Anzac Day 2010.
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