My ANZAC DAY

April 26th every year is revered by Australian and New Zealanders where ever they are around the world on that day - ANZAC DAY. Every Australian and New Zealand City and regional centre holds a Dawn Service and a March to remember all of those men and women of all our combined forces that actively participated in defending our country, our freedom, and freedom of other nations from aggressors.
ANZAC DAY was proclaimed for this date, the anniversary of the landing of the ANZACs at Gallipoli in 1915 and the first commemorations were held in 1916.

I spent my ANZAC DAY quietly at the house listening to ABC radio from Sydney via the Internet. The day was already completed in Australia and so I listened to the ongoing stories on air.
I knew I'd be away from home on this special day and so I brought with me my Australian Flag. I displayed it proudly in the front window all day as I strove to learn more about feats which clearly outnumbered the defeats of our diggers in all wars.
I challenge all Aussies and Kiwis to learn more about the feats of our diggers because we are only learning in recent years that ANZACs achieved far more than what they were given credit for because of the British influence (indirect control) of suppressing history because of (1) blunders by their Military Leaders and (2) major feats by our diggers overshadowing efforts by their own much larger forces and of other larger forces. French historians and villagers (close to the Western Front) reveal that the Battle of the Western front was only won after the efforts of a smallish compliment of Australians. Many a village in that part of France have monuments and adornments on public buildings thanking the Australians for their freedom.
The Australians went on a night raid under the command of an Australian, and kept going!!!! They freed more than a hundred villages, thousands of allied war prisoners and captured 29,000 German soldiers in the process of destroying their strongholds. It is humbling to hear the details but disturbing that this history has been kept quiet. Some of our greatest military feats have gone uncommemorated all these years. Not even our War Memorials record it on their monuments but I believe there are moves afoot to right that wrong.

And from those battlefields of the Western Front comes the poem "From Flanders fields," from a Canadian Soldier, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, penned in his note book ....

In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place: and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.

We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.

Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.

John McCrae (1872–1918)

And of course, we can all recite the following without script. It is the 4th verse of the 7 verse poem "For the Fallen" by Laurence Binyon (1869–1943)

"They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old;
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."


"Lest we forget"


All about Anzac Day
The Australian War Memorial website