ANZAC DAY - 2023

Tomorrow in Australia and New Zealand and in many other countries around the world, ANZAC Day will be commemorated. On the 25th April 1915, Australian and NZ troops landed on the shores of Gallipoli in Turkey in an attempt to secure the vital shipping lanes of the Dardanelles and after some 8 months of hard, dirty, and often times brutal hand to hand combat and under appalling conditions, the NZ and Australian troops were finally withdrawn from Gallipoli.?That secret but successful evacuation of the troops after such a disastrous campaign is an epic story in itself.?

The story of the Aussies and Kiwis (the diggers) fighting together and the camaraderie that grew between them has created an enduring part of both country’s national identity, The Australian and New Zealand Army Corp – the ANZACs. Australians and New Zealanders have since then died fighting together in a further 28 conflicts or wars around the world with the blood of our young people having seeped into the lands and into the sands of the seas and rivers of many countries around the world.?

With deep respect, reverence and an immense sense of gratitude we will, in particular, remember and honour those of our military who lost their lives in the conflicts and wars that Australia and NZ have been involved in. We will also recognise those that were deployed and returned, and without whose contribution we may not today have the freedoms we currently enjoy.

It is also important to recognise and remember that many civilians lost their lives in these conflicts, most times simply as a consequence of being in the wrong place at the wrong time. It is a deeply sobering thought to recognise that in the 20th Century from 1900 to 2023, we have killed more than 160 million of our fellow human beings in various conflicts and wars around the world. Anzac Day should not and does not give honour and glory to either war or conflict, rather, it recognises and remembers those that died and those that served in them.

Today, the enemy, the foe that we fight may not be so overt or so openly observable or so clearly aggressive, but nevertheless it is no less insidious or evil, and that foe is apathy. Apathy for the freedoms that we currently have and for the high price paid for them.

Freedoms are all too easily taken for granted when you have them, but freedoms of themselves are not rights, not unless the responsibility that goes with them is recognised and protected when needed. If we don’t learn from our past we may well, yet again, be doomed to repeat it.

To finish this reflection, I want to include two items. The first is to recognise and congratulate a fellow speaker, Lt Colonel Kevin Humphrey (Ret) on being recently recognised and awarded the highest service decoration, the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC) for distinguished command and leadership in the Australian honours Awards. ?

Lt Colonel Kevin Humphreys served in the Australian military for 20 years, serving on deployments to East Timor, Iraq, Afghanistan and also humanitarian operations in Papua New Guinea. At the age of 21 he was given the keys of a Blackhawk helicopter and later while on deployment to Afghanistan, prepared his teams for numerous combat missions. Flying his Chinook helicopter, he extracted over 60 coalition troops from the hot zone under intense fire. Thank you for your service and congratulations on a well-deserved award.

The second is to finish with the last part of Lt Colonel John McCrae’s poem from the first World War.

????? In Flanders fields

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.

? Graeme D Thom AFSM?

??? 2023