​MORE TENTERFIELD ANZAC DAY COVERAGE:

Amy Graham

Veterans, Servicemen and Servicewomen, Special guests, Ladies, gentlemen, and my fellow Australians, Anzac Day has become one of Australia’s most important national days. It marks the anniversary of the first major military action fought during the First World War, in which a joint force of Australians and New Zealanders participated in the Gallipoli campaign. When The Great War, what we call World War 1 today, broke out in 1914, Australia had been a nation for only 13 years, and its government and people were eager to establish a reputation, in what Australians have come to term our Baptism of Fire.

 Although the Gallipoli campaign failed in all of its military objectives, the actions of Australian and New Zealand forces during the campaign created a powerful legacy, a legacy that not only remains today but grows stronger and stronger despite the passage of a century. What became known as the “Anzac Legend” or “Anzac Spirit” has became an important part of the identity of our nation. The first conflict that Australian men and women fought in has become indelibly etched in our image of ourselves, and the attributes of those young men and women have come to define Australian culture and the ideals Australians seek to live up to. The real importance of ANZAC Day is that it is a recognition of the sacrifices Australian Servicemen and Servicewomen have made and continue to make for their country.

The first recorded ANZAC Day commemoration was held on April 25th 1916, while Australia was still at war. For the remaining years of World War 1 Anzac Day was used as an occasion for patriotic rallies and recruiting campaigns, something unthinkable to modern Australians.  The modern notion of the events of ANZAC Day were first observed in 1927 and by the end of the 1930s all the rituals we now associate with the day – dawn vigils, marches and memorial services – were firmly established. Anzac Day also served to commemorate the lives of Australians who died in the Second World War, and in late 80’s the meaning of the day was further broadened to include those who lost their lives in all the military and peacekeeping operations in which Australia has been involved. Thus the very nature of ANZAC Day has undergone a constant evolution.

And that a modern rendering of Anzac Day is not a glorification, celebration or commemoration of war but rather a remembrance of the cost and sacrifice required by service. And to thank those who served, because that service has made our nation what it is today, especially in terms of our cultural values and our national identity.

The evolution of ANZAC Day has enabled a succession of generations including my own, to find meaning in the day.

By the early 80’s ANZAC Day had become unpopular and unsupported, with tiny crowd numbers, on the verge of irrelevance.  Yet, how do we then arrive at a point where we as a nation record greater crowd numbers each and every year, and a stronger connection with and participation by all generations of Australians?

Once ANZAC Day may have been a day of exclusion, but not so today, now rather it is a day of inclusion. To see the inclusion of sons and daughters whose veteran fathers are no longer with us, and granddaughters marching proudly with their grandfathers is a scene to warm any Australian’s heart, in the ranks of young servicemen and women who proudly wear the mantle and take up the burden, just as past generations have done.

The nature of that evolution may have struck those of us who were here to witness last year’s guest speaker Mrs Coral Donnelly who finished her speech with the words of Eric Bogle, from the ballad, And the band played Waltzing Matilda,

“For I'll go no more waltzing Matilda, all around the green bush far and free

To hump tent and pegs, a man needs both legs-no more waltzing Matilda for me.

So they gathered the crippled, the wounded, the maimed, and they shipped us back home to Australia.

The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane, those proud wounded heroes of Suvla

And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay, I looked at the place where me legs used to be.

And thanked Christ there was nobody waiting for me, to grieve, to mourn, and to pity.

But the band played Waltzing Matilda, as they carried us down the gangway.

But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared, then they turned all their faces away.”

Mrs Donnelly had at the close of her speech opened a door that had always been closed in my mind, and perhaps in all the minds of many people my age.  We have long heard the word ‘sacrifice’ and in my mind at least it had always been associated with death. Books, poems, documentaries always seem to revolve around the ‘cost of war’ in terms of deaths.  Such and such battle, 20 thousand killed in the first hour, 1.5 million killed during the course of the battle of such and such.

To our generation when we ‘reflect’ on the meaning of ANZAC Day, we will obviously have a different understanding to those from previous generations, to us ANZAC Day  is not, and can never be, a celebration of war or heroism, the old terms, the fallen, the field, colours, for king and country,... such terms are not part of our language or our modern culture, what we are here today to do is to acknowledge the horrors of war, and to demonstrate that we understand the sacrifices, and the consequences of war on the bodies, minds and families of those who had given service to their nation.

As Bogle wrote, “…And saw what it had done, well I wished I was dead. Never knew there was worse things than dyin'….”

Lachlan Dorward

The door that Mrs Donnelly had opened was the cost of ‘Service’. That there may be a cost of service even greater than death, “…crippled, the wounded, the maimed… The legless, the armless, the blind, the insane….”  

To my generation the word sacrifice is not in the past tense, but the present.  With the service of all members of our armed forces.

During the last days of The Great War Wilfred Owen composed some of his most famous poems.  Filled with white hot FURY at those who supported war, and sent young men to their deaths, he wrote (Duul-say) Dulce Decorum est.  Dulce describes the death, graphically and vividly, of a young soldier, who takes hours to die, coughing and spluttering as he drowns in his own (flem) phlem and blood, his lungs burned buy chemical weapons. The legacy of war, not just on those who have fallen, but all who serve, and all whose lives are changed and altered by war.

WILFRED OWEN perfectly describes the horror and also the anger towards those who glorified and perpetuated war in Dulce.

“Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,

Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,

Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,

And towards our distant rest began to trudge.

Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,

But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;

Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots

Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling

Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,

But someone still was yelling out and stumbling

And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—

Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,

As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,

He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace

Behind the wagon that we flung him in,

And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,

His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;

If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood

Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,

Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud

Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—

My friend, you would not tell with such high zest

To children ardent for some desperate glory,

The old Lie: (Duul-say) Dulce et decorum est

Pro patria mori.”

Owen talks about what today we name PTSD, and the suffering that continues long after the war is over. But perhaps even more powerful Owen goes on to immortalise that war itself is the enemy, and any who glorify it!. Poems like these, speak across time and remain deeply powerful despite the passing of 5 generations since the events on the shores of Galipolli.

Perhaps the power of ANZAC Day lies with how the purpose of the day itself has changed across time, from celebration and recruitment, commemoration, an outpouring of patriotism and national pride, a recognition of the values we hold dear and above all to recognise the sacrifice of all those affected by war. To hold that war itself is terrible rather than glorious, to thank the men and women who served and are currently serving their nation, both the dead and the living and demonstrate our everlasting respect and thanks.

And while Bogle might well have said, “…But the band plays Waltzing Matilda, and the old men still answer the call,

But as year follows year, more old men disappear. Someday no one will march there at all….”, suggesting that Australians might forget or shun Anzac Day, that no new generations of servicemen and servicewomen will fill the ranks of the proud warriors of the past.  Today’s Anzac Day commemoration demonstrates to us that there will always be servicemen to honour and that the Australian public, perhaps more than ever, recognises and understands the sacrifice of service.

And while we say the words, Least we Forget, the certainty of Anzac Day to my generation is,

That we have not forgotten,

And we will never forget.