ANZAC Day

I suspect there are a lot of forum members personally connected to ANZAC Day and most of the others would at least have ancestral ties to people with military service. I was really impressed with the roll-up in the pissing rain at the Surfers Paradise dawn service. Hundreds of people there including many kids and young adults. Just one of half a dozen on the Gold Coast alone.

I think we should recognize it as one of the foundations of our cohesive society. One of the few events of the year that vast numbers recognise a common purpose without extraneous political or social engineering overtones although there were audible groans when the serving Army Colonel doing her speech started with the welcome to country crap. Not her fault as every serving member giving the talk has been ordered to include this farce. If you want to feel proud of Australia watch the Collingwood/Essendon Anzac Day game at the MCG when you can hear a pin drop when 100,000 people stand for a minute silence.

My best mate since we were 14 years old and me off to the Dawn Service. John got his military cross at the Battle of Coral in Vietnam.

 

Thanks Lang, hope you, John and all our veterans and families enjoyed the day of reflection and remembrance.

I drove up to Tweed heads to take my 99 year old Mum to the Currumbin dawn service.  She was the only WWII Veteren there and was treated like royalty. 

the people on the bus gave a rousing cheer for her efforts. 

I’ll be back up for her 100th Birthday in August and expect to make the drive for a few more years. 

I agree with Lang, this is the one day all Aussies say thanks to all the boys and girls wearing medals.

This may upset some - not too many on this forum I believe - but it is a response from a younger Afghanistan soldier to the outrageous programs being devised by some ANZAC day organisers.



 

Lang wrote:

This may upset some - not too many on this forum I believe - but it is a response from a younger Afghanistan soldier to the outrageous programs being devised by some ANZAC day organisers.



 

This is probably a no-go zone but yes, I agree, but please using the word ''woke'' is now childish nonsense and takes the gravity out of any statement, I don't do religion, but ANZAC day is beyond reproach as our holiest day. My family has had the fortune of never fitting into the age group for any service in any of the wars in recent times. There is a place for welcome to country, but I think we are a few years from finding that balance, everything has to find its own time.

www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1105681...Walley-OAM-1976.html

I believe welcome to country is condescending, merely a way for the least needing indigenous to make a buck.
Show all indigenous people genuine respect. 
The RSL has lost my respect, prostituing its honoured name for businesses to make money running raffles and poker machine riddled dens of drinking and gambling that charge exorbitant rent to advocates. Some of my local "RSL" clubs have driven advocates to new venues through exorbitant rent.
I unconditionally respect all who have served, both in and away from war zones. Each of those men and women signed a blank cheque that could be presented at any time, claiming the ultimate sacrifice. 
I do not respect the RSL administration who have places their well paying jobs above the men and women they are supposed to be representing. 

Rant over, enough politics.  

Louis

Woke is a word from decades ago that began as a positive expression of awareness but has slowly developed into pejorative word as awareness has become a confrontational mission. Everybody knows its meaning, some use it as a foil others are offended. We would be back to sign language if we took every word that offended somebody out of the dictionary.

Half the population would be having a night in jail for obscene language if they talked in public back in 1956 as they freely do today. It is an evolving language

 

About All I could say is there are many of us out here who observe both Anzac Day and Rememberence Day, honour it in our own way, and to me, these are the two days which will always be sacrosant. If by admitting that I see no place whatsover for those who wish to change it, or even modify it makes me a racist, then so be it!