To take a break from ranting about consumerism.... now about ANZAC day. I need to say that in theory and in principle I am a pacifist. (Though it has never been tested and I admit that I could quite easily slide into using force to combat evil.) I think any war is a civil or family war, brother and sister fighting brother and sister. But that does not stop me honouring our fallen, and past and present service people. As a child I devoured the history of war. (Not just war comics ... though those too.) Winston Churchill was a hero of mine, I read his biography and admired stories of his war time leadership. My Dad served in the artillery in the eighth Army and ended up a Regimental Sargent Major. I still have his medals and the New Testament he carried with him throughout the war. I honour people who, in their time, loved their country, their freedoms and their way of life so much that they saw it as their duty as a citizen to join the army to defend it.... even though I may have questions about the tactic. Such commitment to the common good is laudable.
Secondly I love New Zealand. We have much to be proud of in our history. We sang four verses of the national anthem in Church on Sunday and I always get a catch in my throat when I sing it.
So ANZAC day is OK with me. My beef is with a statement you often hear around ANZAC day. The date of the day is chosen because NZ troops landed in Gallipoli for a long and bloody battle in the Dardanelles. In that action which lasted, I think - eight months, there were 8450 NZ soldiers landed on the beaches there. 2721 of them were killed. 4752 were wounded. (a casualty rate of something like 88%) The whole episode was a badly planned disaster that cost untold lives of allied forces as well as heavy Turk casualties. Not just bullets and shells did the killing, but the cold and disease ... it was a horrible experience for those involved. It was a defeat. Militarily speaking there was no gain in the whole campaign. The best part of the whole operation was the retreat and departure. It went very well with virtually no casualties. My guess is that if it happened in a wartime operation today, there would be an inquiry and "heads would roll" ... My hero Winston was one of the heads.
The statement that irks me is often made by prime ministers, was made by the leader of the opposition on the radio the other night, and by endless journalists and radio announcers. The statement goes something like this: "What happened at ANZAC cove 'made us' (or 'shaped us') as a nation". It seems to be suggested that somehow this military action was a "rite of passage" that caused us somehow to be the nation we are today. How?
How did it "make us" as a nation? How were we "shaped as the nation we are today" by that? Nobody explains that! The cynical side of me says that if we were "made" or "shaped" by a military blood bath, a military disaster and a place where the precious life of men was counted as cheap, and men were treated as cannon fodder, then pity help us!!!
I honour our service people on ANZAC day, the commitment and sacrifice they made. But can any one explain to me why this strange statement is repeated time after time? And just how did such an event "make" us?
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