‘And the band played “Waltzing Matilda”, As we stopped to bury the slain. And we buried ours and the Turks buried theirs; And it started all over again.’
ANZAC DAY and once again I think with sadness of the soldiers who died in that senseless war, of all the lives lost and destroyed in four years of non-sensical fighting. I think of my grand-fathers, who fought on the side of the Austro-Hungarian empire and who came back emotionally scarred for life. And while they were the ‘enemies’ of Australia they went through the same horrific experiences as the ANZACs and they did not see the sense of it at all. My mother’s father was only 18 when he went to fight but luckily the war ended a few months later. My father’s father, who was in his 20s, was told from one day to the next to leave his farm, wife and child, not knowing where he would be sent. Not owning a suitcase my grandfather had to go off to the city to buy one and as it got put on top of the bus on the way back the bus driver through it so hard that it got damaged and broke. He had to fix it as there was no money for a new one. My father gave me that suitcase and every time I see it it reminds me of how desperate my granddas must have felt when he was sent away to fight. All he wanted to do was be a farmer and woodcarver.
Luckily, he also survived, but the horrors he encountered changed him forever and only twenty years later he was sent off again, as were his two eldest sons, to fight once more. My father’s brothers died at the ages of 20 and 21 in WWII. Two young men who wanted nothing to do with killing, shooting or war. They hoped for a future as an aircraft enigneer and a painter but the war put an end to those aspirations. So, to me, ANZAC DAY is a day where I think of all those who suffered and died during the two wars where my home country and my new adopted home were enemies. Lives where so senselessly cut short.
10 Million people died in WWI and 20 Million were injured. Over 50 Million died in Word War II. Today, may we remember all those affected by war and fighting.
There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us
Where they lie side by side
Here in this country of ours.
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk