ON THE WALLABY- 17th April 2006

ANZAC DAY 91 YEARS ON- WHAT MESSAGE DOES IT CARRY FOR SOCIETY TODAY?

” My sincere view is that commitment of our forces to this fight was done with a casualness and swagger that are the special province of those who have never had to execute these missions – or bury the results” – US Marine Lieutenant-Colonel Newbold”

Earlier today, prior to dawn breaking over Glaisher Point at Cronulla where I was sitting alone above the rock shelf and gently breaking waves, I pondered on what Lieutenant-Colonel Newbold had written.

His words were written this year about America’s involvement in Iraq and yet they equally could have been written about the fiasco that was Gallipoli, it in itself a precursor to the slaughter that was to be known forever as the “Western Front” in France where over 42,000 young Australians (from a total force of 250,000) were killed.

I, like many of my generation, have never faced a bullet fired in anger and whilst I was just one day off the date of one of the marbles used in the ballot for conscription for Vietnam, I am a keen student of military history, principally because I see the world as never learning from it.

Just as the First World War was instigated over the assassination of some Archduke “over there” and we as Australians were drawn into that ensuing fight “for King and Country”, so too do I see Iraq, where we once again were sucked in, it being basically about oil and that claim that “he tried to kill my daddy” emanating from the lips of probably the most incompetent US President to be inflicted upon his nation and the world for the last goodness knows how long.

Be that as it may, as history has shown also, when a tyrant is allowed to “get away with it”, then almighty ructions can occur. One need look no further than the Second World War to see that graphically illustrated in the photo of British Prime Minister Neville Chamberlain triumphantly arriving back in London, brandishing a Treaty signed by Adolf Hitler and yet within a short time, the German Army’s __blitzkrieg_ hit Poland like a tornado and set the course of history off again on a bloody path of warfare.

I believe history, the final judge in all these matters, will show graphically that if “we” had stuck to Afghanistan and the eradication of a-Quaida and the rebuilding of that nation, (that in itself a massive, massive operation) instead of taking on the challenge of Iraq (fighting on two fronts- a salutary lesson learnt by Napoleon and Hitler), then the world may well have been a better and safer place that it looks like being now.

If we are to fight wars, and regretfully that will always be the case given human nature, then we must be fighting them for the right reasons and whilst those dead Australian men and women, the carnage of someone else’s war “over there”, in the main felt they were fighting for the right reasons, it seems to me that since Korea, there have been few, if any, wars fought on that basis.

Anzac Day is to most Australians (and New Zealanders also) probably our most sacred day and one only has to look at the crowds the annual march brings, be it held in big cities our small country towns.

As I travel Australia auctioneering and speaking, I am always drawn in that town or city to the poignant statue of a soldier, often with head bowed and rifle reversed or a commemorative monument that stands as testimony to what sons and daughters of that town gave to the war effort.

Time after time you read of many family members who left that district as fit young bronzed Anzacs and who either never returned, are buried somewhere overseas, of if they did, it was as a shell of the former man or woman.

The First World War saw the cream of Australia’s youth decimated and in its place, it left shattered families, broken hearted parents and young women who never again, even though they did eventually marry, would see, and experience, the love of their life.

I know that personally, for my birth mother was just such a woman and with my natural fathers death on active service, she lost the man she’d wished to spend her life with and I lost a father I never knew.

God was, however, extraordinarily generous to me in that He saw me adopted by a wonderful character as my mother and an ex-Rat of Tobruk (and the fairest man I have ever met) as my father and whilst I have ridden up and down the elevator of life probably more than most, He has stuck with me.

Which is why for the last couple of Anzac Days I have chosen to sit alone in the growing dawn at Glaisher Point, ponder on what David (my natural father) was like as a person, what he looked and sounded like and wonder if he would have been proud of his son he never knew and to thank Clarrie (my adopting father) for all that he gave, not only me, but also the people who came in contact with him in his wonderful lifetime.

In countless other locations across Australia and New Zealand today there have been many, many people doing similar things and having similar thoughts about their loved ones who were affected by war.

We must never, ever, forget their sacrifice and we must always remember , and appreciate, what they gave us.

Carpe diem

Tony

Tony Fountain

Professional Speaker, auctioneer and author

Sydney NSW Australia

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