ANZAC Day 2020

Warrigal

Warrigal

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Location
Sydney, Australia
ANZAC Day, April 25, is the day Australians and New Zealanders commemorate the landings at Gallipoli in 1915. Originally it was just to remember the fallen of the Great War but over the years it has become a day of remembrance of all the men and women who have served overseas. Some came back but many, like two of my father's brothers, lie forever in foreign soil.

This year because of social distancing and the vulnerability of the veterans the usual marches are cancelled and dawn services are restricted to a few participants. There are no services at overseas locations due to travel restrictions and the need to avoid spreading COVID-19.

A suggestion was made that we might like to stand at the end of our driveways at 6 am with a light or candle in silent tribute. People who can play The Last Post have been invited to do so today as the dawn breaks.

This is my experience of ANZAC Day 2020.

I set the alarm early so that I could stand outside at 6 am today but woke fully an hour too early. I lay in bed awake and started to wonder whether I was long for this world because there was a newsreel of my life playing in my head. It wasn't about my life's events or achievements. It was a parade of people who had been significant to me down the many years. Of course, many are long dead or gone from my life years ago but they are still vivid in my memories.

There were not many people in their driveway that I could see. Just a group of three further down the street holding lights. I turned up my radio for The Last Post so that the sound could perhaps carry to them. In the minute's silence that followed I heard the local birds greeting the dawn and from the radio, the magpies at the War Museum in Canberra in a glorious chorus. It was anything but silent but absolutely Australian.

I am glad I went out because there will likely never be an Anzac Day like this one in my lifetime.



LEST WE FORGET
 

It was a bit on the chilly side so I put 2 sets of 3 battery operated pillar candles in our 2 garage windows which face the road
I turned them on 'at the going down of the Sun' and turned them off before going to bed
I turned them on again 'and in the morning we will remember them' and turned them off ready for 2021
In the distance at our local War Memorial we could just make out the strains of the Last Post
The Last Post always brings a lump to my throat and tears to my eyes when I think of those who made the ultimate sacrifice
A most unusual ANZAC Day but nonetheless a time for reflection and remembrance
I have always watched the ANZAC Parade through Adelaide in South Australia but sadly no parade this ANZAC Day 2020
2021 will no doubt be the best ANZAC Parade ever
 

RIP guys.

Gallipoli was one of the reasons why many senior statesmen were reluctant to see Churchill as leader thirty years later. He was seen as an adventurer.

He was obsessed with the area and made the same mistake, though on a much lesser scale, pouring men and resources into the bottomless pit that was Greece and Crete.

Though it was a military failure, they did not die in vain.

They were the midwives at the birth of two nations.
 
We were at Gallipoli the day after the 100th Anniversary celebration.

There is an inscription on a memorial with the words of Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, "father" of modern-day Turkey, written to the mothers of the fallen ANZAC servicemen:

Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives ... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours ... You, the mothers who sent their sons from faraway countries, wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.
 
Hubby and I visited Gallipoli in 2000. Of course we knew the story from the Australian viewpoint but our wonderful young Turkish guide told us the story from the Turkish perspective. He pointed to the statue of the Turkish soldier and commented that he was far better dressed than the first responders to the invasion. They rushed to defend the area when the call went out from Kamal Ataturk and many of them were just boys. Losses were very heavy, much heavier that those of the Australians. I wept when I heard that after the withdrawal schools were closed for lack of boys. I felt a sense of shame that we had taken part in an attempted invasion of someone else's country, and for what? The 'War to End All Wars'?

This is what Ataturk said to the men defending the coast against the British forces -

"Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die.
In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place."

Even as I write this I am tearing up. So many young lives lost and still it goes on.

While we were there we visited the Lone Pine memorial and laid a small wreath that Hubby had bought in Canakkale. Hubby recited The Ode and I laid the flowers. Most of the people on our bus came with us and a few other people joined us when they saw what we were doing.

We also spent time in the Turkish cemetery and it was a very sobering experience.

As the bus drove away, our guide, who had spent time in Australia and who knew us well, placed a tape in the player and we left the scene to the song "And the band played Waltzing Matilda". More tears.

The Turks are an amazing people.

Some other quotations of Kamal Ataturk from the post war period

* Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder.

* Our object now is to strengthen the ties that bind us to other nations. There may be a great many countries in the world, but there is only one civilization, and if a nation is to achieve progress, she must be a part of this civilization. The Ottoman Empire began to decline the day when, proud of her success against the West, she cut the ties that bound her to the European nations.

* Today the Soviet Union is a friend and an ally. We need this friendship. However, no one can know what will happen tomorrow. Just like the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires it may tear itself apart or shrink in size. Those peoples that it holds so tightly in its grip may one day slip away. The world may see a new balance of power. It is then that Turkey must know what to do. Ally Soviets have under their control our brothers with whom we share language, beliefs and roots. We must be prepared to embrace them. Being ready does not mean that we will sit quietly and wait. We must get ready. How does a people get prepared for such an endeavour? By strengthening the natural bridges that exist between us. Language is a bridge... Religion is a bridge... History is a bridge... We must delve into our roots and reconstruct what history has divided. We can't wait for them to approach us. We must reach out to them.

He was a very special leader and is rightly revered by the Turks.
 
Warrigal said:
Hubby and I visited Gallipoli in 2000. Of course we knew the story from the Australian viewpoint but our wonderful young Turkish guide told us the story from the Turkish perspective. He pointed to the statue of the Turkish soldier and commented that he was far better dressed than the first responders to the invasion. They rushed to defend the area when the call went out from Kamal Ataturk and many of them were just boys. Losses were very heavy, much heavier that those of the Australians. I wept when I heard that after the withdrawal schools were closed for lack of boys. I felt a sense of shame that we had taken part in an attempted invasion of someone else's country, and for what? The 'War to End All Wars'?

This is what Ataturk said to the men defending the coast against the British forces -

"Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die.
In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place."

Even as I write this I am tearing up. So many young lives lost and still it goes on.

While we were there we visited the Lone Pine memorial and laid a small wreath that Hubby had bought in Canakkale. Hubby recited The Ode and I laid the flowers. Most of the people on our bus came with us and a few other people joined us when they saw what we were doing.

We also spent time in the Turkish cemetery and it was a very sobering experience.

As the bus drove away, our guide, who had spent time in Australia and who knew us well, placed a tape in the player and we left the scene to the song "And the band played Waltzing Matilda". More tears.

The Turks are an amazing people.

Some other quotations of Kamal Ataturk from the post war period

* Unless a nation's life faces peril, war is murder.

* Our object now is to strengthen the ties that bind us to other nations. There may be a great many countries in the world, but there is only one civilization, and if a nation is to achieve progress, she must be a part of this civilization. The Ottoman Empire began to decline the day when, proud of her success against the West, she cut the ties that bound her to the European nations.

* Today the Soviet Union is a friend and an ally. We need this friendship. However, no one can know what will happen tomorrow. Just like the Ottoman and Austro-Hungarian Empires it may tear itself apart or shrink in size. Those peoples that it holds so tightly in its grip may one day slip away. The world may see a new balance of power. It is then that Turkey must know what to do. Ally Soviets have under their control our brothers with whom we share language, beliefs and roots. We must be prepared to embrace them. Being ready does not mean that we will sit quietly and wait. We must get ready. How does a people get prepared for such an endeavour? By strengthening the natural bridges that exist between us. Language is a bridge... Religion is a bridge... History is a bridge... We must delve into our roots and reconstruct what history has divided. We can't wait for them to approach us. We must reach out to them.

He was a very special leader and is rightly revered by the Turks.
Click to expand...

He was a true "renaissance man". He had his faults and he made some terrible mistakes, but he brought "The Sick Man of Europe" into the 20th Century. He was an alcoholic.

He was a feminist. He banned the wearing of the veil, banned "easy" divorces, raised the marriage age for girls and forbade the "purchasing" of brides. He separated church and state. He appointed women to public offices.

His men would follow him into hell, if needed.

Our elderly landlord in Yalova had served on his staff and had a larger-than-life oil painting of Ataturk hanging in his dining room. We had to come in and admire it every time we took the rent to him.

My daughter was born in Ankara on Ataturk Day (the anniversary of his death - November 10). In Turkey, that is a very solemn day with only somber music playing and no partying. Unfortunately, the day she was born, there were several groups of protestors who apparently "didn't get the memo" and were rioting in the streets. I had to ride to the hospital (from the hotel where I was staying) in the back of an old hearse, as they couldn't send the ambulance out into the streets for fear it would be attacked.

When we re-visited Ankara in 2015, we toured the tomb complex, which has a tremendous amount of historical items of the early days of the Turkish republic.
 
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