"ANZAC Day" Topic

To my fellow Aussie and Kiwi members of this Forum I wish you a thoughtful and clarifying ANZAC Day for 2026.

"At the going down of the sun and in the morning we will remember them"

My humble thanks to all who have served. Lest we forget.

I have thought a lot about it – always do. I am afraid those men and women wouldn't recognise how what they fought for ended up. Frankly, not sure their sacrifice was worth it.

Thanks, Nick. But no need for thanks, mate. We all volunteered (including Nasho's- they didn't take the Simon Townsend option), and we did it for ourselves as well.

You have a great tradition of personal sacrifice and are right to take pride in it. I hope that your young people will continue to be made aware of your great history and honor it as they should. As a history professor in the United States I mention the sacrifice made by soldiers from Australia and New Zealand in both World Wars (as well as the contribution that Australians made in the Vietnam War) in the Modern Civilization course that I teach.

Kevin

Unfortunately, I think Woolshed is right.

We must not only remember them, but remember what they stood for and what they wanted their countries to be when they returned.

It's just a shame our politicians (across the board) seem to have forgotten the "why".

I attended the dawn service and march at Ashgrove with staff & boys from my old school. Our contingent would have been around 1000 strong. The boys' vocal quartet also sang at the Dawn Service.

I did not attend the Anzac Liturgy on Friday, which featured a "meaningful Anzac Liturgy" with guest speaker Major Michael Stone.
It was, I'm told, very powerful and the college's students were respectful & moved.

Of course things change – Life is dynamic. But I can assure you the younger generations hold the meaning of this day very seriously.

The importance is the sacrifice, not some cost-benefit analysis run generations later. Something in Tolkien--who well understood the sacrifice--to the effect that we owe later generations the land, but we can't promise them good farming weather.

"Yet it is not our part to master all the tides of the world, but to do what is in us for the succour of those years wherein we are set, uprooting the evil in the fields that we know, so that those who live after may have clean earth to till. What weather they shall have is not ours to rule."

It took me a while to find it, RP. "Return of the King".

Seeing we're doing quotes:

"We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
In accents most forlorn,
Outside the church, ere Mass began,
One frosty Sunday morn.

The congregation stood about,
Coat-collars to the ears,
And talked of stock, and crops, and drought,
As it had done for years.

In God's good time down came the rain;
And all the afternoon
On iron roof and window-pane
It drummed a homely tune.

There'll be bush-fires for sure, me man,
There will, without a doubt;
We'll all be rooned," said Hanrahan,
"Before the year is out."