I can’t believe I haven’t written for almost a month…. but, I have been busy, putting on 6 kilograms and ensuring that I was well and truely in the 70% increase of alcohol consumption since the COVID19 invasion.

So, ANZAC Day…..

I have a few difficulties with its sudden ‘popularity’ and all the wonderful heartfelt sacrifices made on the day and the wearing of other peoples medals. It’s not the sentiment that troubles me, its the short lived nature of it.

I wrote a poem about this a few years ago and usually publish it on ANZAC Day; but, seeing I sent it to the ADF and they ignored me, I’ll just leave a link for you to ignore as well. (To read a really good ANZAC Poem, click here!)

So, ANZAC Day…..

Often referred to by our politicians and The Merchants of Misery (The Media) of late, in a sentence including the term Un-Australian….. also, a lot of the merchants quoting a ‘millyun’ when quoting financial figures around the million mark, which is much less than a ‘billyun’.

I attend the dawn service; usually. Being in the country is better. But, this year it will just be the Politicians who send our ADF to war and sit at home being very Australian. They will be representing us as they do not on the battle field. I will walk to the end of my driveway at 5.30 am on ANZAC Day and remember the fallen and the ultimate sacrifice they made in all the wars, ‘police actions’, peace keeping roles and all the other names we hide behind when describing war and death.

It would be really nice NOT to see a lot of people doing this – I don’t want to see them on Facebook, Instagram, Snapchat…. but, as I will do, I will just be doing it for myself, because it is important to me; unrecorded, just lived.

I will remember the two photographs of my Nana’s brothers, both of whom died in WW1; and who we never really spoke about. I remember when I was young, not really understanding; even if I did wear their medals one day while playing; children don’t understand war; young men mostly, and young women, dont really understand them either, they just die in them.

So, ANZAC Day…..

I will really be thinking of the approximately 6000 veterans who are homeless, today.

I will really be thinking of the almost 500 veterans who have suicided in the last 20 years; and their families who have been left behind.

I will think of these lost souls, destroyed and killed by war; of families still grieving the loss of the men and women who they knew, for the ones who returned home.

I will think what can I do?

A wise young man told me the other day, “compassion is empathy and action.”

To me it is not, just getting up early one day a year. Compassion, is perhaps, acknowledging if you have never served, that you can never know what it was like; compassion is asking our Politicians why our heroes are lost in the world they fought for, and live in today.

Lest we forget; those still with us; every day.