V is for Veterans — a personal apology

 

This month I’m part of the A-Z Blogging Challenge (check out who else is here). I’m writing a series of 26 letters, each of a different type/genre/style, inspired by the letters of the alphabet. 

Ironically, today is V. I say ironically, because today is also ANZAC Day (Australia New Zealand Army Corps) and the centenary of the dawn landing on the Gallipoli Peninsula of the four infantry battalions of the 3rd Brigade, First Australian Division at a place now called Anzac Cove — a place where young men massacred each other.

In 1915, Australia had only been a nation for 14 years. Our population was fewer than 5 million. Of them, almost 500,000 young men enlisted to fight under their new flag in World War 1— 61,5000 died. 

On 25 April, commemoration services are held at dawn to honour our veterans.

   

Dear Veterans of Australia,

I owe each and every one of you an apology — one that’s been a long while coming — and today is the perfect time.

Dawn, Cowes foreshore. 25/04/2015

I think I must have been about eighteen, for it was early in my university career. We were seated around the family dinner table — for some reason I remember that the cloth that night was orange. I don’t remember what we had eaten, but my father and I were engaged in a discussion as we so often were, especially after he had had a couple of glasses of red.  It was Anzac Day.

Incited by the swagger of youth and my newfound independence, I declared that I thought it was stupid to have a public holiday to glorify war. War brings devastation and brutality. War is evil. It makes no sense to give everyone a holiday to watch old blokes march down our streets wearing medals. And even less sense to applaud them for having been killers and accomplices of killers. Anzac Day is nothing but an excuse for old codgers to have a booze-up. We need to look to the future, not aggrandize the mistakes of the past.

Dad’s reaction was explosive, ‘Don’t be so bloody stupid. Honouring our armed forces is not the same as glorifying war, Wendy. Not the same thing at all.’

I’m sure he went on to explain what he meant, but I recall nothing else. I feel certain I would’ve been sufficiently arrogant to argue and contradict him, but most probably I just stopped listening.

Well, several decades later, I finally understand what Dad meant.

For the past few years, I’ve worked as a volunteer at the National Vietnam Veterans Museum (NVVM) — a collection begun by a veteran that has grown to a museum big enough to fill an aeroplane hangar,almost completely run by volunteers. I have become, by default, the closest thing NVVM has to a curator, and the spirit of the place now dwells deep within my soul.

Many of my colleagues are, themselves, veterans of that ten-year conflict, some conscripted to go and fight a guerrilla war in a country they knew nothing about. A war that divided Australia politically. They served, often not by choice, then returned to be ignored by their nation, or worse, held in contempt. 

These amazing men have a connection that only shared experience can forge. And the things they shared were often unspeakable. ..unimaginable. They are humble, mostly softly spoken, and all deeply affected by their intimate knowledge of the truths about warfare. Like most veterans, there is no bravado. Most are reticent to speak of what they endured.

Through them, and the stories I now seek to preserve for future Australians, I have come to see the vast gulf that lies between glorifying war and honouring our veterans.

I am truly sorry for my brash disregard of the significance of Anzac Day and the disrespect I showed all veterans. I hope you can forgive me.

Sincerely,

Wendy

Song of the Day: Redgum: I Was Only Nineteen (1983) 

A special request from me to my non-Aussies visitors and friends, and anyone unfamiliar with it, to watch and listen this through to the end. Aussies in Vietnam 1962–1972

I can't hear it without crying.

Lest we forget.

Question of the day : What do you think about commemoration days?