ANZAC Day is also a time to remember the grace with which the great Ataturk extended the hand of reconciliation to the ANZACs and to acknowledge the hospitality the Turks still extend to us today at ANZAC Cove.

It is surely unparalleled in the history of modern warfare where a victorious former enemy demonstrates as much friendship and respect as the Turkish state offers to Australians on this, our most sacred day.

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 far away 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.

Ataturk 1934

That was beautiful.

Such a senseless thing, war.

DULCE ET DECORUM EST

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped behind.
Gas! Gas! Quick, boys! – An ecstasy of fumbling,
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time;
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling,
And flound'ring like a man in fire or lime . . .
Dim, through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.
In all my dreams, before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.
If in some smothering dreams you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil's sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie; Dulce et Decorum est
Pro patria mori.

Wilfred Owen
8 October 1917 - March, 1918

Mattyfisk wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 1:01am:



That puts it in some perspective bobby.

War is decided by old men in boardrooms and young men are sent to die. We should stop all invasions now.
The men who signed up for WWI and II did it for adventure, it was a way out of the shearing sheds. Read their stories, that's what they said.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Apr 25^th, 2012 at 8:39am:



Thanks Pansi,
Some were also conscripted against their will.

Ex Dame Pansi wrote on Apr 22^nd, 2012 at 1:34pm:


.......and why are you safe?

i do not celebrate ritual sacrifice and murder

by the english.

many 1000s of anzacs were ordered to charge and

were slaughtered in rank and file

by the british monarchy yes

murder of the convict stock,i will not pretend to like

the freemasonic ritual,

to celebrate murder and ritual blood sacrifice

the monarchy gets a real belly laugh at misguided

ceremonies

freewill

enjoy blessings

namaste

I agree with the sentiments, Bobby, but WW1 - no conscription.
I was just looking at the AWM site, my father left Australia in May 1915 as a member of the 2nd Reinforcement Company and became part of the 55th Battalion AIF when it formed in Egypt in 1916. They were posted to France later that year and their first action was at Fromelles...then Bullencourt, the Hindenburg Line, Villes-Bretenneux(?) , Polygon Wood and St Quentin Canal.