They shall not grow old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.
Today, we remember them. We will always be in their debt and walk the coast of the free because of their sacrifice. The shadows they cast are long. Large, and we rest easily in their legacy. We bask in the sun they served under, able to run and swim and laugh in the echoes of their war cries.
We abhor war. If we don’t, we should. Surely their stories, their screams of pain, the void in their eyes has taught us that peace is the ultimate balm for the wounds of our history? Yet human frailties expose conflict, so we look to the ANZAC spirit to guide us through, to remind us of lessons we need to relearn.
We try to live better. More thoughtfully. We try to be inclusive and welcoming. We try to serve when we can, provide where needed, take care of the ones we love in the hope that this nation of the free will never be taken for granted. We never look to our sporting icons or actors or rock stars as heroes. In doing so, we equate them with you. Their ‘sacrifice’ is puerile, non existent, and the ANZACS have gifted them a world where they may create and kick and sing without fear of violent retribution.
With the setting of our sun, we will remember that they rose from dirt to fight, mud in their mouths, hearts racing in time with the shatter of guns. When we sleep in soft beds, we remember their graves, lining the earth of foreign lands, unable to return to the countries that they defended. With their lives.
With the heaviest of hearts, we remember our dead, the loves they left behind to work land and worry and bake and raise children.
Because that’s what you did.
That’s what you did, without question. Or, if you did question the sending of troops into faraway lands to fight and pillage and die the slow death, you were condemned.
We abhor war. If we don’t, we should.
And we thank you. For fathering, fostering, fighting and our freedom. We should never forget. To do so would be the greatest ingratitude in Australian history.
The Chisels? They get it: ‘all around us is chaos and madness’.
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2 Responses to ANZAC Day
“only choice is to face it the best we can” chisel
Hi Cam! x
Mossie. Barnesy. Chisels.
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