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Our day of days

4/5/2021

4 Comments

 
Picture
Tim O’Brien’s relative, Sgt Willam O'Brien, closest to camera, finds something to grin about, despite
the grim smoke of battle in the background. This photo was taken on August 8, 1918, the day before William was killed in the battle for Vauvillers, one of the last battles of WWI.

​​By Tim O’Brien

 
THE celebration of Anzac Day has changed. When I was growing up, while the giving of a minute’s silence and a brief period of reflection on bravery and loss was part of the school year – and was a welcome day off – many questioned what “this day of days” was all about.
Then, for many, in the late `60s and into the `70s, the celebration of Anzac Day was seen as a kind of misplaced sentimentality and an uncomfortable ill-founded glorification of war – an idea that Alan Seymour explored in his popular but divisive play The One Day of The Year.
 
Of course, there were also many, the majority in fact, but mostly older Australians, who had no such misgivings, and proudly marched and gathered quietly and reverentially at dawn at cenotaphs in small towns and cities across the country.

​
Some time,  then, a shift occurred. Maybe it was finally the recognition given returned soldiers from the Vietnam War – my friends among them – or maybe it was simply that the imagery and the stories made such great TV. Whatever it was, we began to think about Anzac Day differently, and with vastly more tears and flag-waving fervour.
 
I think part of the shift that gathered such strength in the '80s (and has endured) was due in some part to the power and imagery of Eric Bogle's astonishing song The Band Played Waltzing Matilda. It doesn't matter that the detail of the history is incorrect; it stands as a brilliant song.
 
I performed with Eric a number of times; the irony is that when I first heard him sing it (in about 1975-76), he was opposed to the RSL and its glorification of Anzac Day. He described The Band Played Waltzing Matilda as an anti-war piece. He was, as many of us were, opposed to what we thought (perhaps mistakenly) was a celebration of war in the marches, the “closed-door comradeship” and the Anzac Day boozing of the ageing diggers. 
 
"And I ask myself what are they marchin' for...?" the maimed digger in Bogle’s composition asks. Yet it became a galvanising soundtrack for every Anzac Day, everywhere in this country.
 
Perhaps the misgivings that some of us carried around Anzac Day when growing up were because we didn't see then that this “one day” was the only day in 365 that so many returned soldiers, so deeply affected by their experiences, could shake the demons out in the company of the only people who could truly understand: their mates in battle.
 
It is fascinating to me now how they endured what they endured, and that so many carried such horrors until their last breath – a tangle of unspeakable images nestled forever in their heads, with little to no professional help nor advice to help them manage those images and experiences. For so many (my grandfather and other family members included), that post-war guts they showed in “getting on with life” is something few of us can comprehend.
 
I'm torn by Anzac Day. Transfixed by Gallipoli and The Somme, I think it has moved into a fest of glorification of sacrifice, of the creation of some mythical archetypal Aussie patriot with "king and country" burning in his chest, rather than the truth – of countless eager young men who were sold a deliberate lie and, unaware they were part of a cruel mathematical calculation of battlefield loss, being knowingly sent to their deaths.
 
I would love to see an Anzac Day when we reflect on the truth of this history rather than the confection that it has become; when the crimes of that murderous incompetent goat Field Marshall Haig are documented, when we reflect on the complicit disregard for Australian lives shown by Generals 'Grim Death' Grimwade, Hobbs, Sinclair-Maclagan, and by so many others, and when we reflect on the lies of our own Prime Minister, the craven, traitorous Billy Hughes.
 
What we need is a reminder of the stupidity of war, of the stupidity of “leadership” and, as far as the First World War is concerned, of the craven mendacity of the political classes and their murderous disregard for the young men and women sent to battle.
 
Sure, let’s honour the soldiers, those who have made such sacrifices over centuries of pointless conflict.
 
But let us also remember the stupid men (mostly men) who have so willingly spilled the blood of the sons and daughters of their citizens in so many stupid meddling conflicts – in South Africa, Vietnam, Iraq, Afghanistan and elsewhere. (“Mission Accomplished” was a crime, and a lie.)
 
So let us tell the truth on this day and talk honestly and forthrightly of the craven political allegiances that have spilled so much unnecessary blood.
 
Also, in truth, and importantly, let us never forget World War Two and the fight for survival against the evils of Nazism and the genocidal ambitions of the AXIS powers. This sacrifice, against such horrors, we can never repay, and should never forget.
 
Is there ever a just war? Perhaps only WW2. But the carnage of WW1 - which dominates the ANZAC story – was just unforgivable butchery.
4 Comments
Bernie Mccomb
7/5/2021 01:46:23 pm

Why even try to make objective commentary about War? Western Front allegedly consisted of 2Million soldiers, on each side, also 6Million
horses, a huge logistical problem to feed and water and supply ammunition and reinforcements and remove dead and injured. In between was relatively flat so trucks were hopelessly exposed to range of field and machine guns. Evidently they even tried a few cavalry charges. So trenches were dug, not small ones in movies but deep and wide enough for serious logistics with rail transport. Trucks might have been human powered earlier but later with Puffing Billy sized steam engines. But not for long because smoke obviously gave the target away. Many horses were big Clydesdale types, for haulage without smoke.

Between lines, from either side, field guns had blasted large craters to impede any advance by the other side. Formally it was “war of attrition”. Troops used names like abattoir or mincing machine, a seriously industrial scale killing machine.

Weather in 1917 was wet enough to make life particularly ugly. Rain filled craters with mud. Duck boards were placed but submerged. If a horse lost its footing, it would thrash for many excruciatingly noisy hours before submerging. Having to disregard attachment to loyal beasts, it was necessary to shoot them. If a soldier missed his footing, he suffered the same fate as a horse. Despite all laws, whether trapped in mud or injured, the right thing to do was to put them out of their misery and end the screaming.

In early days of RSL, there was strong body opposed to war. These days it looks like gambling, grog and gun promotion. Hollywood was always good at delusions of gallantry. We will never have accurate numbers of dead in WW1 but tens of millions before Spanish flu pandemic killed many more. Death toll for locals in Vietnam, eventually revealed by Robert Macnamara was 3.5 to 4Million, no doubt actually more.

When will they be satisfied with just one annual 11 Nov Memorial Day for War, putting ANZAC day into retirement?

Reply
Margaret Thomas
7/5/2021 05:20:13 pm

Tim O’Brien, you have captured and expressed my sentiments exactly.
Thank you.

Reply
Felicia Di Stefano
7/5/2021 11:30:33 pm

Thank you for an informative article, Tim. As an European immigrant I always wondered why the accent on WWI when so many were murdered over such a long time in the second world disaster, including the six million. And yes, we need to have a truth telling after all our wars, including the one with our first nations people. On Anzac day I stop and commemorate all the murdered in all our wars and give gratitude to all those who helped defeat the nazis,

Reply
Anne Davie
8/5/2021 03:54:32 pm

After we had seen a performance of Alan Seymour's One Day Of The Year, I remember my mother saying that at last there can be a conversation about Anzac Day. She had lived through 2 world wars and experienced and witnessed the devastating impact on families.
I believe Anzac Day should be a day of Celebration of the glory of peace, given through the sacrifice of the many, with a commitment to safeguard that peace and value it every day.

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