ANZAC DAY – Reflections of a somewhat reconstructed cynic

               

               “When the bodies were bagged and the telegrams sent 
                 and the very last chopper had gone
                And you looked out the window of the 707 on the airfield in Saigon.
                Some of us thought that the war was over, some of us couldn't care less;

Anzac Day is probably the most appropriate day in our calendar for personal and national reflection. The annual celebration brings in to sharp focus all of the paradoxes and contradictions which combine to make up what it is to be Australian. The deep emotions felt and displayed contrast with the bogan nationalism of public drunkenness and Australian flags hanging off cars. The attempt to recognise the genuine sacrifice and courage of those who served, contrasts with the cynical exploitation of this sacrifice by politicians and right wing shock jocks. ANZAC Day is probably the one true and genuine Australian myth.  But this myth is almost exclusively Anglo-Celtic and male. And therein lies much of its problem. Its seemingly off-hand indifference to women and to those born overseas or whose forebears were, make it problematical as a national celebration. Nothing signifies this more than the superficiality of the mandatory annual pilgrimage to Gallipoli by 20 somethings as a de rigeur ANZAC Chic rite of passage (Aussie Aussie Aussie Oi Oi Oi).

In many respects these paradoxes and contradictions are reflected in my own life experience. As a student i railed against the Vietnam War. But my convictions didn’t run to conscientious objection so I meekly wandered off to 18 months of national service.

                “We were fighting for freedom in South East Asia - that's how the story ran
                Windy speeches about a domino falling from China into Vietnam.
                But look back in sickness and anger, Australia didn't honour her debt;
                And non-commissioned Officer Thompson learned that the war wasn't over yet.”

Like many in the 1960s and 70s I expressed my disdain for ANZAC day and its association (intended and otherwise) with Vietnam. The spirit of ANZAC was invoked as a justification for the hypocrisy and the shame of our involvement in Vietnam. The sacrifice of our fathers who had fought in New Guinea and the Middle East and Africa was besmirched by successive Liberal PMs who sought to wrap themselves in the mantle of patriotism, the last refuge of the scoundrel.

So for me ANZAC Day was informed more by THE ONE DAY OF THE YEAR and THE BAND PLAYED WALTZING MATILDA than it was by Dawn Services and parades. It was a day to mock rather than to celebrate.

 But something happened. It may have been the (for me) late onset of maturity and the attendant insight that the world is composed of complexity and not simply black and white. But something did happen. Fuelled by the later work of John Schumann and Eric Bogle I started to reassess my cynicism.

                “living on your nerves, living on the phone, sleeping in airports far from home

                Dusted off now and safe behind the wire.”

I suspect that the turning point was the confluence of a couple of events. The first was a Four Corners program on KOKODA and the second was the death of my father.

The story of KOKODA is to my mind a much more worthy candidate for the role as THE Australian myth. I had learnt about Kokoda at school. Australian forces had stopped the Japanese 40 miles from Moresby in a last gasp effort. Little did I know that that last gasp effort was undertaken by the most ill-prepared, least trained unit in the Australian Army. The Army commanders, believing that Moresby would fall, decided not to waste good troops on New Guinea and sent 3 militia battalions, “Chocolate Soldiers” CHOCKOS, instead. So 1000 Australians faced 10,000 Japanese and held them up for more than 3 weeks until re-inforcements could arrive to drive the Japanese back over Owen Stanleys. And through all this Generals Blamey and Macarthur who had no idea of what was happening kept sending messages saying when are you going onto the offensive? Why aren’t you attacking?

The story of the 39^th militia battalion and the battle of Isurava is the stuff of legend: untrained, ill-prepared, sacrificial lambs are told to go and do the impossible. AND THEY DO IT!!

Around the same time my father died. He went into hospital to have a small operation on his back, a legacy of his service in New Guinea - and he caught golden staph and never came out. The 4 Corners program pricked my curiosity and I started to read everything I could find about Kokoda. And this in turn caused me to want to ask questions about my father’s war service, to try to get an insight into his experience in New Guinea. And…. He…. wasn’t…. there…. any more.

                “Well, he gave and he gave and he kept on giving, till he just couldn't give anymore;
                And he gave it away one morning in Sydney in a rust-red Commodore.
                I remember Phil best talking on the phone with a cheeky grin on his face
                'Cause Royal Commissioners and Knights of the Realm 

                thought that Phil didn't know his place.”

So I now find myself conflicted every April 25. Part of me wants to participate – to honour the sacrifice of those who had gone before. But the skeptical side of me sees the orgy of self-indulgent jingoism and the overt commercialization (come in to Harvey Norman between 1pm and 5pm to honour the diggers) and I just want to stay in bed.

I heard on the radio that the Government intends spending $86 million on the 100 year anniversary of Gallipoli in 1915. There will be memorials and pilgrimages and “celebrations”. Perhaps a more apt way of honouring what went before would be for all of us to take some time to contemplate all of the lives that were cut short by war. Forget the bread and circuses. Let’s have some quiet reflection about who we are and how the myth of ANZAC can better serve us as a country.

Better still let’s make the national day August 26. This would commemorate start of the Battle of Isurava, Australia’s Thermopylae, on the Kokoda Track. Here the 39^th Militia Battalion held off the Japanese for 3 days until re-inforcements arrived – a truly heroic action that prevented the Japanese from eventually taking Port Moresby. At least then we would be honouring an event that had direct impact on the future of Australia rather than a botched and futile landing on a beach in a land that nobody knew of at the time, as part of 4 years of sacrifice costing 60,000 Australians their lives, fighting in a war that had no relevance to us other than it involved our Imperial masters.

                They're still bagging bodies, Phil, though forty years have gone;
                The mums and the dads and the wives and the kids still have to soldier on.

                And I don’t know where you are tonight; I’m down here in a firefight.

                But wherever you are I hope you’re safe behind the wire.”

                SAFE BEHIND THE WIRE – John Schumann.