Almanac Opinion: Where is the ANZAC Spirit After April 25?

 

 

 

Another ANZAC Day gone and, as an ex-servicemen, it gladdens the heart to see young Australians hopefully understanding the sacrifices of our fallen men and women.

 

The question that never gets asked is why are we commemorating such atrocities that literally decimated regional towns, families, relationships and the consciousness of so many.

 

The ANZAC Day ceremony is sacred, especially amongst returned veterans, so it’s the commercialisation over the past decade that sticks in my craw. There is no such thing as ANZAC week!

 

Yesterday there were three AFL matches that all had The Last Post play. I think they’ve missed the point. It’s called the last post for a reason. Once on ANZAC Day, and that’s it!

 

Freshly designed jumpers to sell, commentators and players alike rolling out the cliche ‘privilege to play’ on the day whilst being paid CEO salaries, and spectators behind glass stuffing scones, jam and cream into their gobs because ‘that’s what the diggers would have wanted’!

 

It’s all a bit condescending and, frankly, hypocritical, I’m afraid. What would our brave thousands who gave their lives in a foreign land say about the Australia of today?

 

I think they’d question a few things…

• The fact we lead the world in violence against women per capita;
• The fact that over two million Australians have more than one home and over 120,000 are homeless;
• The fact that Australia is the highest per capita consumer of cocaine in the world;
• The fact that 70% of Australians are obese; and
• The fact that we consume alcohol and gambling at world record levels per capita.

 

Was it worth giving their lives for that? They left us a free, clean existence with more money and natural resources than anywhere in the world, and we’ve done our entitled and selfish best to ruin it.

 

ANZAC Day is a national day of mourning, not a day of national patriotism. I’ve seen idiots posting the need for us to be more patriotic. It’s worked for the Proud Boys, so it’ll work for us!

 

Patriotism is downright dangerous. I am definitely not patriotic but I am grateful that my parents consummated here and raised me in Australia. Can you imagine what it must be like in Gaza, Ukraine or Sudan right now? We are just lucky.

 

During my six years in the army I reported to mostly Vietnam and Korean veterans. It was 1980 so, when Vietnam ended in 1975, many of the Vets became trainers whilst others were simply institutionalised into units to keep them secure due to the trauma they had experienced. There was no psychological support other than a few pills.

 

When I left the army in 1986 I moved to Melbourne in a failed attempt to play VFL footy with Collingwood. When I was cut from the team I got a real job as a Technical Officer for an aircraft company in Port Melbourne.

 

I was a military-trained aircraft fitter so, soon after, the company sent me on contract to the defence force building in St Kilda Road opposite The Shrine.

 

There I worked in a fairly mundane role assisting mostly RAAF personnel and a retired RAAF mechanic named Bruce.

 

Bruce was fairly typical of Vietnam Vets I had worked with previously. Quiet, humble and efficient with a black sense of humour.

 

Bruce did two tours of Vietnam, the first as a twenty-year-old in 1968. Upon arrival to his unit in an Iroquois helicopter, the chopper landed on a mine and blew a rotor blade right off, de-stabilising the entire craft. Remarkably no one was killed. That was his Day 1.

 

After seven months Bruce return home but was almost immediately sent back for his second tour. It’s then when Bruce was sent to a unit whose primary role to was fly SAS Sappers close to enemy lines then wait for the call to retrieve them.

 

During this period Bruce had to become a machine gunner on the Iroquois to support the extraction of the Sappers from behind enemy lines, often under fire from the Viet Cong.

 

It was at this point in our chats that Bruce would seize up. He vividly remembered the phone calls from the Sappers behind enemy lines, the urgent screams pointing out their location coordinates with gunfire in the background. Bruce’s heart would sink knowing what was coming.

 

One night, Bruce and his lovely wife Carol invited my girlfriend at the time, Robyn, and I to dinner at their house in Melbourne’s east.

 

Carol was quite the opposite to Bruce as Robyn was to me. Both chatty and fun as opposed to grumpy old Bruce and me. I asked Carol about what it was like when Bruce was away on service.

 

She said that during the second tour she got a knock on the door. Standing there were two men in uniform. She immediately thought they had come to advise of Bruce’s death and subsequently fainted right in front of them.

 

As it turned out, Bruce had been awarded a medal for gallantry whilst protecting SAS Sappers being pulled from the jungle in an Iroquois under fire. Something Bruce had failed to tell me.

 

Bruce’s attitude is typical of the amazing veterans I worked with. Bruce suffered terribly from the after effects of Agent Orange, the deadly chemical the US used to destroy large tracts of jungle. Flying through the red mist had taken its toll.

 

He would take a significant amount of medication every day and would break out in nasty rashes that clearly hurt. He devoted himself to seeking support from the government for veterans suffering from the physical and mental effects of war. In 1987, he still hadn’t been successful in prising money from the government and, as a result, he had never been on an ANZAC Day march.

 

That was then and this is now, full corporatisation. What started as a sincere idea by Kevin Sheedy, ‘Gubby’ Allan and Bruce Ruxton to honour veterans is now a free-for-all to make a buck.

 

In honour of Bruce, I’ve picked a footy team based on a military criterion. Would you want these blokes next to in the trenches? Do they uphold the values of trust, selflessness, courage and humility?

 

 

Full Backs – S Hurn (WC) G Southby (Carl) D Fletcher (Ess)

Half Backs –  C Enright (Geel) C Mew (Haw) B Doull (Carl)

Centres – F Bourke (Rich)  L Hayes (St.K)  W Schimmulbusch (NM)

Half Fwds – P Kelly (Syd)  T Daniher (Ess)  N Daniher (Ess)

Forwards –  G Brown (Coll) J Dunstall (Haw)  T Barker (St.K)

Rucks – J Stynes (Melb)  R Harvey (St.K)  C Ward (GWS)

Interchange – D Moore (Coll) G Hocking (Geel) C Rioli (Haw) B Kirk (Syd)  J Viney (Melb) E Betts (Carl/Adel)

 

 

If people are serious about honouring our fallen then just get the basics right. Say ‘please’ and ‘thankyou’, respect our elderly, volunteer, buy a homeless person a meal and chat to them, stop buying KFC, exercise a bit, stay off social media and talk rather than text.

 

These are simple ways to embody the spirit of the ANZACs. It’s where true mateship is derived and it shows respect to those who sacrificed their lives for what we have now.

 

My mum was a war bride throughout WW2. Her tolerance levels for this generation would be the same as all those of her generation.

 

I can hear her now screaming, “Stop whinging! Get on with it and have a laugh, for Christ’s sake. There are plenty more worse off than you.”

 

 

 

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