Anzac Day
Anzad Day has come around once again, and I am ashamed to realise that the only thing I can think about is how glad I am to get a day off from school so I can catch up on my history notes. What happened to Lest We Forget?
I don't realise how much all this means. The world wars all seem so distant and far away and irrelevent. There's so much patriotic drivel around about being thankful to those young soldiers who gave up their lives or their sanity to defend our country. It shouldn't be like that... it makes it sound so brave and glorious when really all it is is completely and utterly tragic. In fact all it was was a bunch of naive underage boys off looking for a bit of adventure while defending the motherland at the same time. What, may I ask, has the motherland ever done for Australia? Killed off a few savages? Sent your ancestors here in chains for stealing a loaf of bread when they were starving and then abandoning them? Then dragged us into a couple of wars that didn't involve us, sending people to be massacred at Gallipoli.
The most poignant thing of all is that no one has learnt anything from this. One motherland has been replaced by another and now Australian troops are off fighting a useless and pathetic war in Iraq. Lest we forget, I guess.
I don't realise how much all this means. The world wars all seem so distant and far away and irrelevent. There's so much patriotic drivel around about being thankful to those young soldiers who gave up their lives or their sanity to defend our country. It shouldn't be like that... it makes it sound so brave and glorious when really all it is is completely and utterly tragic. In fact all it was was a bunch of naive underage boys off looking for a bit of adventure while defending the motherland at the same time. What, may I ask, has the motherland ever done for Australia? Killed off a few savages? Sent your ancestors here in chains for stealing a loaf of bread when they were starving and then abandoning them? Then dragged us into a couple of wars that didn't involve us, sending people to be massacred at Gallipoli.
The most poignant thing of all is that no one has learnt anything from this. One motherland has been replaced by another and now Australian troops are off fighting a useless and pathetic war in Iraq. Lest we forget, I guess.