Lest we Forget

[poddster]

[2106greencat]

Two days a year...

Anzac and Rememberance.....

and to all the diggers out there (or on here) I just want to say my family and myself remember what you did, went through, fought for, lost - way more frequently than on just these 2 days every year.

Thank You

[kennedia_nigricans]

there is no glory in war, just death, destruction and suffering.

[acacia_pycnantha]

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@jean2579 wrote:

Acacia, I appreciate your point of view, but perhaps today is not the day to state it.

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I must respectfully disagree, this is a very appropriate day to say this and we should all think hard on it and not get sucked in to the soppy sentimentality. War is not sentimental and nor is it glorious.

I was particularly impressed by this letter to The Age newspaper on Wednesday 23. and feel that I should re-print it here.

(The Age wed. april 23 page 18 Comment)

Our next cannon fodder.

"On the front of Insight (19/4) is a picture of hundreds of doe-eyed young people draped in Australian flags at an ANZAC Cove dawn service. I find it chilling because I see only cannon fodder for the right wing's next war - naive young people, yearning for meaning and thus ripe for the cynical manipulations of ruthless politicians.

John Howard revived an ANZAC tradition that should have been allowed to die with dignity, along with the last old diggers. But it was disinterred and it's war-torn body forced back into life to serve the power-greedy right, the true "axis of evil" - George Bush, Tony Blair and Howard - whose successor is the deceitful Tony Abbott.

I hope the youth of Australia wake up from this seductive but deadly dream in time to recognise who their true enemies are."

(Written by) David Champion, Ivanhoe.

[2106greencat]

Yeah, well,  I will just remember the diggers - those still with us and those (sadly) who are not.

[lakeland27]

 i personally have mixed feelings about it. one of my grandfathers was brought home from the repat hospital on a stretcher still half-full of shrapnel . my father and his brothers used to carry him to the pub once a week so he could get out the house and his bed where he died after a few years. i had another uncle in changi who never properly recovered. the family lost a large number of relatives in Europe in camps.  other uncles were more fortunate. then i have my partners grandfather and grandmother who both passed a few years ago. He said his abiding memory was washing blood from the plane of his dead friends and how many died . he was RAAF and didn't march and thought the entire business phony.. her job was to spy on others in London , listen in on conversations in pubs etc (loose lips sink ships) and was only able to talk of it 50 years later where she was featured in a book published a few years ago containing womens war stories..

[nero_bolt]

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@acacia_pycnantha wrote:

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@jean2579 wrote:

Acacia, I appreciate your point of view, but perhaps today is not the day to state it.

---

I must respectfully disagree, this is a very appropriate day to say this and we should all think hard on it and not get sucked in to the soppy sentimentality. War is not sentimental and nor is it glorious.

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Thank goodness you and your opinion are in the minority .  Please remember you have the right to this free speech and opinion and our way of life because of these men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect your/our freedom and way of life. 

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/22923673/anzac-day-2014/

Australia remembers: Thousands gather for Anzac Day services

[fourandsixpants]

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@acacia_pycnantha wrote:

---

@jean2579 wrote:

Acacia, I appreciate your point of view, but perhaps today is not the day to state it.

---

I must respectfully disagree, this is a very appropriate day to say this and we should all think hard on it and not get sucked in to the soppy sentimentality. War is not sentimental and nor is it glorious.

---

Thank goodness you and your opinion are in the minority .  Please remember you have the right to this free speech and opinion and our way of life because of these men and women who sacrificed their lives to protect your/our freedom and way of life.

https://au.news.yahoo.com/a/22923673/anzac-day-2014/

Australia remembers: Thousands gather for Anzac Day services

 ..............................................................................................................................................................................................................

I have family members still serving. I have family who have served. I have family who died 'serving. I served myself.

I respect those and families of those who have served and died. I do not respect or hold dear the idiots and cowards who send men and women off to get maimed, injured and killed.

I fully support acacias opinions on this day especially of all days.

[bright.ton42]

To the person who said "soppy sentimentality"   you  obviously have no clue what Anzac Day is all about. 

It is not to celebrate war but to mourn and honour the brave and loved ones so many of us lost there. And the ones who returned maimed in body and spirit.  .     It is to honour their courage and

staunchness in the face of so often a certain death. It is to thank them on bended knees for all  of this and to pray that they now rest in peace. 

[2106greencat]

and as I said paints - we can remember them, and thank them (surely) the living and the dead - on this day without Politics.

I abhor war, I think "Send in the decision makers" and let them fight it out, but today is NOT about that, today is Remembering, regardless of belief, politic's, the diggers who served, lived and died. 

The End.

[fourandsixpants]

War is instigated by humans on each other because they fail to negotiate. It is all about money and greed and they will kill each other to get want they want.

It is sad when people die in any circumstance.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/War_profiteering