Radio Australia Today Editorial

ANZAC Day. It never goes out of fashion.

24 April 2009

Well it did for a while.

I remember when I was a child, ANZAC Day, which commemorates Australians and New Zealanders who fought in wars, was most uncool. Perhaps it was too close. We were in the Vietnam War, which was very unpopular, and the soldiers bore the brunt because protestors were unable to make the distinction between the Australian government that sent troops to Vietnam, and the soldiers themselves. Horribly unfairly, the troops were targeted as much as the policy makers. This is even more unfair when you know that many of the soldiers were conscripts. They were forced to fight, often against their wishes, yet still the protestors gave them a hard time. The sight of a returned soldier in uniform was not something to be admired back then.

These were soldiers who saw the very worst of personal fighting. The Viet Cong were masters of their landscape, and were a people who were desperate. To this day many Vietnam War veterans wear the emotional scars of that campaign, a campaign that many now agree should never have happened.

Now, after more than thirty years, our soldiers are celebrated. With the emotion of the Vietnam War out of the way, people recognise that to fight an enemy is an extraordinarily brave thing to do, far braver than what most of the rest of us will ever do in our lifetime, regardless of whether the decision to go to war is a good or a bad one.

There is no plus to fighting in a war. You kill, and you are a target. You see death, you see abuse, you see victims, you see destruction. No matter what the American war films tell you, there is no glamour. You will be scarred, you will be changed. You might not even come back. And of you do, you will most certainly not be the same person you were before.

These are the things that are recognised on ANZAC Day. And a lot of the credit for this must go to John Howard, the former prime minister who pushed so hard the significance of ANZAC Day. Somehow he made the young of his country feel the importance of the ANZAC tradition, without ever making it cool.

That was some feat.

                                                                 – Phil