ANZAC Day

the_raptor · 2012-01-01T11:40:48+00:00

[permanently deleted]

2012-01-01T20:41:12+00:00

Good article.

I'm tired of the arguing over ANZAC Day. If it's not trying to stop family members from marching, it's co-opting the whole reason for the day.

ANZAC Day was a big thing in my family. We'd drive to Wagga Wagga the day before, sometimes a couple of days out. We'd always stay with Grandma at her fibro home with the badly faded blue paint that had gone chalky.

Then it was up at sparrow's fart, dressed in our Sunday best and out to the army training base at Kapooka, home of the 1st Australian Training Battalion. Dawn service and April meant it was usually cold, sometimes bloody freezing, and I would always pity the poor bastard recruits in their summer uniforms. The ceremony was always very simple and fitting with the light gradually increasing, and usually flocks of galahs flying over.

After the ceremony, it was off to the Sergeant's Mess for a hot breakfast of bacon, eggs, baked beans, porridge, toast... and a hot fire to keep the place warm. Dad would track down Snow, usually at the bar, and they'd either sit & talk for a while, or we'd have him at the table with us.

Then it was back to Grandma's for a while before mum would drive dad to the pub that was (probably still is!) the starting point for the march. Dad would have his father's medals on. The march would take the parade down the main street of Wagga Wagga, ending in the Victory Memorial Gardens with another ceremony. It would always be packed.

Then, most folk headed off to the nearest pub for more drinks and some two-up. We used to go to the RSL for lunch with Grandma.

It wasn't the same after they moved breakfast into the general mess hall, and I really haven't observed it.

It was such a tradition for our family because my granddad was a career soldier. He was a highly respected Physical Training Instructor and made Warrant Officer 2nd Class before he was transferred into the Australian Army Training Team Vietnam (AATTV or just "the Team").

As with all our boys who shipped out to 'Nam, he was sent to the Jungle Training Centre just outside the Queensland city of Canungra, where the instructor for his group was his kid brother Jim, who'd already served in Korea.

Jack arrived in Vietnam in 1969 and was assigned as Assistant Battalion Advisor to the 1/1/1 ARVN from Fire Support Base Barbara, just South of the DMZ. On 17 April, 1970, less than 3 weeks after he turned 41, and about 6 weeks before his wife's 34th birthday, he was sent on a mission into A Shau valley with the ARVN with a heli-insert. They came under fire, and he insisted his chopper land before waving off the others. His men secured the landing zone with Jack moving among them, providing encouragement. He was hit in the neck with some shrapnel from mortars and killed.

The US Army awarded him the Silver Star for his actions, which we formally received in (I think) 1998 at the US Embassy here in Canberra.

tl;dr - my granddad served & died in Vietnam, so ANZAC day's important and I'm pissed that some dumbass feminist is trying to co-opt it.

2012-01-02T06:39:29+00:00

"Rainsinger would like to reassign to ANZAC day what should, of course, all along have been its true meaning, but Australians were apparently too blinded by patriarchal oppression to see it. ANZAC day should really be about ‘Women Against Rape in War,’ because there is a “complete lack of human respect for women’s systematic ritualized rapes/deaths.”"

Fuck that. Sure, women get raped in war (it is truly sad), but they weren't service-people (avoiding the term servicemen). ANZAC day is about the ANZACs, and all members of the armed forces since then. Victims of rape aren't ANZACs.

Hopefully my point is clear enough, I was never good at explaining my opinions.

Title	ANZAC Day
Author	avoiceformen
Upvotes	9
Comments	4
Date	January 1, 2012 6:20 AM UTC (14 years ago)
Subreddit	Posted in /r/MensRights
Original Link	https://old.reddit.com/r/MensRights/comments/nycu7/anzac_day/
Archive Link	https://theredarchive.com/r/MensRights/anzac-day.1029790 https://theredarchive.com/post/1029790

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