Anzac Day too

Barbs posted about this, but I thought I'd give my perspectives too. It was cold and the last stars came and went behind the clouds as they went past. The little cenotaph stood lit up against the pre-dawn. You could see the brass plaques... I went to look later - There are plaques on all four sides and at reast twenty names on each and an extra one for Vietnam... The cenotaph looks out across Marshall bay to West End and to islands beyond to the West. Isles of Blest, one hopes. A good veiw for heroes, and large price paid for freedom by a small island. In WW2 my Dad was there, and my Mum and B's mum too (B's dad lied about his age and served WW1 - they wouldn't let in in WW2.) I was a conscript soldier too, once. Lost friends, saw people hurt inwardly and out. They gave a great deal with courage, and honour, so we could stand there. In South Africa that sacrifice is being swept away, forgotten. Weedy memorials, plaques stolen for the brass. It's a mistake to forget, methinks. And Anzac day... well it's not a paen of victory, and triumphalism is it? It's a tribute to battlers and the forging of steel by putting it into the fire.

In the silence after the Last Post... I was thinking of my own comrades, of my parents. Not a word or sound from the circle of people gathered... and I think it was kookaburra started up in the trees to the south.
Then his mate called from across the road, on a telephone pole. He flew across the paling sky. They cawed and cackled at each other.
It might almost have been 'g'day and 'howyergoin'.
It was very eerie.
"At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them."