Lest We Forget

[Jacks Fur Coat]

Our most significant day of the year will look very different tomorrow. But it's always been about attitude and mateship and that doesn't change for Aussies (or our New Zealand friends) tomorrow. I'm forever thankful for the freedoms I enjoy today thanks to the sacrifices of others.

Everyone will no doubt acknowledge things in their own way as they feel. The driveway idea is interesting for people to symbolically mark the dawn together when the Last Post is played. Tried to play it on guitar but doesn't do justice!

Will miss my favourite game of the year...it's bigger than grand finals and origins for me, must be a privilege to play in.

Memories of Ferdie waving to the crowd in his lap of honour.

Seen Damien Thomlinson interviewed during the week. Ex commando who lost his legs fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Spoke to the players pre game in 2014 about mateship. Inspirational guy, mad Easts fan. He said the thing that Anzac Day best represents to him is the lengths Australians will go to, to help each other out.

That just about sums it up.

We will remember them.

[Rooster1908]

Our most significant day of the year will look very different tomorrow. But it's always been about attitude and mateship and that doesn't change for Aussies (or our New Zealand friends) tomorrow. I'm forever thankful for the freedoms I enjoy today thanks to the sacrifices of others.

Everyone will no doubt acknowledge things in their own way as they feel. The driveway idea is interesting for people to symbolically mark the dawn together when the Last Post is played. Tried to play it on guitar but doesn't do justice!

Will miss my favourite game of the year...it's bigger than grand finals and origins for me, must be a privilege to play in.

Memories of Ferdie waving to the crowd in his lap of honour.

Seen Damien Thomlinson interviewed during the week. Ex commando who lost his legs fighting the Taliban in Afghanistan. Spoke to the players pre game in 2014 about mateship. Inspirational guy, mad Easts fan. He said the thing that Anzac Day best represents to him is the lengths Australians will go to, to help each other out.

That just about sums it up.

We will remember them.

Nothing left to say . Very well Written

[redwhiteblue]

I had a dream the other night that they were still going to go ahead with the game but in the dream no one could decide whether it was Saturday or Sunday or 3pm or 12pm. Wishful thinking on my part. My Dragons neighbour messaged me today as she and her family are feeling it too and another friend reached out to me as she lives in the CBD so she is going to take some photos for me of the memorial in Hyde Park. I can't get into Martin Place like I normally do and lay red roses for my Dad but I'll get up at 5am and watch the Canberra service on the ABC, the stream of our 2017 game at 3pm and the Channel 9 concert at 7.30pm.

For those like me who have strong ties to this day and feel the emotions quite strongly, I hope it brings you some peace and comfort with a little bit of music and footy thrown in. Oh and as I type this, Sarah McLachlan just came up on my shuffle with Angel...that is not making me cry at all...

[Random Rooster]

World War 1 saw over 60,000 Australians lose their lives and 135,000 plus wounded.

World War 2 saw over 27,000 Australians lose their lives and over 23,000 wounded.

We shall never forget all those who went to war to make Australia the greatest nation on earth. They are the ultimate heroes.

Lest We Forget

Yes i saw the interview with Damien Tomlinson.....an extraordinary young man.
One thing i noticed in nearly all the old interviews of survivors of WW1 & WW2 is the message that in the future the world should always have war as a last resort. I would love to see Australia's overseas military presence limited to NATO. We should bring our men and women serving in the Middle East safely home

[Paddo Colt 61]

My God there's some tripe written these days about Anzac Day and I'm not really surprised to see Ol' Jax at the forefront - Australians fought for nothing more than the British Empire. It couldn't have been a war for our "freedom" because you didn't have to go - what it's optional to fight for freedom? What is not in dispute, however, is the tragic waste of simple, ordinary people who for some deluded reason best known to themselves did choose to go. My great uncle was, as a boy really. involved in an alleged theft from the Woollahra fire station and a magistrate in 1915 gave him, and the others involved, the option of jail or the army. Several years ago the authorities here sought family DNA to determine whether he was one of those found in a mass grave at Pozieres.
The Right Wing are the big pushers of the myth here ( Howard foremost among them) - the very same lot who make up the Officer class in wartime and who nauseatingly rattle on about Mateship, Fair Goes, and helping the helpless (the sick or wounded Digger at this time of year). Otherwise they're all for individualism and self interest and that really doesn't change in peace or war.
Take the REAL story of prisoner experience on the Burma- Thai railway. The behaviour of our Officer class there was despicable – paid under the Geneva Convention and not required to work, there is yet no record of an officer volunteering to take the place of a man unfit to go out. On the contrary, a class system prevailed where officers pilfered from the food stores that they administered, took the best food and commandeered garden beds painfully prepared by other ranks to augment their meagre rations. The differential death toll was enormous – officers in single digits, other ranks in the thousands. Some COs handed men over to the Japanese for punishment or informed them of attempted escapes. One contemptible example returned to Australia and an OBE.
Such bastard behaviour did not extend to MOs (Medicos) who had to defer to Combat Officers anyway. “Weary” Dunlop was ashamed when a group of British officers who shared a compound and who proposed a pooling of wages to help the men, threatened to move to another area after Australian officers refused to chip in. Sound familiar?

[Mad_Rabid_Rooster]

Nice words Jack and Random, well done.

I will be tuning into a live streamed service tomorrow morning.

The game will be sorely missed, but there will be other opportunities.

Indeed, we will remember them. Lest We Forget.

[Rooster1908]

My God there's some tripe written these days about Anzac Day and I'm not really surprised to see Ol' Jax at the forefront - Australians fought for nothing more than the British Empire. It couldn't have been a war for our "freedom" because you didn't have to go - what it's optional to fight for freedom? What is not in dispute, however, is the tragic waste of simple, ordinary people who for some deluded reason best known to themselves did choose to go. My great uncle was, as a boy really. involved in an alleged theft from the Woollahra fire station and a magistrate in 1915 gave him, and the others involved, the option of jail or the army. Several years ago the authorities here sought family DNA to determine whether he was one of those found in a mass grave at Pozieres.
The Right Wing are the big pushers of the myth here ( Howard foremost among them) - the very same lot who make up the Officer class in wartime and who nauseatingly rattle on about Mateship, Fair Goes, and helping the helpless (the sick or wounded Digger at this time of year). Otherwise they're all for individualism and self interest and that really doesn't change in peace or war.
Take the REAL story of prisoner experience on the Burma- Thai railway. The behaviour of our Officer class there was despicable – paid under the Geneva Convention and not required to work, there is yet no record of an officer volunteering to take the place of a man unfit to go out. On the contrary, a class system prevailed where officers pilfered from the food stores that they administered, took the best food and commandeered garden beds painfully prepared by other ranks to augment their meagre rations. The differential death toll was enormous – officers in single digits, other ranks in the thousands. Some COs handed men over to the Japanese for punishment or informed them of attempted escapes. One contemptible example returned to Australia and an OBE.
Such bastard behaviour did not extend to MOs (Medicos) who had to defer to Combat Officers anyway. “Weary” Dunlop was ashamed when a group of British officers who shared a compound and who proposed a pooling of wages to help the men, threatened to move to another area after Australian officers refused to chip in. Sound familiar?

Mate you should be banned for life ,

[Jacks Fur Coat]

Mate you should be banned for life ,

Aargh! I had the trolls troll on ignore. Don't want idiots like that derailing goodwill threads like this.

We only have to read his occasional hate speech, he has to live with that in his head all the time. Poor sod.

[redwhiteblue]

Mate you should be banned for life ,

Agreed. Every year JFC posts on here about ANZAC Day and this is like a tradition many of us like to share as it can be a hard day for many families.

[Paddo Colt 61]

I have wide ranging interests Jax I can assure you. One minor interest is dispelling myths and facing up to some ugly truths - the Frontier Wars for example and all this over the top sentimentality when an understanding the reality of what went on makes wars even more tragic and we may not be so keen to keep getting involved in them. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned your name because that's dominated your focus on what I was saying. I remember great Jim tomorrow but I'll do it quietly.

[Jacks Fur Coat]

Agreed. Every year JFC posts on here about ANZAC Day and this is like a tradition many of us like to share as it can be a hard day for many families.

Thanks RWB. It's a very special day for our club and many of our people through relatives and friends who have made sacrifices for our way of life today.

For history buffs there are some great old photos and film archives on the National Film and Sound Archives site of how we commemorated Anzac Day through history. Seen a grab on the news tonight and want to check it out.

[bondi.boy]

Those who wear today, and have worn in the past,... our military uniforms...deserve our utmost respect and gratitude.
Including those who served on home soil and whose units were not sent overseas. [Called coward by some misguided no-ideas who passed it on to their kids, who then taunted at school the children of the fathers who didn't fight overseas.]

Also, lest we forget the service of our nurses, some of whom were murdered in the Bangka island massacre, WW2.

https://www.smh.com.au/national/stoi...424-1xjhb.html

But none resonates as profoundly on Anzac Day as those spoken by the plump, bespectacled Matron Irene Drummond as she and her 21 nurses limped over the sand and into the surf on a beautiful beach 70 years ago.

Chin up, girls!'' Drummond called out, suspecting they were going to certain death as the Japanese execution squad on the beach prepared to mow them down. ''I'm proud of you all and I love you all.''

Drummond was slaughtered by machine gun fire before her toes were even wet.

Others on Radji Beach that day were executed in the waves. Unfortunately for the Japanese, one nurse survived: Vivian ''Bully'' Bullwinkel, shot but alive, who would testify against the war criminals three years later, securing justice for her sister nurses.

On Anzac Day, people generally focus on male troops. But what of the women who nursed them? The Australian War Memorial has an exhibition, Nurses: from Zululand to Afghanistan, until October 17, which records the exploits of so many women who signed up to save lives, not to end them.

[bondi.boy]

A couple of years ago mrs bb travelled to Japan and did "home stays" in the homes of Japanese families. A week each stay. Met many Japanese people, young and old.
They of course are not responsible for Japan's past, they were all born after the war.
Lovely people all, treated her very well, cooked lovely meals for her, showed her the sights.
Have a photo here of mrs bb and her hostess of the same age, having a picnic together, under a cherry blossom tree that was in full bloom.
She took with her a talking kangaroo soft toy for twin 3 yr old boys..., you talk to it, and it repeats what you said back to you.
The twins talking Japanese to the roo, and the roo talking Japanese...the family laughed til they 'cried'.
Much fun was had by all.

***

Doesn't mean we shouldn't remember and honour our fallen and all who have served for us.
Remember the past, live in the present, and enjoy the future...I believe that's what they would want us to do.

[Random Rooster]

I have wide ranging interests Jax I can assure you. One minor interest is dispelling myths and facing up to some ugly truths - the Frontier Wars for example and all this over the top sentimentality when an understanding the reality of what went on makes wars even more tragic and we may not be so keen to keep getting involved in them. I'm sorry, I shouldn't have mentioned your name because that's dominated your focus on what I was saying. I remember great Jim tomorrow but I'll do it quietly.

Yes war has its own law....and the history of wars is predominantly written by those who won. You wont find a Russian history book that tells the story of the wide spread rape and beating of civilian German women and children after the Nazi surrender. War really brings out the worst in mankind.

My personal opinion is not only do we need to honour all those who lost their lives and were injured but we need to learn from the mistakes of the past & make sure they never happen again.

FOR HISTORY BUFFS ONLY- If you are not you can stop reading from this point on!!!

As time goes on i think the world starts to forget lessons that were learned in the past. France's President Macron hasn't....only a week ago when discussing how the stronger European countries need to look after the European countries whose economies have been ruined by Covid 19 he stated.....

"It would be a historic mistake to say again that “the sinners must pay”, Mr Macron said. He recalled France’s “colossal, fatal error” in demanding reparations from Germany after the first world war, which triggered a populist German reaction and the disaster that followed. “It’s the mistake that we didn’t make at the end of the second world war,” he said. “The Marshall Plan, people still talk about it today . . . we call it ‘helicopter money’ and we say, ‘we must forget the past, make a new start and look to the future.”

Yes folks....Macron is right.....we all need to look after each other !

[bondi.boy]

Yes war has its own law....and the history of wars is predominantly written by those who won. You wont find a Russian history book that tells the story of the wide spread rape and beating of civilian German women and children after the Nazi surrender. War really brings out the worst in mankind.

My personal opinion is not only do we need to honour all those who lost their lives and were injured but we need to learn from the mistakes of the past & make sure they never happen again.

FOR HISTORY BUFFS ONLY- If you are not you can stop reading from this point on!!!

As time goes on i think the world starts to forget lessons that were learned in the past. France's President Macron hasn't....only a week ago when discussing how the stronger European countries need to look after the European countries whose economies have been ruined by Covid 19 he stated.....

"It would be a historic mistake to say again that “the sinners must pay”, Mr Macron said. He recalled France’s “colossal, fatal error” in demanding reparations from Germany after the first world war, which triggered a populist German reaction and the disaster that followed. “It’s the mistake that we didn’t make at the end of the second world war,” he said. “The Marshall Plan, people still talk about it today . . . we call it ‘helicopter money’ and we say, ‘we must forget the past, make a new start and look to the future.”

Yes folks....Macron is right.....we all need to look after each other !

After WW1 Germany should've been dealt with properly, ... then there wouldn't have been any populist German reaction and WW2.
And not an "Auschwitz" in sight.

Macron too seems like a nice man, but Paris is burning every other 'week'.
France sure seems to be in social decline, ...open borders, terrorists everywhere, in constant war within.
Mdme Bardot tried to do something, they threatened to toss her in prison.

Forget the past? no thank you.
Remember the past, learn from it, live in the present, and look to the future is what we should do.

The sinners must be made pay.
It was total lunacy just giving Germany back its guns after WW1 and basicaly saying "try again".

And Australia should be nuke-armed.

More total lunacy was allowing Britain to test atomic bombs in our outback...with all the ensuing problems, and not grab some for ourselves.

At the very least we should now have nuke-powered, nuke-armed subs cruising around ready to turn places into ash at a moment's notice.