It's always cold on April 25 in Canberra. It feels like the first hint of winter as you set your alarm, haul yourself out of bed and scramble for clothes to wear outside. You haven't heated your house properly because of that permanent denial that summer is actually over and wearing even a thin wool coat is the inevitable defeat to winter.
But you put on your coat, hat and gloves, make sure the torch is in your car to get from your car park to the park (to swap then for a candle) and drive around the silent Parliament House well before dawn breaks in Australia's capital city.
It's that still quiet part of the morning when the possums have shut up and the magpies haven't started.
It's ANZAC day.
Last year I joined nearly 20,000 people in my nation's capital for the dawn service, an ANZAC day tradition.
For my Canadian friends, ANZAC stands for Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. They first fought together under that moniker in WWI. The first major campaign of our involvement in the war was to take Istanbul from Turkey, squeezing the Turkish and German forces as the Allies advanced on the Western Front (where we also were with your forces but in smaller numbers).
At dawn, the ANZACS landed on the beach at Gallipoli. The Turkish forces were waiting on the sheer clifftops overhead with machine guns. Many ANZACS did not make it out of the longboats. Despite impossible odds the ANZACS lasted in the Gallipoli campaign for about 6 months and only withdrew when ordered to.
ANZAC day is arguably Australia's most patriotic public holiday and it commemorates that day. It has also come to be a standing memorial day for all Australian and NZ involvement in any war or peacekeeping activities. The day is marked by dawn services, marches by the returned (and active) services, baking of ANZAC biscuits (oatmeal biscuits dating from the period which women sent to the Front), a coin- toss gambling game called "Two-up" in pubs and at-home BBQs.
It is impossible to describe why generation after generation of young, non-military Australians and Kiwis continue to follow this public holiday. Thousands of Aust/ Kiwis make the pilgrimmage each year to Gallipoli for the dawn service. The closest I can come is that we are not a nation that explains ourselves. We take action. We are also not "flag wavers". Which is why we have defined our national identity mostly in history by sport and war. It is only by testing ourselves or being tested in the most extreme ways that we can recognise our own kind of courage and resilence, which we can genuinely call, "the spirit of the ANZACS".
So for ANZAC day this year, I successfully learnt how to make ANZAC biscuits, adopted some Aussies and Kiwis and I'll be paying my respects at the Memorial Ceremony in Calgary.
More than 9 Canadian cities are hosting Memorial ceremonies this year. 60 countries worldwide are hosting ANZAC day events this year. We are a nation of 20 million people. NZ is even smaller in population. But we take this identity with us around the world. We can, because of the freedom they fought for.
They shall not grow old as we who are left grow old.
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
WE WILL REMEMBER THEM.
http://www.smh.com.au/news/national/sydneysiders-turn-out-in-force/2007/04/25/1177180684770.html
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