ANZAC spirit?

i woke this morning at 6:16.
got up, went and visited my toilet, and came back.
i glanced out the window at the dusty orange smudge on the horizon, and then remembered that it was ANZAC day.
when i got back into bed, the cat jumping up next to me, i turned on my radio on my CD player. my radio on my alarm clock is set to Nova. my radio on my CD player is set to ABC 774 local radio.

i caught the last 5 minutes of the dawn service.
i dont know why, but i was crying.
the tears slowly sliding down my cheeks as i lay there in bed listening.

what is the ANZAC spirit? i mean, its a very australian thing to celebrate the day where a whole bunch of our soldiers were sent to the wrong place, thanks to the brittish, where they had to stay and fight a futile battle for several months, with hundreds, nah, thousands of men dying, and then retreat under the cover of dark...
so why is it that we remember this day/ i mean. there is rememberance day (11/11 at 11am).
and that got me thinking about the type of men who were fighting there.
perhaps they have, had, something that us current australians lack.

courage.

they fought becuase thy were told to. becuase of honour. because they wanted to make a difference. instead of us who sit at home and complain about thngs on such places like this very blog.
they might have been afraid, like i am, but they certinally did a very good job at hiding it. they hid it through their actions...

a friend told me last year that being followes doing, and she was right. i wonder, if you act brave enough, for long enough, will you finally become it?

i dont feel very australian at times.
i know that i am, but i also look to my dutch background, and gain some identity from that. which as a third generation, im allowed to, infact, its very common for third gens to. (by third generation i mean, both sets of grandpaernts were born in Holland. they came over to australia, my dads parents when they were younger, i mean, my oma tured 13 on the boat over, my mums parents when they were older and married with cxhildren of their own.
my parents therefore would be second generation... though somehow that logic escapes me. second gens generally dont want to know about their parents culture and push away from it to discover the country they live in's culture... and making me a third gen... who generally turn around, and try and understand their grandparents, and other ancestors heratige. and now that you have had your sociology lesson for the day, i shall go back to the ANZACs)


i wonder how many blogs are going to be about ANZAC day today?

9:36 am | Permalink