ANZAC Day has been sabotaged. Yet again. This time by quotas. Registrations and redtape.
I remember when it was a simple display of heartfelt patriotism and a love of the men and women who fell in service to our Nation.
I remember when it was about standing at dawn on the morning of 25 April and honouring all those who fell because they were patriots. They fell for our way of life and our belief in freedom.
Now we are being asked in many parts of Australia to register to honour our dead. Register? What idiocy is this?
I will NOT register to have permission to honour our fallen. I will NOT register and ask PERMISSION from my Government to honour our soldiers.
If our soldiers had waited to get " permission " to kill an enemy soldier, they would have been dead long before the battle started.
Instead, I will stand, alone, AGAIN, at my front door and salute those that fought and died - and weep ALONE that, after over 100 years our Government FORGOT.
Because I remember when we didn't need a ticket to attend an ANZAC Day ceremony. We just went because it was the right thing to do.
My very first Dawn Service was at St Faith’s Church at Ohinemutu in Rotorua. The steam was rising out of the tombs at the lakeside cemetery as the sun rose over Lake Rotorua. In the Church, the glass window showed Christ walking on water. He is portrayed wearing a traditional Maori Cloak and it was as if he was walking from Hinemoa Island to Ohinemutu.
It was bitterly cold; the air was still and the mist just starting to lift off the lake. As the bugler sounded out the Last Post, I felt chills throughout my body – not from the cold, but from the intense emotional atmosphere that surrounded me. Tears welled up from within me and I felt an overwhelming sense of Pride, Loss, Grief, Patriotism and genuine Humility.
I was 15 years old.
Later, on my way back to Ngongotaha, I could not speak. I did not wish to speak. I needed to be silent and contemplative. That day, all those years ago, I changed forever. I became an adult. The sheer enormity of what had led me to stand in the frigid Rotorua Dawn air was too huge for me to come to grips with. It was as if I had been confronted with Reality and the true essence of Courage, Fortitude, Honour and Sacrifice.
I ate some freshly baked ANZAC biscuits. Crunchy, Snappy and very nice. Back when they first surfaced, the humble Anzac biscuit reflected the time in which they were created. No eggs. Because many poultry farmers had risen to the call to head off to fight and eggs were very scarce.
There are so many stories about our humble biscuit. No one really knows whether they were sent to our troops, or merely baked as fundraisers. My limited research tells me that they had little sugar, no eggs, golden syrup and heaps of rolled oats.
They were humble. Honest Decent. Like Us.
Our Dawn Services are under attack for fear of spreading contagion from a Virus hatched overseas. Two years ago it was the Virus called Terrorism. Then it was the virus called Covid. Now, it is still Covid, but somehow with codicils.
Football and protests are seemingly immune but ANZAC Day is highly vulnerable?
We are now being forced to REGISTER intent to show our heartfelt gratitude to our fallen?
While Ramadan can continue, ANZAC Day is on a REGISTRATION ONLY list? Do Moslems have to REGISTER to attend their celebrations? Does it seem right that we have to REGISTER to honour fellow Australians?
If our Governments deny us our ANZAC and allow Ramadan, what message are they sending us? Social distancing is for us but not them?
The theft of our RIGHT to attend a Dawn Service to commemorate our brave and long lost soldiers is a National disgrace. It is the third year that we have been denied the right, the RIGHT to honour our brave and fallen. The THEFT of ANZAC Day is the exact reason why the Dawn Services should and must be held without REGISTRATION. After all, that is what those brave souls died to protect.
I cannot imagine how those people who died would feel that WE are forced to REGISTER. Not for a footie match. Not for a religious event. But for a commemoration of the most important day in Australia's calendar.
Am I angry? Yes, I am.
There were and are two things that link Australia and New Zealand: Rugby Union – the Bledisloe Cup – and ANZAC Day. Both have been destroyed.
Our so called Leaders are destroying the ANZAC TRADITION. Mark McGowan has sunk the boot in and cancelled the whole lot.
The upcoming ANZAC Day is censored. Not by decree but by the new thing that is " for our own good ". Health officials who know that ANZAC Day is dangerous and Ramadan and Footie are not.
When we stand at Dawn on the morning of 25 April at our front doors I wonder: are we saluting our fallen heroes or are we saluting our fallen unity?
I am no longer the young 15 year old girl who attended that dawn service in Rotorua all those decades ago. I have married, divorced and lived a life that has been rich and poor in equal measures.
What I do know is that I can recognise something that is right and something that is wrong.
Today, what is happening to our patriots, to our veterans, to our defenders who perished for us to live, well, it is just WRONG.
When a moslem religious festival and a footie match and a protest take precedence over ANZAC Day, I have to draw the line and say
I remember when Australian Lives mattered.
Let us return to the old Recipes and save our traditions.
If we do not, then the Last Post may be more prophetic than we realise.
Lest We Forget.
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