When we stand at Dawn on the morning of 25 April I wonder: are we saluting our fallen heroes or are we saluting our fallen unity?
I will stand, and salute the men that fought and died so that I could stand and weep that, after over 100 years we FORGOT. Forgot the value of FREEDOM..
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 bikkie. 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.
It makes me pause and wonder: where we allowed this all to go so wrong?
Have we become Nations of Cowards? Are we becoming a soggy, limp, chewy excuse for a People? Or do we still have the crunch, the bite, and the resilience of a true Anzac biscuit? It was a good recipe and one that has served us well since its birth, in a time of War and a time of great need.
There were and are two things that link Australia and New Zealand: Rugby Union – the Bledisloe Cup – and ANZAC Day. Both have been undermined by leftist politics and woke ism.
Our Whanau, our sense of Family, has been annihilated since Jacinda Ardern came to her questionable power. SHE and other politicians from both sides of the ditch have fractured our once firm familial bonds.
Our ANZAC SPIRIT is under threat. Divide and Conquer. Two Nations that once were brothers are now divided. Our Rugby is now gone. Our playful brotherly banter is gone. Australia and New Zealand are now divided.
Our so-called Leaders are destroying the ANZAC TRADITION.
When we stand at Dawn on the morning of 25 April I wonder: are we saluting our fallen heroes or are we saluting our fallen unity?
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.
WE FORGOT.
As John Mcrae said in his famous poem " In Flanders Fields "
