Australia's Memorial Day
It is a memorial-type day, but the word "memorial," based on what I've seen on television, doesn't even begin to cover what Australia goes through every April 25.
While the U.S. has Memorial Day and Veterans Day, I can't recall such attention placed on it as that which is placed on Australia's ANZAC Day. Perhaps it's because I had more cable channels to watch and was therefore able to tune it out. Or perhaps I am just ignorant of just how deep military history runs through the U.S. I'm willing to admit to both or other options. But there is something different about ANZAC Day, something noticeable even by a newcomer who still might be a bit too ignorant of what our respective military personnel sacrifice.
ANZAC Day --
Australian and
New
Zealand
Army
Corps -- began as a commemoration of the day in 1915 when the Anzacs landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey. I'll leave the storytelling to the ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee:
Very early on the morning of 25 April 1915, long before sunrise, the ANZACs were getting ready to go into battle. They had sailed from Egypt, and now lay off the coast of Turkey in the darkness. They quietly climbed down rope ladders and stepped into small row boats. These were then towed as close as possible to the beach before the men rowed the last part to the shore. They had practised this many times. But they were still very nervous. They didn't know if the Turkish soldiers would be awake, or how many there were. All they knew was that once ashore, they had to go inland, as far from the beach as possible, and make room for more men to land behind them. That was the plan.By the end of the day, 2,000 men had died, according to this account, and by the end of the week, 6,500 had lost their lives.
The commemoration of this day has since evolved into a rememberance of all the people, men and women, who have served in the military. The word "rememberance" seems a bit more active than "memorial," so it's fitting that it is used to describe many of the activities that have taken place since 4:28 a.m. (in Brisbane) when those who gathered listened to dedications, witnessed the laying of wreaths, partook in two minutes of silence, and bowed their heads to the buglers playing The Last Post (.wav file) and Reveille (.wav file).
Some of the texts I've read have attempted to address the reason why ANZAC Day is such a culturally significant day, disallowing most businesses from opening before 1 p.m. and closing down everything else. It's a simple and easy to understand reason, really, and that is that Australia became a federation in 1901, and so it's deference was still with Britain and not really itself. Nothing had really brought the country together until the events at Gallipoli on April 25, 1915.
So it's my first ANZAC Day in Australia and I've watched on television the dawn service at Gallipoli, which has become a destination for young (and probably older) Australian and New Zealand backpackers. Sure enough, there were people standing in sleeping bags, some with Australian flags temporarily tattooed on their faces and others wearing commemorative yellow "Gallipoli 2008" sweatshirts, listened to the speeches and the buglers.
The service at Gallipoli in 2007 as filmed by someone's amateur hand.I also watched the service at Villers-Bretonneux in France, which I just read doesn't celebrate ANZAC Day till next weekend, because on this day three years later the ANZACs liberated it.
And in addition to the parades of veterans and their families that marched through every capital city in the country, and I'm sure even some smaller ones, is the ANZAC Day AFL match between Collingwood and Essendon. It began after the buglers played their somber songs.
It's definitely a big day in Australia, and I now will never look at the American Memorial Day or Veterans Day the same.
