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I spent the morning at the Australian War Memorial here in Canberra on the eve of ANZAC Day. There were tourists everywhere, defence personnel scurrying as they rehearsed their military ceremonies and television crews setting up for a national broadcast.

In the morning, at about 5:30 am, and again at 10:15, there will be a service to commemorate the service of Australians and New Zealanders in many conflicts. 12,000 to 14,000 hardy souls will brave the frosty conditions before dawn and later the anticipated showers and wintery conditions. They will be joined by thousands of veterans and serving members of the armed forces.

Although the weather should be better elsewhere, this scene will be repeated throughout Australia and New Zealand and in many parts of Asia and Europe.

LEST WE FORGET

And, from the Commander of the Turkish 19th Division at Gallipoli in April 1915:

"Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives... You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side now here in this country of ours... you, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land. They have become our sons as well."
Mustafa Kemal Atatürk, 1934

And we still haven't learned.

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FORESTS OLD, PASTURES NEW
(An expert is one who knows more and more, about less and less)

A sobering day for sure.

I visited Gallipoli and Anzac Cove probably 25 years ago, and on that day was the only tourist on the entire Peninsula.

The day over in Turkey seems to get more popular all the time - especially with younger folks which is great to see. The rock concert type crowds they get seem to grow each year in recent times.

In 2015, the Centenary, the attendance over there will be massive.

I hope by then the Australia Government ensures John Simpson FINALLY gets the Victoria Cross he should have been awarded near 100 years back.

It is appalling that the petty Bureacrats have STILL not rubber stamped that.

Simpson was a hero and should get a posthumous VC, there is no doubt about that.

There are also the unsung heroes such as stretcher bearers who carried the wounded direct from the battlefields of Ypres, the Somme, Gallipoli, as well as other more modern conflicts. They were unarmed yet went into a battlefield situation with bullets and schrapnel flying everywhere and the ever present danger of gas attack to rescue their comrades.

Here's an anonymous and fitting tribute to stretcher bearers written by an Australian soldier in 1918, in the AIF magazine "Aussie":

STRETCHER-BEARERS
Stretcher-Bearers! Stretcher-Bearers!
Seeking in the rain
Out among the flying death
For those who lie in pain,
Bringing in the wounded men-
Then out to seek again.

Out amongst the tangled wire
(Where they thickest fell)
Snatching back the threads of life
From out the jaws of Hell;
Out amongst machine-gun sweep
And blasts of shatt'ring shell.

For you no mad, exciting charge,
No swift, exultant fight,
But just an endless plodding on
Through the shuddering night;
Making ('neath a star-shell's gleam)
Where ere a face shines white.

Stretcher-Bearers! Stretcher-Bearers!
To you all praise be due,
Who ne'er shirked the issue yet
When there was work to do;
We who've seen and know your worth
All touch our hats to you.

Lest We Forget.

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Tony