Don’t Drink and Blog

So anyway, thanks to the generosity of Caz, the post Ken mentioned can be seen below. As it was posted in the middle of the night under the influence, I think it is crap and I deleted it first thing but Ken and Geoff have asked for it back, so..anyway it is ‘below the fold’.

Wave a flag and be grateful you bastards

So its Anzac Day again. Yay diggers.

Good on em, I say. A right bunch of bastards, if we were to be honest, but the best sort of bastards- OUR BASTARDS!!!

Is there any other nation that takes so much pride in the day that they got their arse kicked on the battle field? I don’t think so. There might be. Who has got a worse record at war?

France,,, oh, whatever.

I liked the fact that old Bomber Beazley defended Australia’s involvement in the Great War for sound strategic reasons. About time someone did. Of course we were fools to let Poms take charge of our soldiers then, but we were not to know then that British ineptitude was not merely a cricket field matter. We know now, of course.

Anyroad. My Grandad probably supported England when the Pommy Bastards¢â¢ toured Australia in 1911. He was a Pommy Bastard back then. He served in both wars; in the Great War, he took his chances against the Kaisers U-Boats in the British merchant marine; after that experience he rightly decided that Europe was fucked, and came to Australia. When the fucked-up Japanese came for another go he served again in the Rif-RAAF as a mechanic and served in Papua New Guinea; thus supplying our family with a lifetime supply of sea-shells of huge magnitude. My Nana, who is now 93 years old, still treasures his memory.

I wonder what he was like? I don’t have a clue- he died in 58 of a heart attack and Mum was only 11 then. She never said much about him. And since she’s keeled over herself, I guess I’ll never know now.

Anyroad, good luck to the old bastard. All I know about him is that photo on my desk in his uniform. Does he look on me and think I’m a total softcock? Probably. But I’d die with my boots on all the same.

As it was, when the diggers went over the top in 1915, my other Grandpa was under house arrest for being a filthy Hun. None of that ‘compassion’ nonsense back in 1915; if you were of Hun blood, you were for it, my son, and make no mistake. And us Wicksteins, well, you dont get more Boxheads then us.

Luckily, my Great-Grandfather Max was on his farm, and the war effort needed farms. But like fuck were we going to let Huns roam around then. So Max and his brood were confined to base. Four years they spent on that farm; never mind that Max did not give a shit about the Kaiser or the Vaterland; he just wanted to be a free man. He was, too, except for 1914-18.

Given the behavior of Germans in the 20th century I am sure Max would understand. And by getting out when he did, he avoided the horrors that were to come. Wise bastard. There’s no Wicksteins in Germany these days!

Anyroad, that’s my family and ANZAC Day. I’ll go down soon and honour those that did a wee bit fucking more then my family; poor bastards. Imagine getting shot and dying in the hot Turkish sun.

They didn’t die in vain though, you know.

Imagine if you will, some poor digger, copped it somewhere on Anzac Cove, brought back to life. I wonder what he would have thought of the throng that gathered in Sydney last year.

Many things have changed since 1915. The Empire is gone. But Australia still remains. And we might fight like mad fuckers about where it should go but we all fight like mad fuckers coz we care. And whatever the outcome of politics, Australia remains and we’ll fight like demons if anyone really means to mess with her. Deep down you know that is true. RWDB or commies we’ll all take a bulllet for Oz.

They did it in 1915, and 1942, and we’ll do it in 2005. Or in 2205. Or in
22005 Or whatever.

Australia is immortal. Men and women come and go but Australia remains. Fuck with it at your peril.

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Caz
Caz
2025 years ago

You could have tried to reformat it after you lifted it out of the email. I want my money back.

Scott Wickstein
Scott Wickstein
2025 years ago

That would require mental efforts of a sort that I’m not capable of this morning. As for your money, see Peter Costello; I don’t have it.

Ken Parish
Ken Parish
2025 years ago

Done.

Geoff Honnor
Geoff Honnor
2025 years ago

It may be booze-infused but it provides a handy antidote to the lemon-sucking going on over at Quiggin’s :)

Ken Parish
Ken Parish
2025 years ago

Geoff

I don’t have a problem with JQ’s post. It’s fair enough, even on Anzac Day, perhaps even especially on Anzac Day, to emphasise both honouring the fallen and their courage and sacrifice, but also remembering the horror and slaughter.

Scott’s quite right that the sacrifice of WWI wasn’t pointless, at least to the extent that the experience helped shape the Australia we’ve become. But at a horrible cost.

There are, however, some more egregious examples of inappropriate forms of Anzac commemoration. Take last Friday’s ceremony at the Catholic college where jen teaches. They sang Eric Bogle’s powerful anti-war anthem No Man’s Land:

“I hope you died well, and I hope you died clean,
Or, young Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene ? …

Now young Willie McBride, I can’t help but wonder why.
Do all those who lie here, know why they died ?
And did they believe when they answered the cause,
Did they really believe that this war would end wars ?
Well the sorrows, the suffering, the glory, the pain,
The killing and dying, was all done in vain.
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.”

I don’t quarrel with the sentiments (at least about WWI), but lots of kids at that school had just farewelled their dads literally only days ago, as they were shipped off to peacekeeping duties in Iraq. Very likely some won’t return, and the kids know it. Maybe their feelings and fears and reactions might have been considered a little more sensitively in the circumstances.

Geoff Honnor
Geoff Honnor
2025 years ago

I didn’t have a problem with Quiggin’s post either.

Nabakov
Nabakov
2025 years ago

Seems to me, ANZAC and Armistice Days are turning into two sides of the same coin.

ANZAC Day to reflect upon the price of war – courage, mateship, willingness to sacrifice and it meant in the national psyche. And Armistice Day to never forget the cost.

Here’s another angle on the ANZAC Legend as recounted by scottish soldier Private Joe Perks:

“They were the greatest gamblers in the world. I’ve seen the sergeant of the Military Police come along, and they’d just say “Go on, buzz off. Don’t bother us.” They’d [MPs] go because they couldn’t do anything with them, The men were there to fight, and when there was no fighting, they wanted their pleasures. That’s the way it went. The Australians were the greatest blokes I ever met.”

wbb
wbb
2025 years ago

I prefer a more restrained remembrance all round. Somebody lays a wreath. Others stand back and keep silent.

The current tussling over the graves at Gallipoli is unseemly. Pretty soon we’ll have to invade the joint just to ensure our way with the stage placement and the lighting concept.

Scott was right about his last post.

Nic White
2025 years ago

“RWDB or commies we’ll all take a bulllet for Oz”

I wont.