My grandfather was a heavily decorated Air force pilot in the Second World War. He has some horrendous memories which he always relates to me in a deadpan manner.
Lest us not forget on ANZAC Day, but I don’t relate to much of what my generation seems to be remembering. (And so this post and this one are highly recommended). In reality those two World Wars brutalized young men and women. Anybody wanting to celebrate ANZAC Day as mateship, courage and the so called glory of war should be forced to read the chilling account of soldiers with shell shock lying in hospital wards, reduced to broken pieces desperately calling out for their mothers.
[Incidentally, these photographs above are incredibly special to me. They were taken by Lauca (see the camera remote control in her hands?) at my sister's recent wedding and they are of her and my mother and my grandfather. This is the only time I've seen Lauca sit on her great-grandfather's lap. I love the contrast between my grandfather trying to sit for a serious portrait while my mother (always his favourite child, so to be humoured to a degree) and my daughter enjoy the spontaneity of a 4 year old in charge of the camera.]
Anna has a good post on these sort of themes at The Hand Mirror.
War is not a simple tale of noble men serving high principles. It’s a far more complex story of wealth and territory; kids who grow up without dads; women who raise families alone, unsure whether their partners will return; conscientious objectors; torture; deprivation and cruelty against civilians; a number of men who return home, physically and psychologically broken, to families that don’t know them; and some men who don’t make it home at all.
The theme of ANZAC day is ‘Lest we forget’. If we treat war as some romantic, nationalistic boys’ own adventure, then we’ve already forgotten.
I find it hard to know where to stand on ANZAC day. On the one hand, if there is no marking of our participation in wars, it really does get completely forgotten – Japan’s recent history illustrates that pretty well.
On the other hand, I agree utterly with you and with Anna’s excerpt above.
My grandfather never could speak coherently about his experience – he was at the fall of Singapore, one of the many who arrived in the 2 weeks prior to it. The horror is all I feel on ANZAC day. If I watch the march, I cry. So I tend to avoid it.
What really leaves me baffled is how to handle it with my kids. They have an ANZAC day assembly at school and lay wreaths at the local RSL. This makes me very uncomfortable, because I don’t know what he is being told. Then again, we were told about how horrific war was, how stupid the people running them are, how many lives were destroyed.
My kids need to know what it was all about, and I can understand why the men and women concerned choose to remember the mateship and not the horror. So I really don’t know how to handle it – slowly and with balance I think. In a few years I’ll tell them what I know of their great grandfather’s story and hope that some distant connection makes it a little more real to them, so that they aren’t sucked in by the tales of glory.
Those are gorgeous pictures. I can see the personalities-and lots of stories-coming through very strongly.