SATURDAY’S turnout at Anzac services and marches across the Shoalhaven showed beyond a doubt we are community that honours those who have served their country.
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In record numbers we made our way to dawn services and marches to share our respect for the men and women whose sacrifices in war are etched into our national history. We kept true to The Ode. We remembered.
It is important in the midst of the Gallipoli commemorations to remember other aspects of our military history and the blood lost and spirits dimmed by its cruel reckoning.
We must never forget the circumstances that led our brave young men and women into peril. We must never forget the leaders who sent them there.
Attached to the story of Gallipoli is the inescapable truth our soldiers and nurses were dispatched to do the poorly executed bidding of another country, Great Britain.
Likewise, Vietnam. Fifty years ago, in April 1965, our leaders again sent troops into battle to serve another country’s foreign policy, this time the United States. In 2003, we did the same in Iraq and from 2001, as part of a multinational force, we spilled blood in Afghanistan.
The fruits of those conflicts make the pursuit of them questionable. Vietnam was lost but 50 years later we are friends. The nett result of Iraq is a barbaric Islamic State that threatens us at home. And Afghanistan is teetering on the edge of the abyss.
The politicians who send our troops away to fight rarely stay on to deal with the consequences. Bob Menzies committed us to Vietnam then resigned shortly after. John Howard, who signed us up to Iraq, was swept from power four years later. Where will Tony Abbott be when this country’s latest commitment of troops to the Iraq conflict return?
We should remember the sacrifices made in war. And we should never lose sight of why they were made or stop asking whether they were justified.