Happy ANZAC day!

Tip of the hat to Aussie vetrans on the occasion. Are there any Gallipoli vetrans still alive? They'd have to be well over 100 by now.
 
Obviously not tough enough compared to the (adopted) Aussie:

http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2011/03/03/3153676.htm

Seriously, I'm in awe of what those guys survived. I don't know if anyone's seen the movie Gallipoli, but apart from everything else it highlights the horrors of trench warfare, for instance.

An American expatriate once told me that this attitude was what made Australia so strong: we celebrate the bravery of people who died in a hopeless, pointless cause. The fact that they didn't win doesn't matter, it's that they gave everything they had to give.

Anzac Day is a big thing here; my kids have got themselves out of bed and participated in some dawn services because they wanted to, not because they had to (I certainly had nothing to do with it). One of my daughters criticized the Prime Minister because she didn't attend the dawn service in the national capital, Canberra (she was in Korea on a diplomatic tour of Asian nations. They flew some Korean war veterans over and she had a dawn service with them. There's no pleasing some people.)

In short, we're not militaristic, but we'll fight to the death.

Have a nice day.
 
I saw Gallipoli but don't remember it very well. A Vary Long Engagement was memorable and I have a few others in my queue to check out: Paths of Glory, Sargent York, All Quiet on the Western Front.
 
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