ANZAC Day is Australia’s national day of remembrance for those who made sacrifices, including the ultimate sacrifice of giving their lives for their country. ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corps. The men of that corps landed on the beaches of the Gallipoli Peninsula at dawn on 25 April 1915, as part of the ill-conceived and poorly executed allied plan to gain naval access to the Dardanelles and ultimately the Black Sea ports. Their determination and perseverance in the face of adversity and acts of heroism and self-sacrifice created a legendary reputation for ANZACs that subsequent generations of Australian soldiers have emulated.
Officially named and celebrated for the first time in 1916, ANZAC day has evolved to hold a special meaning for Australians, also remembering the sacrifices of our service men and women in subsequent conflicts. ANZAC Day has also attracted controversy over the years, and attendances at remembrance ceremonies declined in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, when some mistakenly believed it represented a glorification of war, rather an acknowledgement of self-sacrifice. Recent years however have seen a resurgence of interest and attendance at ANZAC day events, with particular enthusiasm shown by younger Australian’s and school children.
ANZAC day has always held special meaning for my family. My father was 19 when the Second World War commenced, but unlike many of his contemporaries he did not immediately enlist. Whilst he rarely spoke of it, he was well aware of the futility of the WWI campaigns on foreign soil that saw the loss of 60,000 Australian men’s lives for negligible strategic gains. However, as the second war evolved the Japanese advance through South East Asia and the Pacific posed a direct threat to the Australian soil, and by July of 1941 he considered it his duty to enlist in the defense of his homeland.
According to his discharge papers he served for 1694 days and was involved in the battles for Milne Bay, the Buna and Sanananda Beach Heads (on the northern coast of Papua New Guinea), Shaggy Ridge and mop up operations in New Britain. The arduous and degrading conditions and events of these campaigns are matters of well documented historical record and many books, including Peter Brune’s 2003 classic, A Bastard of a Place.
Following the battle of Buna in late 1942 his battalion, the 2/9 Australian Infantry, was sent to reinforce the protracted stalemate that had developed at the largest and most strongly fortified Japanese beach head at Sanananda.
On 12 Dec 1942 Dad was wounded early in the day by a Japanese sniper, and lay on the battlefield till near dusk when an American Army Medic, from a flanking unit, dragged him under heavy fire to safety. We do not know who that brave American was, but my 2 brothers and 6 sisters owe him a great debt of gratitude, indeed our very existence. The alliances forged between US and Australian Soldiers in the Pacific Campaigns continue to this day on both strategic and personal levels.
So perhaps you are asking why I am writing about ANZAC day at this time? Well, when the whole O’Shaggesy/Radfem Hub thing blew up, and perhaps in a moment of poor judgment, I registered to receive notifications of new posts to the Radfem Hub site, and periodically my inbox is contaminated with their filth. Such was the case this Friday when I was alerted to the post titled “Lest we forget,” penned by “Rainsinger.” (By the way if Kyle or AO or anyone has info on the identity of “Rainsinger” please let me know as I would like to expose her to the Australian public prior to 25 April 2012.)
Rainsinger would like to reassign to ANZAC day what should, of course, all along have been its true meaning, but Australians were apparently too blinded by patriarchal oppression to see it. ANZAC day should really be about ‘Women Against Rape in War,’ because there is a “complete lack of human respect for women’s systematic ritualized rapes/deaths.” She laments that in 1984 “the women who marched way-back at the rear of the formal military parade, to just lay a wreath on the war memorial cenotaphs, in memory of our own war dead and injured,” and carried a banner reading:
“IN MEMORY OF ALL WOMEN
IN ALL COUNTRIES
RAPED IN ALL WARS”
did not receive an overwhelmingly positive reaction from the gathered crowds!
Typical of feminist cognitive dissonance she then goes on, presumably in an attempt to justify her stance on the issue, to spend several long paragraphs describing various elements of Greek Mythology, Legends of the founding of Prague and Rome, and a 2009, the Czech film “The Pagan Queen”?
Nope, feminists don’t require any verifiable historical facts to support their stance. Irrelevant myth and legend will do quite nicely. Eventually she returns to the topic, which is “mass rape/murder/sacrifice of females to the Greater Glory of Man” and how ANZAC day should really be a forum to mourn the female victims of war atrocities, somehow believing that women are denied the right to do this.
Nope women have never been denied the right to voice their opinions. It is just the tasteless, vulgar, contrived selfish ones, who would try to minimize the sacrifice of men like my Dad – and his comrades who did not return to have the chance of starting a family – in order to make ideological statements desecrating their memory, on their day. Yes ladies, these guys laid down their lives to protect your rights of free speech, but apparently don’t deserve your respect for having done so.
I am hopeful that the alliances being forged here at AVFM, between the men and women of different nations, can see significant strategic gains made in our war against feminist supremacists and their goals of extinguishing masculinity and eradicating men.
