ANZAC Day - A Time to Remember

Lest We Forget

Cheers,
Peter
OKA196 motorhome

We had a good march through Perth - it's the only time of year I get cheered by 30,000 people!

I feel the marches are becoming more of a shambolic walk, though, with too many younger civvies and young women joining in, who have no idea what a march actually comprises.

I had one woman in front of me, who wandered in and out of line like she was on a shopping expedition - and her 20-something son, was no better.
At one stage he started dawdling, and looking up at the buildings, and pointing out something to his Mum, like he was a Sunday arvo tourist.

The formation started to break up because of their brainless, "in a world of their own", behaviour - and I nearly ran into him, because I had nowhere to go.

I revved him up, which startled him, and he took off like a jackrabbit, thus putting some order back into the march.

I do miss the old RAE RSM's like Mick Ryan OAM (deceased 25/10/2015) who didn't take long to line up a proper march formation.
Nowadays, it seems no-one cares about it being a march, it's just turned into a general walk.

I must admit, I'm in awe of the old WW2 vets who are still with us, all between 95 and 100.
Bill Grayden is an inspiration, and 99 yr old Richard “Norm” Eaton (who, with his brother, rode his bicycle 800kms from Mt Magnet to Perth just to join up) gives a worthy interview to the ABC (his interview follows the Perth 2019 March recording, at 1:34:20)

Anzac Day March 2019 - Perth (nearly 3 hours!)

Note that the Engineers have the biggest and most impressive March banner!! (at 34:39).


Bill Graydens war stories really bring home what the Kokoda campaign actually was - possibly the worst conditions that any Australian soldier has ever had to endure.

Fancy being sent into mountainous terrain on a native jungle track, to meet up, face to face with over 11,000 battle-hardened Japanese soldiers, veterans of the 1930's fighting in China. The Japs outnumbered the Australians by more than 10 to 1 at times.

And to do that, after being issued with only 50 bullets, 5 tins of bully beef, and 5 dog biscuits - 5 days rations - but with no hope of any decent amount of resupplies being brought up, due to a total lack of logistics to back them up.

These blokes deserve our undying admiration, they went through tougher conditions than any human being could expect to put up with.

Bill Grayden - Kokoda Veteran

Cheers, Ron.

This American professor (below) provides a very interesting talk on WW2 - called, "Why WW2 Matters".

It's a very intensive talk, and it covers the entire war (and before WW2 as well) - and what he explains, has major ramifications for our future generations - and that is - appeasement gets you nowhere.

As the old saying goes (variously attributed to Orwell or Churchill), "“We sleep soundly in our beds (only) because rough men stand ready in the night, to visit violence on those who would do us harm.”

The essence of the Professors talk is, "Could Hitlers expansionism have been cut short, and could WW2 have been a lot shorter?", if some things had been done differently, in the period leading up to WW2?

His answer is, Yes - it could have, if Britain hadn't practised constant appeasement, and if America hadn't practised isolationism, up until Pearl Harbor.

Cheers, Ron.