Lest We Forget

In last year's segment entitled “Postcards from Australia”, I remarked upon the proliferation of war memorials scattered throughout the Australian countryside. My sentiments were echoed more poetically by the following inscription:

Yesterday, I learned the reason.

Yesterday, we visited the mother of all Australian War Memorials in Canberra (more on Canberra to follow). Unless you are a war buff, I am certain most Americans have no appreciation of Australia’s contributions to every major war. I will go one step further to wager that most American college graduates wouldn’t even know that battles were fought on Australian soil during World War Two. (I can say that with a fair degree of confidence because, before my visits here, I didn’t appreciate it either.)

Well Australia is keenly aware of their contributions and their collective victories and losses continue to shape their national identity. The personal values of courage, bravery, and honour are a source of pride and are, at least publicly, still prized more than individuality and self-fulfilment. When valour leads to sacrifice, it is important to memorialize the dead and give closure to the family through military burials and grave markers. Over 60,000 soldiers died in WWI, and more than 25,000 were not recovered. Just about every town, locality, or cluster of homes in Australia has a connection to a soldier who was not properly interred. These memorials give the families a place to lay their grief, their memories, and their prayers.

I won’t bore you with a tedious description of the massive collection of memorabilia, souvenirs, or displays that filled the enormous museum, nor will I post pictures of the many really cool dioramas depicting various miserable battles at Gallipoli – especially since I didn’t take any and openly wondered about the Turkish tourists that did so. I also won’t tell you about the theatrical enactments of a night time bombing raid over Berlin and of the attack on Sydney Harbour by three Japanese midget submarines…because in words, I could not do justice to the intensity of the emotions and realizations conjured by the contents of those marble halls. I will simply say, I really should have brought a whole box of tissues with me.

We lingered for the closing ceremony because it was touted as a “must see” in the tourist brochures. I fully expected to be a sobbing mess during the performance of a Final Lament in the Commemorative area surrounding the Pool of Reflection in which sits the Eternal Flame of Remembrance. Fortunately, the lament was being played on a bagpipe by a veteran in full kilt, and the notes were sufficiently flat and cacophonous as to prevent stimulation of the autonomic nerves in control of my tear ducts…that is, until the soldier turned and marched into the Hall of Valour. When the pair of large brass doors clicked shut upon the quiet echo of the final note, I broke into sobs and had to be helped down the stairs.