Quote Originally Posted by ozmeath
Today is ANZAC day in Australia and New Zealand. It's a memorial of the fallen in the first world war of both countries.
I think my feelings for this are best summed up by the words of Buffy Saint-Marie:

"He's five foot-two, and he's six feet-four,
He fights with missiles and with spears.
He's all of thirty-one, and he's only seventeen,
Been a soldier for a thousand years...."

"Lest we forget"
Erin.
I'm not sure where it is that you stand with this but I had to tell you that this was a protest song by Saint-Marie and it was an attempt to put the causes of war squarely on the shoulders of the soldiers themselves and was the reason that so many who returned from Viet Nam were spat upon by low-lifes that didn't have the nerve to serve. Although I do agree it was a great song, I don't agree with the lyrics. Instead, I offer you an excerpt from General Douglas McAurthur's Thayer Award speech of 1962.

DUTY, HONOR, COUNTRY;

(excerpt)

Prays for Peace

This does not mean that you are warmongers. On the contrary, the soldier above all other people prays for peace, for he must suffer and bear the deepest wounds and scars of war. But always in our ears ring the ominous words of Plato, that wisest of all philosophers: "Only the dead have seen the end of war."
The shadows are lengthening for me. The twilight is here. My days of old have vanished--tone and tint. They have gone glimmering through the dreams of things that were. Their memory is one of wondrous beauty, watered by tears and coaxed and caressed by the smiles of yesterday. I listen vainly, but with thirsty ear, for the witching melody of faint bugles blowing reveille, of far drums beating the long roll.
In my dreams I hear again the crash of guns, the rattle of musketry, the strange, mournful mutter of the battlefield. But in the evening of my memory always I come back to West Point. Always there echoes and re-echoes: Duty, honor, country.
Today marks my final roll call with you. But I want you to know that when I cross the river, my last conscious thoughts will be of the corps, and the corps, and the corps.

I bid you farewell.

(End excerpt)

I am now past 50 years old and not the young, strong soldier that I was and I understand these words better than at anytime in my life. They say a lot more than any ten of the protest songs of those like Saint-Marie.
This post was not meant to be confrontational.

Chris.