I don’t agree with war and I honestly don’t understand why one would enlist in the armed forces. Patriotism? Money? Job Security? Death Wish?
Don’t get me wrong, some of my closest friends are enlisted and I respect that decision but it doesn’t stop my heart from skipping a beat when I see updates on the news.
At school we learn about WW1 and WW2, wars that tore our country apart while not being of any actual threat to our shores. We learn about the Anzacs, Hitler, the Kokoda trail, land mines, and chemical warfare. We also learn that our involvement in these wars has been for little reason other than to keep our allies on side.
And it’s not to say I’m not patriotic. I don’t have any Australian descendants but that has never stopped me from attending Anzac Day Dawn services year after year. I throw Australia day parties and now matter what country I’m in I always observe a minutes silence on November 11th. But I think it is the French part of me that can relate to war a bit better.
My mum comes from a part or France deeply affected by WW2. Her godmother was held as a Prisoner of War and was freed only because when the war came to an end she was used as political leverage. My uncle was born during WW2, at a time when Alsace was German territory. His name is Jean-Marc, but had to be named Johannes Marcus to keep the German doctors at bay.
My Grandmother, who can’t even remember what she ate for breakfast, clearly and cheekily recounts the story of her courtship with my Grandad. Alsace was occupied by the Nazis, she was an 18-19yr old teacher forced to teach in German. The locals were forbidden to speak French but in a subtle attempt to defy the Nazis the future Mr and Mrs Gerber would walk the streets talking in French. They were caught by the head of the local Nazi troops, if it were not for the fact that he was trying to gain local supporters at the time they probably would have been sent to a POW camp for their insolence. The same man was imprisoned after the war and wrote to my Grandma from the prison, begging her to send him some food as he claimed to be famished. She sent him a large package of food much to the disgust of a local journalist who wrote a whole article about how some people seemed to have forgotten where they come from and which side they were on, even the wife of a Pastor.
I recently got back from a visit to Peronne, in Northern France, a part of France where Australians are worshiped. In 1918 it was the Australian allied troops that freed the town of Peronne and surrounding villages, and during the 4 yrs our troops were stationed in northern France they earned a level of respect and appreciation from the local French people that the Allied British and American forces would never receive.
All over Picardy (Northern France) there are huge murals and signs bearing ‘N’oublions jamais l’Australie’- Do not forget Australia. In Villers Bretonneux there is a Franco Australian museum, situated above the Victoria School, a gift from the children of the state of Victoria (in Australia) to the children of Villers Bretonneux as proof of their love and good will toward France and in memory of the 1200 Aus men lost in the battles of freedom for this town.
Just outside Peronne there is a large statue of an Aussie digger ‘protecting’ the town since 1918 and on a nearby tree a visitor has scratched ‘good on ya boys’.
Couldn’t have put it better myself.
They shall grow not old,
As we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them,
Nor the years condemn,
At the going down of the sun
And in the morning
We will remember them.
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