Soldier Days

The days have gotten so much colder and wetter now that winter's coming. Already we're seeing winter temperatures and it looks as though my earlier predictions of a warm winter were premature. I have been going around saying that I hope that Canberra receives a 20cm snowfall this winter, just to see how they'd cope. While it does snow in Canberra on rare occasions, I think the most at any one time has been 10cm.

Speaking of wet days, I had to umpire a local AFL game in the rain. It wasn't driving or even very hard, but it was persistent. It didn't make the game very comfortable but I was compensated by the game being rather close. While the winning team ended up winning by 13 points, well into the final quarter the score was very close and that always makes for an interesting game whether your a player, spectator or official.

The most important event this week has been ANZAC Day which was on the 25th. As I had to work, I didn't go to the Dawn Service this year but perhaps next year. I won't belabour the meaning and significance of ANZAC Day as I have written about it in a past post. I did celebrate in my own way by watching the movie Gallipoli, a 1981 Australian movie starring Mel Gibson. It's the story of 2 young men who join up in 1915 and are eventually sent to Gallipoli to participate in the disastrous campaign there. It wasn't a bad movie but the interesting thing I found about it was that Gallipoli isn't even represented until 2/3rds of the way through the movie and the only battle scenes occur at the end. Still, it's one of those movies that Australians regard as a classic that should be seen.

Speaking of soldiers, I found out something about the French. Despite having a terrible reputation as soldiers, Groundskeeper Willie famously called them, "cheese eating surrender monkeys", they actually have a fairly impressive record. Since 389 BCE, the French have won 109 battles, lost 49 and drawn 10. Really, it's only their recent record that has been rather spotty. According to my dad, it's not the French soldiers so much as the general staff who seem to be inept at inopportune moments.

For Australians, ANZAC Day is a very important national day of remembrance with many considering it to be of greater importance than Australia Day. Australians take very seriously that history of the ANZAC and take pride in their service. It can be said that Australians strive every day to live up to the spirit of the ANZAC diggers (soldiers) with the concept of mateship, essentially always helping a friend.