The ANZAC Legend – STILL Going Strong in the 21st Century
We’re back home from the dawn service to commemorate the landing of Australian, New Zealand and British troops on the shores of Gallipoli, Turkey (known as ANZAC cove) on April 25th in the first world war. Anzac Day as it’s known in Australia marks a day of commemoration and remembrance for all Australians and New Zealanders who lost theirs lives in the battles of war.
Both my grandfathers were troops in the 2nd world war, one never returned. The loss of my mother’s father, when she was only 1 year old and an only child set the tone for how life was lived for my mother as the only child of a single parent and how she coped with life as an adult, wife and parent.
Let me say, it was not easy for her as it wasn’t for many children growing up with single mothers who’s husbands never returned from war in the 1940s, 1950s and beyond. My mum did the best job she knew how to do to give us, her children, every opportunity to learn, grow and enjoy the opportunities that life presents.
Every year we attend the dawn service to commemorate and remember at the Melbourne Shrine of Remembrance which means getting up at 4:30am to attend. It’s the only day of the year Paul (my hubby) and I get out of bed that early and head in to town. But we do it to pay respect to our grandparents – Paul lost one of his grandfathers too in the 2nd world war and his dad was a single child raised by a single mother as well.
And most importantly and most relevant to the lifestyle you and I live today, we do it to remind ourselves of the blessed position we find ourselves in – free enterprise with no geographical boundaries and freedom of choice to live every single day as we choose. We own total control of our destiny and each decision we make each day allows us the right to choose.
The fact that we can set goals to travel the world, present our business opportunities to thousands of people, to educate clients on success principles and watch their lives transform to their desired and rightful destiny is something we are grateful for everyday.
Whether your parents or grandparents or great grandparents were ‘victims at war’ or not, they in some way fought for you to have the opportunity to operate in free enterprise without any geographical boundaries …. and you too can do it in your bathrobe if you choose!
For that, take a moment to take a deep breathe in – in gratitude. And let it wash through your body. Let that feeling of gratitude release today’s frustrations and allow it to embed in you so that tomorrow is the day you want it to be!
The Words of Remembrance, read on ANZAC Day: (Written by Pericles well over two thousand years ago - long before the first ANZAC Day, but only a stone’s throw from Gallipoli):
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Each has won a glorious grave – not that sepulchre of earth wherein they lie, but the living tomb of everlasting remembrance wherein their glory is enshrined. For the whole earth is the sepulchre of heroes. Monuments may rise and tablets be set up to them in their own land, but on far-off shores there is an abiding memorial that no pen or chisel has traced; it is graven not on stone or brass, but on the living hearts of humanity. |
Engraved forever at ANZAC Cove are these words from Kemal Ataturk, the Commander of the Turkish 19th Division during the Gallipoli Campaign and the first President of the Turkish Republic from 1924-1938:
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Those heroes that shed their blood and lost their lives. You are now living in the soil of a friendly country therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from faraway countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well. |
The Ode: (comes from ‘For the Fallen’, a poem by the English poet and writer Laurence Binyon and was published in London in The Winnowing Fan: Poems of the Great War in 1914. This verse, which became the Ode for the Returned and Services League, has been used in association with commemoration services in Australia since 1921.)
| 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. |
Be free, Be thankful – Be excited and Be hungry … and you really can have everything you’ve ever wanted.
With love to you and everyone that fought to give you the freedom you rightfully own.
Jen
