Lest we forget

Posted Apr 20, 2016 in Culture

Rev Sue Page is a minister in placement at Para Hills Uniting Church and a reserve Royal Australian Air Force (RAAF) Chaplain, serving at RAAF Edinburgh. In this article, Sue reflects on ANZAC Day, which will be commemorated on Monday 25 April, 2016.

It is interesting to me how in recent years ANZAC Day seems to have become more central in public life in Australia. As a child I remember it being about the World War I (WWI) and World War II (WWII) veterans getting together to tell their stories and march in the city. It was also a time of relative peace – at least, Australia was not engaged in any combat operations.

I guess as the years have gone on and there are fewer remaining veterans, ANZAC Day, with our living connection to WWI extinguished and that to WWII fading, has become more of a commemoration than a reunion. The appeal of ANZAC Day has broadened across the community. Partly in the interest of preserving the history, but also because veterans from more recent conflicts have been included – from the Korean and Malayan campaigns, to the Vietnam War and this century’s Iraq and Afghanistan engagements.

Some would argue that it is a glorification of war that has taken on almost cult status in modern Australian society. But I see it as an honouring of the service and sacrifice of Australian men and women who have served, many dying for their country.

It was a great privilege to travel to Gallipoli for the centenary of the ANZAC landings commemorations last year, and to keep a vigil overnight. We looked out upon ANZAC Cove and up at the rugged cliffs that the first ANZACs staggered up attempting and failing to take, reflecting on what they endured, and the massive loss of life for absolutely no gain.

My husband’s great uncle, Benhardt Gabel, was one of the first ANZACs, landing on the beach on 25 April, aged 21. Ben had grown up in the Barossa Valley. He was killed on 2 May 1915, one week into the Gallipoli campaign. He is one of more than 3,000 ANZACs with no known grave, whose name is memorialised at the Lone Pine memorial at Gallipoli. It was a very moving experience to see his name there and honour him at the Lone Pine service of commemoration.

Many of us in the church sit uneasily with ANZAC Day and don’t support military service, believing in a Jesus who is a peacemaker, who is God’s love and grace and justice enfleshed so that we and all creation can be made new.

I believe in that Jesus. Many of the service men and women who serve in the military throughout our history and to this very day believe in that Jesus, too.

ANZAC Day is about honouring the sacrifice made by so many for the freedoms we enjoy today because our world would be a very different place without their service.

As a Defence Force chaplain, my role is to point beyond the sacrifice of the men and women who fought and died to the sacrifice of Christ, whom many service men and women of WWI and WWII sought to follow in their military service. It was “for God, King and Country” that they fought and died. Many saw their military service as part of their Christian discipleship, following Jesus to the place where they were to lay down their lives for their friends, for their country, and for their God.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them.

Lest we forget.

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