On this ANZAC Day, I find myself compelled to revisit and share two poignant articles from our archives, each centred on a WW2 veteran – one, my father; the other, a stranger. These encounters forced me to confront the stark contrasts in how we treat those we don’t know, often with unsettling cruelty. In “The saddest thing,” I lament the harsh treatment of a veteran, a memory that still weighs heavy. Yet in “Respect: Let’s show it,” I’m brought face-to-face with my own past failings, realising I once mirrored the very behaviours I now decry. These stories, though opposites, share a common thread: a call to reflect on our moral compass and the way we engage with strangers.
The saddest thing
My father rarely talked about the war, though when he did it would be no more than a few words.
I’m sure that after spending two years in the steamy jungles of New Guinea he would have much to complain about, but I only ever heard a couple of complaints: It was wet, and it was “bloody” hot (“bloody” being the strongest profanity that would pass his lips). On another occasion he told of going without food for three days, and as an added inconvenience people were trying to shoot him. It was a comment, not a complaint.
After the war ended the first thing he did was to forgive the enemy. Like him, they were guys sent to war by their government. He even respected the enemy, for in his mind as soon as you lost that respect… you were off your guard and you were vulnerable.
No, he didn’t hate the enemy (he didn’t like them, either). But he did hate their government for sending them – and ultimately us – to that bloody war in New Guinea.
(But he would have done it again, without complaint. When he was 63 he told me that even at his age he would sign up to fight for his country if he could. My father always had this sense of duty).
It was not until he was 90 that I heard his first complaint. It was one that sickened and angered me.
Happy to have his brand new walking frame, he was out and about in the mall of his regional Victorian city. (I accompanied him once. He would walk as close to the corridor walls as he could, so not to impede other pedestrians). But on this day he was alone, hobbling down the mall with three teenage schoolgirls heading towards him. They stopped, but they didn’t move. They refused to move. My father – by now the subject of an earful of abuse – had to move for them. This poor old bugger who had left behind a wife and young son to fight for his country and his freedom, this old bugger who had watched his mates die, this poor old bugger – barely mobile – had to get out of their way as well as tolerate their abuse. It was too much of an inconvenience for them to take a skip to the right.
(They didn’t know my father, or anything about him. Would it have mattered if they did? Probably not. One thing they certainly would not have known – and perhaps not even bothered about – was that all his life he regarded all Australians equal).
My blood boiled. I so wish I had have been there.
But I am there. I’m there now. We all are.
We see it every day.
Just replace my father with a refugee, or a rape victim, a delinquent teenager, a homeless person or an Indigenous Australian.
And replace that group of school children with a government, or with sexists or racists, or with our mainstream media.
My point is, in today’s world we are encouraged to turn against those who are different. And we are encouraged to blame someone else for our woes and we are unmoved when they need our help. And we judge them, without even knowing them.
We had – at the time this piece was originally published – a Coalition government who were masters at creating a divisive society, doing so, of course, to deflect the anger of their failures back onto Australians who are different because … (fill in the blanks).
Do you have any blanks you can fill in for me?
Respect: Let’s show it
Back when Gough Whitlam won the election a few of us guys from the local football club went along to our pub, and on this day we thought we’d drink in the lounge, rather than our regular spot; the front bar.
We talked about Gough’s win when a bloke started chatting to us about how bad it was that Labor won.
He would have been in his mid-fifties, and he was clearly a right-winger. We gave him hell. Not just on that day, but whenever we saw him again in the lounge bar of the pub.
We were quite nasty, actually. Our language was appalling, splattered with such terms as; “F#ck off, idiot”, Go f#ck yourself”, “What the f#ck would you know”, or “Go and talk to your f#cking friends over there”.
And as we were disgusting people, the “c” word was used liberally.
You get the picture.
And of course we enjoyed it. We were bloody heroes.
After that our lives took us down different paths and 25 years later I was working for ATSIC in Port Augusta.
One evening on ANZAC Day an old WW2 veteran was interviewed by one of the local Adelaide news channels.
This bloke was in the air force and had been shot down over Germany. Parachuting (luckily) to safety, he hid from the German forces for over three weeks, managing to find his way to the Allies.
It was a tormenting, harrowing experience. At any time he might have been only a minute away from capture, or worse, death. This man – probably in his early twenties at the time – was a true Aussie hero who gave up everything to go and fight for his country.
Can you imagine the guilt I felt when I recognised him as the bloke me and some footy mates used to throw the most vile, disgusting abuse to whenever we saw him in the pub all those years ago?
We knew nothing about this bloke when he was the victim of our insults.
I was no different to the people I would later condemn.
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On a similar vein, an uncle of mine was interned by the Japanese in what is now Indonesia during WW2 and was one of the most calm and peaceful people I have ever had the fortune to meet. He bore no grudges to anyone. My father, who was a couple of years younger grew up in regional Australia, was too young to go to war in WW2 and too old for Korea. He hated immigrants and products from former ‘enemy’ nations to the day he died.
Such a poignant article Michael and a great reality check too. This article greatly affected me then – and it still does, because of the many truths within. How the Fates toy with us, at times.
We all of us carry within us the full potential to manifest all behaviours of all types, from the sublime to the worst imaginable, and in our many recurrent manifestations and reincarnations have quite likely exhibited all of them. It comes with the territory of being a human being.
Michael, on Port Augusta, 6 degrees of separation; an ex brother-in-law, my sister’s first husband, a certain SB, has lived and worked in that town for many years as a doctor with the RFDS. I’d be surprised if you weren’t aware of him.
A great story Michael, and great of you to tell it.
But we’ve all done things or said things that we regret, sometimes even years later.
As long as we learn from them.
In this case, from your story, we all learned something, even something about ourselves.
Great stuff Michael, and right to the point. Thank you.
More generally, may I endorse the point made by historian Douglas Newton:
The Anzac story warns us of what may happen to a small country that offers unfaltering loyalty to a great power. That loyalty can degrade to servility.
Those in uniform pay the price.
https://johnmenadue.com/post/2025/04/anzac-voices-voices-of-warning/
You will always be a Braveheart Michael.
It takes true goodness to own youthful folly and arrogance in such a heartfelt plea for the greater good in humanity.
God knows we need it now.
Thank you Michael for reminding us that we have all been filled with a cruel hatred at one time or another.
Age, reflection, maturity changes some of us, we can actually become good people, people with hearts, humanitarians.
Unfortunately there are too many who will not grow, who will not reconsider, will not see that hero on TV and die a slow death of remorse.
Our family have thanked those who died in the wars, since my father came home.
But observance of ANZAC Day and any respect for the military, disappeared on Friday when people booed, the welcome to country.
Regardless of your politics there is no place for booing on the day of remembrance.
Today’s armed forces personnel are merely workers they live at home and head off to work. They no longer live together, eat together and share none of the responsibilities of protecting themselves or their base.
Dutton’s rejection of the Aboriginal flag, his attitude to rudd’s apology and his triumph over the referendum has freed the rightwing racism on a town which suffered terrible bombing. A town whose Aboriginal people had to deny their ancestry to live in the town but still suffered institutional racism. A town I thought was the least overt racist in Australia
ps
Till the late 60s(till the 67 referendum reached us) Darwin High school teachers had to decide Aboriginality by appearance so southern europeans, asians and others were give a secret ‘A’ on the roll book. If in doubt we were told to look at the finger nails to make the decision.
Thanks Michael,
In a small rural town, the small Anzac parade goes past my front door. I always feel anguish that the parade includes Cubs, Scouts and Girl Guides. Are they being groomed to militarism, chauvinistic patriotism or nationalism? Likely not deliberately, it’s likely more a focus of being part of a community – that’s how I proudly viewed it when I was a young Cub or Scout marching. But, I guess each decides for themselves how they view their participation.
Each year I go to an ANZAC event to remember my beloved Grandfather and Uncle who served, and my Father who did not serve. They all paid a heavy price, but none of them marched.
Each year there are many conversations of various types – mostly I remain circumspect, putting respect first and foremost, not passing judgement, but either sharing or moving on as appropriate to me.
In the 4 years I’ve been here, I go, it’s a good way to meet / talk with locals I may not otherwise meet. This year I got enmeshed with two vets (young’ns in their 50s), Ben and Kelvin – each very different. Hearing their post-service life stories was interesting – one more prone to big-chesting than the other, the other was very tolerant, as was I. Both shared stories of deer and pig shooting and the regulatory issues, and the changing and varied public attitudes – an unsurprising conversation to be heard in rural regions, which also invariably includes the changing status of the regional forests.
Later at the urn, prepping a coffee, a few quips with a woman in her late 60s doing the same, turned into a meaningful yarn. She radiated depth of feeling and compassion, and offered small snippets relating to the obvious pain she was feeling. In return I told of my Grandfather, Tom – his 5 years on the western front, returning only to every year or so being hospitalized as his skin left him (Pennies from Heaven). My Uncle, Ian, a short time in the jungles of New Guinea, mediced off – for the rest of his life he was unable to sweat and had to be very careful of hot environments. My Father, who having a bung eye from a rogue lathe turning, they wouldn’t allow to go to war (WWII), but he stayed and made munitions, but still, he was sent white feathers. The telling had me choking, and I shed a tear or two. We both, quietly heads down, acknowledged the cruelty of it all, and parted to have our coffees with familiars.
What else could non-vets say on ANZAC day? Not long after, I returned home.
What a week! Avoiding the media bombardment of impersonal, mostly pap and drivel about ANZAC and the passing of Pope Francis.