Some Belated Anzac Reflections

This year, in the weeks leading up to Anzac Day, I watched rather more than my accustomed meagre daily ration of television. There was so much Anzac-related material, swollen largely from the centenary year, that it had grown tedious by the end of the day—a problem that probably won’t occur in 2016.

I had been a keen marcher for some years, along that famous route to Melbourne’s Shrine of Remembrance. The odd nature of my New Guinea active service (largely alone in the bush, behind Japanese lines) did not produce any specific unit affiliation which automatically entitled me to a place amongst the Melbourne marchers. To tell the truth, I was a bit of a “ring in”, an orphan hospitably housed in a blank file created specially for me by the Commando Association of Australia. I had actually enjoyed some shadowy jungle contacts with a few of its men long ago—what—good God—over half a century ago! Now the Commando Association itself has disbanded.

Mere months before his…