Is Anzac Day a celebration or a commemoration?

For me, it is both.

War, death and killing are not to be celebrated, but courage, mateship, and sacrifice are.

War brings out the best and worst in people, and on Saturday we should remember the best qualities that emerged from our troops over the years.

That we live in a free country which values human rights is cause for a massive celebration, and the men and the women who we will remember and commemorate on Saturday had a huge say in that.

On Saturday we should celebrate peace, because that is what we live in because of those who fought on our behalf.

It is hard to celebrate Gallipoli itself, as it was a defeat which cost so many Australian and New Zealand lives.

While the ANZAC soldiers fought as well as was humanly possible, in the end overwhelming Turkish numbers, terrain that suggested such a campaign was lunacy and bad imperial organisation were too much to overcome.

If revenge on the Turks was what we were after, we got it when the Light Horsemen routed them at Beersheba, but Saturday marks the Gallipoli centenary, not that of Beersheba.

Some say that because the soldiers travelled to the other side of the world to attack an enemy that had never done anything to Australia or New Zealand, they were the “bad guys.”

However, the very day before the soldiers landed, the Turks carried out the Armenian Genocide, which led to the deaths of up to 1.5 million Armenians, so they weren’t the most innocent of enemies.

One thing that should stay well clear of Anzac Day is politics.

Nothing makes my blood boil more than nutjob political parties and lobby groups trying to make out, on Facebook or wherever else, that to disagree with their agenda is to disrespect the diggers, even though theirs is the type of mentality the diggers fought against.

Anzac Day is a commemoration which belongs to those who served, and more than anyone else to those who paid the ultimate price.

God bless ya, cobbers - Lest We Forget.

Josh Gidney