Lest we forget? (Mostly focused at Australian and New Zealand forum go-ers)

[Helnurath]

Its still pretty amazing how Australia can go from penal colony to taking the fight to an enemy thousands of miles away, and as for all of you people complaining about stuff being closed imagine living in America where every Christian/Jewish holiday forces store closings.

 

[FROGGEman2]

Well, ANZAC day will not last much longer. For god's sake, it happened four generations ago, it's really hard to stir up emotion about great-grandparents that we didn't know. It's not that it's unimportant, it's just that it doesn't matter anymore. It didn't help us get any further in the war, yet I don't know anyone who knew anyone that was in that war. Asking me to get all teary about it is just fucking retarded! (sorry, I imagined this all in Yahtzee's voice so it sounded much less insulting and more natural...)

 

[stormcaller]

Cookies? (Atleast in NZ)

I think that the soldiers should be remembered, but not grieved over.Along with who doesn't like public holidays?

 

[olicon]

Every lost of life for any reason is equally tragic. My view is that Anzac Day or any other memorial day should not be a day to remember the sacrifices made, but a day to celebrate courage of the people. It's a small play on word, but it does put an entirely new meaning to it in my opinion.

With that said, I think non-Australians need to understand that Australian holidays and celebration are never grand. I am from Thailand, and I can tell you that we have had seasonal sales at the mall that is a bigger spectacle than Australian National events. Anzac Day is significant, but very modest when compared to events from other countries. It's definitely not one of those holidays that gets overplayed, which is a good thing.

 

[Radelaide]

Well, ANZAC day will not last much longer. For god's sake, it happened four generations ago, it's really hard to stir up emotion about great-grandparents that we didn't know. It's not that it's unimportant, it's just that it doesn't matter anymore. It didn't help us get any further in the war, yet I don't know anyone who knew anyone that was in that war. Asking me to get all teary about it is just fucking retarded! (sorry, I imagined this all in Yahtzee's voice so it sounded much less insulting and more natural...)

Are you serious? Your grandparents you don't know saved this country. As someone mentioned earlier in the thread, if it hadn't been for them, we'd be speaking German. To a lot of people, it does matter. It was a huge tragedy and should be remembered. To remind us of how terrible war was, and how many lives are lost.

Go to a dawn service.

 

[Motti]

It shows the Australian spirit, our willingness to stand up for what is right and honorable, even at great personal cost.

Stand up for what was right and honourable? Were talking about WW1 here, no Nazi's commiting genocide, to be frank it was just a territorial conflict between the old empires. There was no reason to murder others or be killed doing so, no 'right'. The ANZACs were just unlucky enough to bear the brunt of it

I don't want to belittle the suffering they endured, I know they went through hell, but the modern celabration of ANZAC day just glorifies this suffering.

ANZAC day should be about how terrible wars are, not about how great we are for following them through

You're right, instead of nazis killing Jews, it was the Turks killing Armenians. Nothing wrong with that at all.