Remembrance Day Memories - Leanne

Being a teenager in the 1970s and living in the long shadow of the Vietnam War, Remembrance Day and Anzac Day seemed wrong. I could not understand why we would glorify war. I would not give it any of my time. To some degree my sentiments were reflected by the wider community with the minute's silence of Remembrance Day being something we did because we 'had to' not because it held any meaning. 
An Australian soldier receiving medical treatment while being evacuated, Vietnam 1966.
Image taken by: Blanch, Kenneth Ray
Sourced from: Australian War Memorial (www.awm.gov.au)
With age and greater understanding, my sentiments have changed, and whilst I still despise war and its legacy of death and damage, I admire its participants, their courage and sacrifice. I now live with a stalemate wherein I feel uncomfortably compelled to honour what I most abhor. 

I now take pause and observe the minute's silence in gratitude for my freedom and with thanks to those who won it for me.

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