Red Poppies

I'm not sure what I'm going to write tonight so I'm just going to let my mind wander and my fingers do the typing.

Today is Remembrance Day and to make it more symbolic, it's the 11th day of the 11th month of the year 2011.

And at 11 seconds and 11 minutes past 11am today it was 11.11.11.11.11.11.  Quite a special occasion.

I had a great, great, great uncle Sid who was killed at Gallipoli.  Poor old Sid.  He was the scoutmaster in Penrith and he seemed to have been quite a strong, dedicated bloke from what I can fathom.  He volunteered for WWI, as did so many others of that time, and he went off for training in Egypt before being sent on to Anzac Cove as part of the Light Horse Brigade.  Back at home he'd been a great horseman and an excellent shot of the rifle as was evidenced by his weekly Gun Club competition scores.    

He stepped onto the gangplank to land at Gallipoli and was shot.  He survived and was taken back to Egypt and recuperated in a hospital there.  The legend is that he said "just take the bullet out of me and let me get back to it" when he was on the boat.  After a few months they said he was ready and they put him on another boat to land at the cove.  Walking down the gangplank this time, he was shot in the neck and died.  He never made it onto the shore either time.

I've thought long and hard about Sid and his family, my ancestors.  I have his war records and the letters the family sent to the War Office trying to get anything they could of Sid's to bring back home.  They just wanted something physical of his to hold. I know where they lived, I have photos of it all.  I have photos of Sid.  I have millions of newspaper articles about him and yet, I can't know him.

I can stare at his photo and look into his eyes and I can imagine his voice and his walk and the feel of his uniform, but, I can't know him.

I wish I could talk to him.  I wish I could ask him why he went and how he felt.

I wish I could ask him if he was scared or angry or excited or oblivious to what was going on.

I wish I could ask him if he missed his family or if he felt he was being a hero.

I wish I could touch his medals or his uniform or his moustache and feel who he was.

Mostly, I wish I could stop him from from going.

His mum,  my great great grandmother, died just after the news came through of his death.

I can understand that.  I can understand just giving up and not wanting to live anymore when your child is murdered on a foreign shore.  I can imagine the anguish and despair and never ending sorrow.

I can understand wanting to die.

So here we are, almost 100 years after Sid was murdered as he tried to ensure our country was kept free of terror, and there are still young men being slaughtered for the same reason.  Today more of our young men were buried after being shot on hostile land, in a war that isn't ours.

There are still mothers grieving for their lost sons.  There are still people who are thinking like I am and saying to themselves, "I wish I could have stopped him from going."''

When I was pregnant with all my girls, I wished fervently that I wouldn't have a son because I never wanted a time to come when he might say "Mum, I'm going to join the Army".  I couldn't have handled that.

We, as a country, need to butt out of everyone else's wars and stay put on our own land and keep our own families solid and complete.

I don't believe we are there to fight for anyone's freedoms.  I do believe we are there to fight for America's oil wealth.  I don't believe we will ever be told the truth.

What I do believe is .... they shall grow not old , as we that are left grow old, age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn, at the going down of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them..... Lest We Forget.

So today... Lest We Forget.