Loyal readers may have been feeling trepidatious today about an Anzac Day breakout from the KC newsroom, as the senior (hmm..) writer here has form in that sacred space. Well, you were right to be anxious. You’re nor escaping unscathed.
In 2015 we noted the excess of maudlin, unreflective sentimentality in what is supposed to be an occasion of solemn remembrance. Today the media ambience of Anzac Day seems more restrained, so maybe that period of over-hyped Anzackery has passed. And we’ll gradually fill that space by having a think about the real human significance of our past military actions, and the wilful and massive waste of young lives. Not to mention the strategic and tactical military failures that accompanied them.
Rather than repeating another of my anti-war diatribes, I thought this hard-hitting piece by Peter Fitzsimons may do the job. Best-selling populariser of military history, today he’s called out the great Aussie omertà: who was responsible for needlessly sending our boys to slaughter in WW1, so far from home? He takes aim at callous military leaders, but could have included the Australian politicians who blithely put our expendable soldiers under the command of English generals.
During WW2 Australia faced a Japanese threat of invasion. Supreme Allied Commander U.S. General MacArthur, (based in Brisbane) oversaw the heroic defensive fighting of Australian soldiers on the infamous Kokoda Track in PNG, where PM Albo just finished a short pilgrimage trek with his local counterpart. This week Fitzsimons also dramatically portrayed that decisive Kokoda Trail battle, which effectively halted the Japanese forces, dare I say dead in their tracks.
Maybe he will follow up with a series on our political leaders who then subsequently committed us to another few rounds of futile, inglorious foreign war misadventures in Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan. Think Robert Menzies and John Howard, neither of whom was publicly called to account. No UK Chilcot-style enquiry here about Iraq, no sir, we prefer to let embarrassing bygones be forgotten.
Lest we forget is the obvious sign off today. I hope you appreciate the Fitzie double.
KOOKYNIE COURIER 
I remember now, searingly, the spidery handwriting of the aged, on often plain poor cards stuck into the ground near a memorial in about 1995 remembering perhaps for the last time, personally known brothers , lovers, husbands killed so long ago in 1914-18. Unutterable, depthless pools of sadness, commanded by that wasted, wicked hubristic pointlessness.
Dear Peter To use your well-chosen descriptor, I am one of your “loyal readers” although, in recent times, I have not made my presence felt through your ‘comment’ facility. However, I am moved to put pen to paper in response to your ANZAC day piece. I did appreciate the Fitzsimons article but I think you were right on point in identifying the lack of reference to the role of our feckless politicians. . Best wishes, Dick