Lest we forget
Industry Moves is, and always has been, primarily about people - mostly from our industry but also those from outside the industry who inspire us and change the way we see the world. This week as the nation celebrates ANZAC Day we hear from Graham Long, self confessed "tower of weakness" and CEO & Pastor of The Wayside Chapel, who looks back on his visit to the battle fields of WWI and the lessons we can all learn about the value of human life.
"ANZAC Day absorbs me in all kinds of emotional conflict."
Exactly a year ago, I stood in the battle field of Fromelles, France. Fromelles was of particular interest to me because there was such shedding of Australian blood there. I'm not sure if bloodbaths ever have redeeming features, but this particular battle it seems, was designed to achieve nothing other than a distraction. It was hoped that this battle would prevent Germany from sending large numbers of their soldiers south in preparation for the massive culmination to be known as the Battle of the Somme. The plan failed. Fromelles was so poorly executed that Germany quickly recognised it as a decoy and moved their troops south anyway. Some of the soldiers killed at Fromelles had fought at Gallipoli but many were fresh from Australia with no fighting experience. I stood for ages in front of the grave of Private John Gordon, who enlisted in his older brother's name, and who had landed in France in June 1916 and died on this field a month later. He was fifteen years and ten months old.
"One hundred years later and still the ground is peppered with metal, now twisted and muddy."
Very few Australian families a hundred years ago could imagine, let alone visit, the places where I stood last year. At Pozières, near the famous windmill sight, I found you could wander into any of the peaceful-looking fields, which were at the time freshly ploughed, and fill the boot of a car with shrapnel if you were so inclined. One hundred years later and still the ground is peppered with metal, now twisted and muddy, but then white hot and cutting through flesh like a butter knife. How many thousands of Australian people had wished to have stood where I stood, trying to understand what kind of circumstance robbed them of their boys, husbands and fathers? Many times, I stood quietly and shut my eyes as if I was communicating with thousands of Australians now gone, to say, "This is where it was". Standing in peaceful fields, it's hard to imagine soldiers deafened by artillery night and day without a break, wet, muddy and waiting for an order to march into a hailstorm of machine gun fire. Yet, I was there, standing on this very ground.
"They asked me to say a prayer to the God they didn't believe in."
At the famous little café near Polygon Wood, I met up with an Australian couple who were about to look for the grave of a great uncle. Johan, the proprietor of the café, is a man who has built his life around the history of Australian soldiers. He has an extensive collection of relics and he has been responsible for many important finds through his own archaeological activity. Johan was able to tell the couple from which direction their great uncle would have come and the point at which the fiercest battles took place. He offered to help the couple find the headstone of their loved one and they invited me to come along too. The Australian woman had not met the great uncle whose grave she sought, but his legend lived in her family for generations. They were not religious people, being careful to tell me that they, "didn't believe". It was one of those awkward moments that abound in my life where I'm sure God has no interest in whether someone believes or not, and yet it seems to be somehow important for a person to declare their lack of faith. We found the grave of the great uncle and to the surprise of us all, it was a highly emotional moment. It was almost as if this man had laid in this field for one hundred years, cold and lonely and waiting for some family to come. They asked me to say a prayer to the God they didn't believe in, and as I prayed, something way beyond belief possessed us. What an honour to have shared this moment.
"Unless we remember, an appetite for war can grow like a cancer that kills without any warning symptoms."
ANZAC Day absorbs me in all kinds of emotional conflict. I read recently of a fourteen-year-old soldier killed on Lone Pine and I was left wondering if he'd ever heard of Turkey, or if he wondered why a boy from Australia would seek to defend the British Empire by shooting Turkish people who had attacked no-one. I can't bear any talk of "The glorious dead" and yet when I hear, "Lest we forget", my soul is arrested into stunned silence. Unless we remember, an appetite for war can grow like a cancer that kills without any warning symptoms. It worries me that the two men with the worst haircuts in the world could easily bring on a conflict that would send young Australians off to unimaginable deaths, while they sing bright songs and naively worry that "all the fighting might be over before they even get to the battlefield". How easily we are whipped up by our leaders into attitudes of 'us and them' and we forget that a dead German, a dead Turk, a dead Vietnamese, a dead Afghani, a dead Iraqi, a dead Korean, is just as tragic as a dead Australian.
Lest we forget.
Graham is CEO and Pastor of The Wayside Chapel in Kings Cross. You can sign up here to receive his weekly emails.
