ANZAC Day

Pilot Officer Harold Byrnes

It's ANZAC Day in Australia, a day on which we remember those who have served, and sometimes died for, their country.  Usually it's a day of parades and ceremonies, but was much more low-key today because of the pandemic.  It's always a day that conjures up a range of emotions in me.  On one hand, I think about the dreadful human cost of tribalism and sectarianism, but I also think fondly about loved ones who served and my own brush with the military.

I think of my father, as a very young man, learning to fly bombers in Canada, a career with a very short life expectancy (but the war ended and he never saw action), and my much-loved maternal grandfather who served years on the Western Front in World War I and would never speak of it.

Officer Training Unit friends celebrating the end of our final 10-day
exercise in the mountains north-west of Sydney

I think about my own time in the Army as a National Service conscript in the early 1970s, training to fight in Vietnam, but ending up much more mundanely in command of a transport training platoon in Victoria.  My graduating class at OTU Scheyville was disappointed the Vietnam War was waning and we never got to use our newly-acquired skills, but that was just the testosterone talking and a desire to test ourselves.

Graduating from the Officer Training Unit

Like all serviceman, I made some good friends, none of whom I kept in touch with, and each ANZAC Day has me wondering where they are now.  It was also a period when I learnt a lot about myself -- strengths and weaknesses -- and life that later proved valuable to me.  I was exposed to a much broader cross-section of society than during my middle-class upbringing, and it was a total eye-opener for a 20-year-old.

I went into the Army the fittest I had been in my life and soon found that nearly everybody had great respect for distance runners.  It got me noticed which, in turn, opened doors and gave me opportunities I might otherwise have missed.  That has remained true throughout my life and is still a driver to train and race.  It's in my DNA now, and I can't stop.  That makes it even harder when I'm injured.  This morning I was back to a 6km plod/limp, wondering whether it's worth persevering, but I know I can't help myself.