Today is ANZAC Day. A day that I think is pretty awesome, even though I don't do anything particularly great on this day. But it's good that we have it; it's only fair to remember the ANZACs. I spent yesterday afternoon reading about the World Wars. For my FIS assignment, so I was looking mostly at the European side of things. Actually, it was more Germany-focused. It fascinated me.
So today when my mum and my aunt say that war is stupid especially when it can be resolved later, I get annoyed. Because it's a lot more complex than that, at least acknowledge that fact. And then mum continues to say if one of her kids wanted to be a priest it would be fine to her, but if they wanted to join the army she'd disagree with it or something.
First of all. We're a strictly Catholic family. Of course you wouldn't care if someone wanted to be a priest. Unless it was me, because there are no female priests in the Catholic church. Maybe if I converted? So maybe she was just talking about the boys. But still. And then they were talking about a guy that went to war or something, and he was 18 and how could he not know what he was doing, he's young, he had the rest of his life ahead of him and what reason would possibly make him want to join the army.
National pride? Defending your country, fighting for your country. I have issues with pride; I was born and raised here but I didn't have ancestors that were ANZACs or anything. My family's only been here since the 80s! They still call the Philippines home. So I'm a little confused. I'm proud to be Australian, I'm proud to be of Filipino descent. And I would fight for either country. Although, if they fought each other I don't really know which side I'd be on then.
But still. I think it's noble to fight for your country. I don't think I'd mind dying for my country. Better to die young and fighting for something, for people, than to watch others do the same for you and die old. Or something. It's a new idea, I haven't fully formed my opinion but that's the current one of the moment.
I wanted to join the airforce. Once. I never really considered it properly because I always knew I'd go to uni, never thought about doing anything else. Max wanted to join the defence force too. I wouldn't want him to because he'd be away from me haha but still.
You know what else is ridiculous? My mum would tell us about the cadet thingies they'd do over in the Philz. How they know how to.. do stuff with guns and march and army-related stuff that I actually don't know about.
And I'm not glorifying war, or battle. I just... it's a noble and courageous thing to do; to join the defence force knowing that one day they may call on you to put your life on the line for your country. And I raise my glass to all our troops. Cheers.
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