Dialogue: Anzac Day not just another holiday

by SANDY BURGHAM

Just after Anzac Day my uncle is coming to stay. An active 80-something, he is a mine of information, a walking history book, and lives a simple yet enriched life in a council flat. He has many achievements; his biggest, I think, having survived the Second World War. Stray bullets passing through his tent, the deaths of colleagues, bouts of dysentery in the desert, his war years understandably remain the most intense and the most defining period of his life - and he was just a lad.

His own uncle experienced similar intensity as a young man in the First World War but, sadly, was one of the hundreds struck down in the poppy fields of the Somme.

All families have their war stories but as time moves on the links to the brutality of war become diluted, less relevant, until one day they will simply be forgotten.

Tomorrow RSA members and a smattering of others will gather in the Auckland Domain at dawn to salute those who sacrificed their lives for their country in the early part of last century. As the turnout dwindles year upon year we can project forward to the not-so-distant future when the significance of the poppy is vague and Anzac is relegated to being just the name of a plain biscuit.

At the risk of sounding like a Winston-Peters-supporting hip-replacementee banging on about compulsory military training, how relevant and poignant is Anzac Day to a generation that would no more respond to a call to arms than do the dishes by hand? Imagine having to ask today's able-bodied citizens to down tools and sign up. It is an impossible notion to mobilise a society so individually motivated at a time when life, despite the incessant whining, is pretty good.

And while the 40- and 50-something baby boomers may assume I am talking about "youth," I question the boomers' own willingness to sacrifice anything for a greater cause. Boomers have been a notoriously lucky generation, being born in the optimistic postwar era, and have led pretty charmed lives.

Last week I went to a show to experience a celebration and retrospective of the life of John Lennon, idol and icon of the baby boomers. While the music of their parents' generation may remind of sadder times, Boomer anthems such as Lennon's, despite being deep and meaningful, represent a time of idealism and hope.

Despite his anguished lyrics and his unfortunate end, Lennon's life was a safe adventure and quite unremarkable when compared to that of ordinary folk who were born one generation before him. Not that I was going to mention that to the many boomers sobbing in the audience. Were they mourning John Lennon or had they just realised that they were going to have to stop spending and save for their retirement?

Our concept of war is changing. Most boomers experienced the Vietnam War not in the flesh but second hand, through edited, two-dimensional propaganda on television. And we all experienced the Gulf War as a polished CNN production where we could monitor the action in real time. Ironically, kids' combat skills have a head start, with hand-to-eye coordination already honed, courtesy of video games.

And now many younger ones boast a peculiar and distasteful fascination with Nazi culture. While they mightn't agree with the Nazi sentiment, they find the paraphernalia interesting, collectable and cool. Their forebears must be turning in their graves.

Every day I face the onslaught of credit-card debt and increasing mortgage rates, I wrestle with road rage on the motorway and stress over complicated childcare arrangements.

And then I think of my uncle, who I'm sure finds my life unbearably fast and unnecessarily complicated. He said to me recently: "Every day of my life I think about war, about my uncle, and other young lives that have been cut off short, and I am thankful that I have survived and because of this I think I am very, very lucky."

Tomorrow is April 25 and to the thousands out there who can't decipher the full meaning of the Anzac acronym it is simply a bonus day off work and school. Just another holiday on a day which was set aside for one reason - lest we forget.