The Dawn Service is over

and the Returned Servicemen are going off to breakfast at the local hall where they meet. Their numbers are less now.

My godfather, another returned man, says he is too old to be at such events. He is 97, still living alone after the death of his wife several years ago. I don't know how much longer he can do it but he is still as independent as he can be. 

ANZAC day has never been something to "celebrate" in the eyes of my godfather. When the Senior Cat was alive L.... would come here. He would sit at the kitchen table and I would make another pot of tea. L... would talk about anything but the war. He came back with a quite profound hearing loss. For the rest of his life he has only been able to hear you if it has been quiet and you speak clearly. He has aches and pains from other injuries too. The war, WWII in his case, is not over for him.

The war is long over for the ANZAC men of Gallipoli. The last soldier from the campaign died in 2002.  Is it over for their families? I doubt it.

As a teenager I met far too many men who were deeply traumatised by their service in WWII. There was not just my godfather but all the men in the "soldier settlement" where the Senior Cat was in charge of the big area school. My brother and I were made acutely aware of the trauma these men had been through as we stood with our Scout and Guide troop at the Dawn Service. Grown men do cry. They don't forget. 

There has just been a defence review in this country. We won't be told all the details. Some of it has been deemed "classified". I don't like what I have heard so far. I wish we didn't need "defence" forces at all.  I wish I had never needed to make the poppies that have gone up again on the annual display at the library.

But perhaps there is some hope for the world because T... and H... across the road have been to their first actual Dawn Service this morning and watched their father participate. Can we go on remembering?