As I sit here on fairly cool Canberra morning news has just come through that another Australian soldier has been killed in Afghanistan. He was apparently, according to the earliest reports, clearing a compound when an improvised explosive device was detonated. I assume he was an engineer given the task he seems to have been undertaking but the Prime Minister is due to speak shortly and I dare say the circumstances of the fatality will become known at that press conference.
It must be a terrible job for any leader to report on and preside over the death in action of service personnel and I don’t begrudge the Prime Minister her duty this morning speaking on behalf of the nation.
I imagine there will be hue and cry about the waste of life in Afghanistan, ours, theirs and the rest of the allied force who have suffered casualties and I am not really qualified to talk as I have never put my life on the line in such a situation.
Given the tragedy of the day I think it is worth commenting on other sacrifices that are being remembered at the moment, seventy years after the event.
The battle of El Alamein was being fought out at this time in 1942 with Australia’s Ninth Division, already lauded for their actions in defending Tobruk a year earlier, playing a pivotal role. On the coast of North Africa, these men from all across Australia went toe to toe with Germany’s Afrika Korps and fought them to a standstill and broke them. History tells us that in the final stages of the Ninth Division’s fight, Rommel, the great German general arrayed his entire tank corps against them with a brigade of Australian’s throwing back no less than 25 Panzer counter attacks of tremendous ferocity. Sometime later, General Montgomery, commander of the British Eighth army launched a decisive assault against Rommel’s weakened southern flank and the Battle of El Alamein become the first significant victory for the Allies in the Second World War.
General , later Field Marshall Montgomery never forgot what his Australians achieved and over five hundred of our finest still lie in the Egyptian dirt where their comrades laid them after the battle. Let us not forget them or their sacrifice.
At the same time, a long way from the middle east, the Australian Seventh Division was driving the Japanese back across the Owen Stanley Range in a campaign which would eventually push the aggressor back past the village of Kokoda and would culminate on the north coast of Papua in three mighty battles at Buna, Gona and Sananda and would see the Japanese drive on Australia finally defeated.
There is a famous quote which says, “only the dead have seen the end of war” and sadly, I think truer words have never been written.
In a perfect world we would have no defence force and the world would live in peace and harmony but alas it is no such place. There will always be someone wanting to decry freedom and impose their will by force and while not every aggressor can be put in their place I think at times the world has to stand up and put a stop to things which are wrong. Which fight we choose is the pertinent question.
Some will say we have no right or fight in Afghanistan. They may be correct and I myself believe there are no more laurels to be won in such a place.
But professional soldiers go where they are sent and know the risks and accept them. That’s why they are real heroes and on a day like this when an Australian soldier has sacrificed his life let’s not bicker and curse about the right or wrong in Afghanistan. Say a silent thanks to him and his family for giving up what is best and precious to them and be thankful that Australia can still produce men like him and those who turned back evil designs in Egypt and on the Kokoda Track all those years ago.
It must be a terrible job for any leader to report on and preside over the death in action of service personnel and I don’t begrudge the Prime Minister her duty this morning speaking on behalf of the nation.
I imagine there will be hue and cry about the waste of life in Afghanistan, ours, theirs and the rest of the allied force who have suffered casualties and I am not really qualified to talk as I have never put my life on the line in such a situation.
Given the tragedy of the day I think it is worth commenting on other sacrifices that are being remembered at the moment, seventy years after the event.
The battle of El Alamein was being fought out at this time in 1942 with Australia’s Ninth Division, already lauded for their actions in defending Tobruk a year earlier, playing a pivotal role. On the coast of North Africa, these men from all across Australia went toe to toe with Germany’s Afrika Korps and fought them to a standstill and broke them. History tells us that in the final stages of the Ninth Division’s fight, Rommel, the great German general arrayed his entire tank corps against them with a brigade of Australian’s throwing back no less than 25 Panzer counter attacks of tremendous ferocity. Sometime later, General Montgomery, commander of the British Eighth army launched a decisive assault against Rommel’s weakened southern flank and the Battle of El Alamein become the first significant victory for the Allies in the Second World War.
General , later Field Marshall Montgomery never forgot what his Australians achieved and over five hundred of our finest still lie in the Egyptian dirt where their comrades laid them after the battle. Let us not forget them or their sacrifice.
At the same time, a long way from the middle east, the Australian Seventh Division was driving the Japanese back across the Owen Stanley Range in a campaign which would eventually push the aggressor back past the village of Kokoda and would culminate on the north coast of Papua in three mighty battles at Buna, Gona and Sananda and would see the Japanese drive on Australia finally defeated.
There is a famous quote which says, “only the dead have seen the end of war” and sadly, I think truer words have never been written.
In a perfect world we would have no defence force and the world would live in peace and harmony but alas it is no such place. There will always be someone wanting to decry freedom and impose their will by force and while not every aggressor can be put in their place I think at times the world has to stand up and put a stop to things which are wrong. Which fight we choose is the pertinent question.
Some will say we have no right or fight in Afghanistan. They may be correct and I myself believe there are no more laurels to be won in such a place.
But professional soldiers go where they are sent and know the risks and accept them. That’s why they are real heroes and on a day like this when an Australian soldier has sacrificed his life let’s not bicker and curse about the right or wrong in Afghanistan. Say a silent thanks to him and his family for giving up what is best and precious to them and be thankful that Australia can still produce men like him and those who turned back evil designs in Egypt and on the Kokoda Track all those years ago.
We may not want to fight, now or ever but “the price of freedom is eternal vigilance” and, “only the dead have seen the end of war”.
Strange Notations From a Laborious Life 