Anzac day is the only war related holiday in Australia, ANZAC stands for the Australian and New Zealand Army Corp, its a public holiday in Australia and has become more and more popular, especially with young people.

I heard last year on television while watching the ANZAC day broadcast something I didn't know. The holiday started quite by accident, or organically if your more business minded, when two women were standing next to a war memorial in Sydney or a counrty town I can't remember. Just standing next to the war memorial they were not saying a word. Two men quite young, walked up to them, they had both been in the first world war and asked the women what they were doing there standing in silence in front of the war memorial. The women could not give a precise answer, they felt like they needed to be there. I, as the two ex-soldiers could assume the women had lost husbands, brothers, fathers, or someone close to them during the war. The two ex-diggers stayed with them, as the story goes they did not speak but stood at the war memorial with the two women until dawn. And the dawn service was born (the service of ANZAC day) from that moment, that small happening. What they were thinking about I don't know but I imagine they were just remembering the young people they knew that had died way before they should have, way before they had become more than hope.

I only heard this last year, and up until then I had major problems with ANZAC day, I saw it as a celebration at worst, and at best a rememberance of WAR. The same year I heard the story above on tele I saw our prime minister in Iraq encouraging the troops, it seemed to me all wrong. Had we not learnt anything.

My memories of ANZAC day are of the old diggers marching down the street combined with images of Gallipoli on TV. Gallipoli will mean nothing to most people who were not born in Australia or NZ, (or Turkey) but to us it was our 'baptism of fire' and thats what they called it in school. To me ANZAC day was about Gallipoli and Australia's first real exposure (the boer war didn't really count) to a real battle on the global stage. And thats the way it is taught to kids. Its this coming of age heroic failure. If you don't know the story we invaded a bit of Turkey along with the British and French and lost dismally and had to retreat after a year of masacre's.

I went to Gallipoli ten years ago, I knew the stories from my childhood and the battle was very fresh in my mind, I knew the names, the dates, the positions of the troops, even the weather. Especially the retreat which was full of ingeniuty by the Australians. Guns that fired by themslves, dummies, it was all very 'the Great Escape'.

I had not planned to go there, I went to Istanbul because it is one of the great cities of the world, I wanted culture and old world charm, and got it in spades. But I was bored. Australians were expected to make the dare I say 'pilgramage' to Gallipoli. So I went.

I had made friends in Istanbul, and found the Turks wonderful people, when I went to Gallipolli all I felt was guilt. We invaded their country, and its debatable whether they really wanted to be in the war anyway, maybe thats why they don't mind us Aussies turning up, its kinfolk of sorts, pawns in the Great War.

There are more monuments and cemetaries to Australians and New Zealanders on 'ANZAC Cove' it is named that, than to the Turks. The Turks lost hundreds of thousands of men, and women I guess defending their land and we lost perhaps 15000. It was horrible. And still they allow us to have huge ceromonies there every ANZAC day. That says more about what they know and their nobleness than ours (Australia).

I must say that now most commentators and sometimes politicians use ANZAC day as a remembrance of idiocy that should not be copied. It may well be the first Anti-war holiday. I hope it truly becomes one.

DJ Campbell