Jim Hopkins:How dare we try to turn our old soldiers into victims

Today is Anzac Day and that means speeches. There are always speeches.

Even 40 years ago (say it isn't true) braided soldiers would come to school and speak of honour and heroes and the threat from new foes. We knew better, of course. (You always do when you're 16.) We'd seen Dr Strangelove.

We knew the next war would last five minutes and the first to die would be the folks back home.

Some of us had even read Sassoon and Owen ("What passing-bells for these who die as cattle? - Only the monstrous anger of the guns"), so we were at war with the very idea of war. And we dismissed the words of death and glory.


We sat, arms folded, unwilling to endorse the mythology of ancient battlefields.Then we grew up and the strutting little poppinjays of student politics became the panjandrums of Parliament.

Now we made the speeches, we owned the mythology, and the past was our Plasticine Era, to be shaped as we saw fit.

So today's Anzac speeches don't dwell on the old virtues.

Instead, they focus on the futility of war - conveniently ignoring the fact that we live as we live only because the ambitions of Adolf and Tojo were finally thwarted. No matter.

Today's speeches emphasise futility and suffering and the stoicism of those who endured great hardship in the service of vainglorious causes.

By such rhetoric, and in the service of our own vainglorious cause, we turn old soldiers into victims, the better to squeeze their experience into our mythology.

But if the Colonel Blimps had it wrong, so have the Colonel Wimps.

The soldiers of Gallipoli and the Somme weren't victims, at least not in the way we see them.

To understand that, you need only to read their words, some of which are contained in two books, the first New Zealand at the Front - Written and Illustrated by Men of the New Zealand Division and published in 1917.

The other, from 1916, is The Anzac Book - Written and Illustrated in Gallipoli by the Men of Anzac.

It is clear from the contents, studded with references to Agamemnon, Hector, Caesar, the Gauls, even Sappho, that these old soldiers were heirs to a rich amalgam of traditions, legends and lore - religious, philosophical, literary and social.

It might vex us to face it but, in truth, they had more "identity" than we'll ever wring from the deluded notion that the world began in 1840 with a piece of paper at Waitangi.

And it's probably also true that this lost generation had a prouder sense of self than we do.

Not only were they proud of their new country but equally proud to be part of an Empire we now deride.

"I was born to England first, before the wife and kid," says one New Zealand soldier.

"I was born to the old Empire first, and there'll be no evacuation from here till the job is done."

As the ultimate beneficiaries of that view, it's wrong for us to deny it or the strength with which it was felt.

Worse still, it's wrong to deny the Anzacs their humour. For there is much that is funny in these two old volumes. Like these advertisements, first published in The Anzac Magazine.

NOTICE - The Turkish artillery is requested to refrain from wasting ammunition while our meals are being served.

KABA TEPE MUSEUM - Come and see a piece of long extinct Australian butter now being exhibited. Admission: one slice of bread.

PERSONAL, MISSING FRIENDS, ETC - Last seen two months ago in Scotland, at the Duke of Buckington's grouse shoot.

Pte Bert Backblocks. Left Gallipoli with serious wound in fingernail early in May. Any information as to present whereabouts of above will be gratefully received by Adjutant, 101st Battn.

TO LET - Nice dugout on the skyline. Owner leaving for field hospital.

Dinkum Oil was another Gallipoli paper that also featured mock ads - SITUATIONS VACANT: Noncom wants active man to shoo flies while he has 40 winks during the afternoon - alongside its bogus news stories: A major's batman states that the Turks have delivered an ultimatum stating that if we do not surrender within three days, they will be obliged to do so themselves.

Meanwhile, in France, some wag produced The NZASC Field Post Card, which thoughtfully provided lists from which unnecessary words could be deleted.

I am [alive/fed up/frozen/dead].

Please send me some [money/cash/cheques/beer].

I am covered with [glory/dirt/mud/medals/manure/parasites].

Everything here is [tres bon/damnable/in the pink/putrid].

Even the poets chimed in. Here's Arcadia, a paean to the Dardenelles:

The scenery is glorious,

The sunsets are cylconic,

The atmosphere's so full of iron,

It acts as quite a tonic.

The rent is free, no board to pay,

No land or income taxes,

And on my tail no middleman,

Nor fat man fatter waxes.

And an extract from Flanders:

When the rations come up short,

And you don't get half you ought,

It's no use to raise a strafe,

That won't bring the other half -Try smiling

If your dinner you've begun,

And our playful friend the Hun,

Drops a "sausage" on your plate,

Do not sing the Hymn of Hate -Try smiling

Good advice is that, especially for us timid inhabitants of a (Much Less) Brave New World.