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When I feel sick or down in the dumps, I try and distract myself with something that is uplifting and cheerful As William Shakespeare said so eloquently in " The Tempest " Misery makes strange bedfellows. "
My old Gran used to tell me that misery loves company - in other words, don't feel sorry for yourself or you will end up surrounded by people and thoughts who make you feel even worse.
And so it does. If you feel miserable, it is often tempting to wallow in self pity and surround yourself with those who feel as shitty as you do. But often, you can find yourself in the company of people or thoughts that are in themselves the opposite to your frame of mind or circumstance.
" Alas, the storm is come again! my best way is to creep under his gaberdine; there is no other shelter hereabouts: misery acquaints a man with strange bed-fellows. I will here shroud till the dregs of the storm be past. "
And so I turned my mind to something, somewhere , someone who could distract me until the storm passes and I feel more human again. I needed to seek the company of positivity when I am so tempted to feel downright miserable.
And I came up with just the right tonic.
Read more: Misery loves company and often makes strange bedfellows
Ming The Merciless was a nick name given to one of our most outstanding Australian military commanders of WW2.
His name was Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead. He was the Commanding Officer of the 9th Division of the 2nd AIF, Commander of the garrison of Tobruk during its period under siege from April to December, 1941, the chief Rat of Tobruk one might say, and still in command when the 9th got around the German defences to break the deadlock in the Battle of El Alamein in October, 1942.
He has been rightly described as “The Hero of Tobruk and Alamein”
His greatest achievements were against the German General Erwin Rommel, known as The Desert Fox but Morshead outfoxed him at every throw of the dice.
Read more: MING THE MERCILESS - Lieutenant-General Sir Leslie Morshead - a military hero
We have just enjoyed an enormously successful month and our heartfelt thanks must go out to the posters that contributed to our Military Memory Month in the lead up to ANZAC Day.
As a site devoted to all things patriotic, I wanted to share my hopes and visions for our future and seek your feedback on what we hope to achieve.
What is Patriotism?
The Biden-Boris green virus which infects most of the west has become a danger to Australia. PM Morrison has promised one billion dollars for “hydrogen, CCUS (carbon capture usage or storage), batteries and critical minerals - all to achieve “net zero”.
NOT ONE of these green dreams will produce one light-bulb of new energy – all will consume massive amounts of energy and money.
It is the 25th April, and a German man and his wife from Munich are taking a motoring holiday to the South of France. They pass through the northern French city of Amiens. They observe much gaiety among the populace and are wondering what it is all about.
They pass through the city and 15kms down the road they approach a small town. On the outskirts, they pass a cemetery which has a sign “Adelaide Cemetery”.
Says the man, " that is not a French name. What does it mean? "
Read more: The 25th of April - from the Somme to Sydney, it is still ANZAC Day
ANZAC Day has been sabotaged. Yet again. This time by quotas. Registrations and redtape.
I remember when it was a simple display of heartfelt patriotism and a love of the men and women who fell in service to our Nation.
I remember when it was about standing at dawn on the morning of 25 April and honouring all those who fell because they were patriots. They fell for our way of life and our belief in freedom.
Now we are being asked in many parts of Australia to register to honour our dead. Register? What idiocy is this?
Read more: I remember when... I first experienced the ANZAC tradition
Sydneys III, IV and V did not get the opportunity to show their true mettle as did numbers I and II. After 1945 there were no more “real” wars that involved our country. There were UN peacekeeping operations and participation in conflicts undertaken by the Coalition of the Willing. Korea was officially dubbed a UN peacekeeping operation. Vietnam was a war between North & South Vietnam where our role was to support an ally, the USA in flushing out the Viet Cong.
Nevertheless to those who were taking part the bullets, bombs and shells were real and lethal regardless of the handle given to the conflict and whenever the call went out to give support to our allies our response as always was “Australia will be there!”
I dedicate this article to the women who fought, died and tragically were lost. Alongside the brave men who did the same. I dedicate it to the women who kept the wheels turning on the farms and in the mines and in the factories and in the family homes.
There is great equality in life and in death. But nowhere as great as in the love we feel in our hearts.
Read more: Women at War and the women who kept the homefires burning
Over the past month, we have been reading articles from Happy Expat about our boys on the frontline. I have to hand it to him. It made me start to think again.
The journey down the path of a road we never knew we wanted to explore but found ourselves walking down nonetheless. We have marched side by side through the swamps and quagmires of our wartorn past and felt the bite of a thousand mosquitoes; dysentery and malnutrition. And these days, all we do is view it from the comfort of our heated or air-conditioned homes as part of a news story.
And we say, almost with an automatic response, Lest We Forget. Are we saying this because it rolls off the tongue? No meaning? Have we forgotten what these brave people did?
The Scrap Iron Flotilla was an Australian destroyer group that operated in the Mediterranean during WW2.
Its story is synonymous with the Rats of Tobruk. It was the means of supply to the beleaguered town under siege between 10th April, 1941 and 7th December, 1941.
Its name was conferred on it by Dr.Goebbels, the German propaganda minister intending to demean and undermine morale of the five Australian ships that made up the flotilla. As happened with the conferring of the name “Rats of Tobruk” on the garrison troops by Lord Haw Haw, instead of depressing morale it spurred them to greater acts of defiance. Neither understood the make-up of the Australian character.
Read more: The Scrap Iron Flotilla - a tale of the great Aussie Spirit
I would venture to say that the two most famous and well known phrases of our military history are “Gallipoli” and “The Rats of Tobruk”. One was a magnificent defeat. The other was a magnificent triumph.
Field Marshall Sir William Slim, 13th Governor General of Australia and at the time, General commanding the 14th Army said after the triumph over the Japanese at Milne Bay that “…..Some of us may forget that, of all the Allies, it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the Japanese army and it was the Australians who first broke the invincibility of the German army.”
In speaking of the defeat of the German Army he was speaking about Tobruk.
Read more: Our Rats of Tobruk - the faces of unlikely heroes
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