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I grew up in a small rural community in the hills of New Zealand. My early life was shrouded in mist and the ever-present wind that pummeled our hilltop community and we loved every wet windy second. So much so that even today, all these decades later, my definition of a perfect day is a misty drizzly soggy one where I can snuggle down and take life off the hook and feel perfectly justified in being a sloth.
As kids, we roamed the paddocks, built campfires and fought incredible wars.
Read more: Trench Warfare, Rifles, Rice and Pinecones
It was about 30 years ago when I was living in a tiny town in the Channel Country. It was a Sunday morning and I got a phone call from a hospital about 14 hours away. My daughter was in their care and suffering from a particularly nasty viral infection in her lungs. Could I perhaps come as soon as possible?
I spoke with my husband and he said that there was a shortcut through some backcountry that could shave about 3 hours off my trip. But there was no diesel on that road so he filled a drum up with fuel and told me to stop at a place about halfway through. There was a Police Station and a pub and the local cop would help syphon the juice from the drum and that would see me safely through.
Read more: I remember........when I crossed the Great Divide
Banjo Paterson is the giant of Australian literature and folk law. His exploits in this field are so extensively well documented that I would not presume to add to them.
What is less well known is his contribution to the war effort in WW1 and to a much lesser extent The Boer War. His contribution to the successes of the Light Horse brigades was outstanding.
Over the years, I have witnessed the decline of community standards when it comes to tolerance of the intolerable. The acceptance of the unacceptable and the selective honesty when it comes to judging our community outrage. … depending on the colour of our skin or the organs that lie between our legs or the age of the person whose body they are attached to.
Read more: Is it time to get out of our trenches and go over the top and fight?
Natural flood plains form where floods spread silt and mud in river valleys. Being flat, fertile, picturesque and usually supplied with surface and underground water, they attract farms, orchards and gardens. These are inevitably followed by roads, houses and businesses.
In deference to our New Zealand brothers I thought it would be fair to do an item about them rather than make this series of contributions an exclusively Australian affair and recognise the NZ part of the ANZAC legend.
The River Plate (Rio de la Plata) separates Argentina and Uruguay.
In 1939 it was the scene of one of the most dramatic naval battles of the war and has been the subject of a movie of the same name.
Last week has seen the conversation surrounding the need for a Royal Commission into Veteran suicide come to a head. With a unanimous vote in the Senate, the nation is now set to watch this Monday, March 22nd, with the expectation that it will also pass the Lower House.
For too long now, this debate has been dragging on, inflicting further insult to the moral injury that has been plaguing the Veteran community for decades. While politicians continue to argue which party has the better policy, Australian Veterans of all generations have continued to suffer from the inaction and failed understanding of the key issues at hand.
As NSW and southern Queensland are being rained out, flooded out, and emotionally wrung out, the Governments and bureaucrats are hanging Australia out to dry albeit with soggy feet, destroyed lives and submerged under a sea of despair.
The story I am about to relate to you is one which will be vaguely familiar to some, the detail unknown to almost all. Australia’s contribution to the defense of the Empire in the very early days of WW1 is barely recognised and never acknowledged such was the extent to which we were taken for granted by Britain.
In my posting of The First Angry Shot I described the German strategy known as The Schlieffen Plan and its Pacific and Far East Asian Empire. It is suffice to say that Germany was very well prepared for WW1. If it had not been triggered by the assassination of Franz Ferdinand, the Grand Duke of Austria and his wife, then I am sure that some other cause or incident would have taken its place.
We have so many Veterans taking their own lives and disappearing into a sea of despair, that I have to wonder if there is an answer that is right in front of our noses?
Recently, it was World K9 Day: the day that the world is supposed to celebrate the gift of loyalty and dedication that our four-legged friends have given to our Military men and women. Our canine friends have fought beside us and stood beside us and comforted us in times of trouble and we are increasingly, as a species, forgetting their dedication and love and consigning them into the same bin that we place our unborn children.
We are reading more and more stories of heartbroken and dispirited Veterans who are taking their own lives.
After so many decades of service to us, surely we should recognise the role these quiet companions play in a world post-war? Are dogs the answer to the pandemic of Veteran suicides confronting our Nations?
Read more: K9 Veteran's Day - is it time for our best friends to become our BEST friends again?
As a child, we spent our Christmas holidays at a remote coastal sheep farm, The car would be loaded up with camping gear and we would head off on the long drive to spend 2 weeks of fishing, mucking around in the shearing shed, hiking across the paddocks and exploring the rock pools at low tide. Our Aunts and Uncles would already be there and our cousins would be smug that they had already scanned out the best places to build forts, swim and generally get into mischief.
Read more: I remember when I learned that memories are a precious gift
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Conservative opinions by PatriotrealmCC BY-ND 4.0
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