There is a point in everyone’s almanac where they admit defeat on summer’s behalf and embrace winter. The scarves and jackets are retrieved from the cupboard above the wardrobe, and the Havianas and shorts are packed away with longing thoughts of sunny days to come.

Personally, I have been able to put a date to this seasonal calorific transition for many a year: the 25th of April. On every other day I am happy to let dawn and all its glory wash over me from the comfort of a deep sleep, every year on ANZAC day however, I have beaten the sun to the starting point of its daily march and made my way to the dawn service.

Whether it be borne out of a somewhat traditionalist heart or memories and values instilled by a brief career in the services, for as long as I can remember, I have felt the need to pay my respects to those who have laid down their lives and put themselves in harms way for a greater cause at this sombre annual requiem.

More often than not in recent years, my venue for this annual pilgrimage has been the Shrine of Remembrance, and I have often been moved by the symbolic juxtaposition of thousands of people pouring out of the trams at the Domain interchange and storming up the hill to the shine for the service. It seems a fitting homage to the young diggers who, many years before, had undertaken a similar task, to different end, that very morning.

For several years, I have fondly noted that the size of the crowd around me at the dawn service each year was growing. As the ranks of diggers had steadily thinned, and eventually marched on, I was filled with pride that a younger generation had, for whatever their personal reasons, stood together and ensured that they would be remembered and their story told. Each year seemed to bring more and more, and I felt a sting of pride that so many people didn’t need to debate the rights and wrongs of what had happened, or been personally involved, they just fronted up, stood in silence, bowed their heads and pondered. For a man who loves his sleep, and is generally convinced that five in the morning is a time to be getting home, not leaving it, it helps to ensure that ANZAC day remains one of my favourite days of the year.

You see, for a while now, I have also witnessed with dismay the growing tide of folk seemingly intent on tearing at the fabric of my favourite day of the year. Every year, a couple of weeks before ANZAC day, I wait for it to start. Generally it begins with someone kicking the sleeping dog that is the flag/republic/national service debate and a bunch of ‘well informed’ people take to their sides of the fence and commence slinging poo. Now, that’s all fine, in fact, I love the fact that we can have a good healthy public debate about almost anything in this country, but there’s always someone who sparks up with “It’s what our diggers fought and died for.” It’s at this point that I get a little shitty. You see, the things that our diggers did (and do) fight and die for are the protection of our citizens, our sovereign territory and national interests and the rights and welfare of global citizens who find them denied.

Before you start shouting at me about Iraq and Vietnam and whatever else, I know, we don’t always get it right. But that’s the point of ANZAC day, our fighting men and women don’t sit back and debate the merits or otherwise of the cause they have been given, they just go. They mount up, man their pits, fight and sometimes die. No questions asked, no thanks sought, no quarter given. The reasons for their being there are not pondered beyond tired conversations in the mess. The Government decides, the General orders, they do.

In reality, the rights and wrongs are up for us to decide in the elected officials we install to make the choices that guide our nation, a point in itself very worthwhile debate but which would take me well beyond the page limit of this fine edition.

My point is though, that you will be hard pressed to find any current or past serving member who went to war to fight, specifically, for our flag, our Queen or our national anthem. Personally, I like our flag, I think the fact that it contains another nations emblem speaks much more about our acknowledgment of the past than it diminishes our national identity. But the tired old argument that it shouldn’t be changed because the ANZACs marched under it overly trivialises the debate, not to mention the sacrifices, that these brave souls made.

Likewise the republic: The natural urge to have a head of state that was born on these shores and emancipate ourselves from the rule of a foreign monarch is hard to argue with. At the same time, retaining the membership of a Commonwealth that binds nations to an international set of rights and responsibilities based on common heritage is entirely understandable and plausible. However, to say that the ANZAC spirit lives and dies on one side of the fence is offensive to both the debate and the legacy.

I’m fairly certain that any digger past or present would prefer be seen to fighting for the Australian public’s right to undertake in such a conversation, and not as endorsing a particular side of the debate. The national identity debate is a lively and worthwhile one, but invoking the spirit of our fallen diggers to score cheap points on either side of it pisses me off.

Nationalism is like uranium, used properly, it can be the catalyst for incredible good, but when used ignorantly, naively or maliciously it can be the basis of one of the most destructive forces known to man.

Unfortunately nationalistic ideals are often closely linked with the military. This tends to lead people to the assumption that our fighting men and women endorse some sort of nationalistic fervour, hell bent on ramming the postcard notion of Australia down the world’s throat. I firmly believe that the much overused notion of “the ANZAC spirit” does exist, but it has nothing to do with flags, Queens, white Australians, national anthems, getting boozed up or screaming “Aussie, Aussie, Aussie” at any sod who hasn’t yet figured out that you’re a pissed dickhead from below the equator. Think back to the actuality of what happened just before dawn on the 25th of April 1915 at Gallipoli Cove in Turkey. Thousands of young men from the world’s newest country huddled together in barely seaworthy landing craft, shitting themselves, covered in freezing sea spray in the predawn light. Within the hour they would be storming a cliff, in a war not of their making, for reasons they knew scant about, with hell raining down on them. Call it trite, but I don’t care, I think the ANZAC spirit, as defined by the beach sprint champions of 1915 has a lot more to do with courage, hope, mates and pride. These notions are worth remembering, and that’s what I’ll be doing come 0530 on the 25th of April from here on in.

And at the R.S.L Club later that day, I won’t be invoking their spirit to make a point about something as silly as patriotism; I’ll be holding a beer, talking some shit and having a laugh.

I think that’s what they would have wanted.

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