Remembrance Day

In my normal check of the days comings and goings, I read this article on Remembrance Day.

Now for those that are close friends you'll know that my birthday is 11 November and just so happens that I share my birthday with Remembrance Day (as well as some other very cool people I know and love too).

But I also share a name and a symbol of Remembrance Day too, which to note my parents weren't really thinking about when I was named. The story is that they didn't realise the meaning of my first name until someone mentioned the correlation a while afterwards. I'll give my parents time off for good behaviour for this slip as it was the end of college for them as well as my coming into the world at large, for something like this to have slipped their mind.

The article noted that it was a pity that Remembrance Day wasn't held in the same regard as ANZAC Day is held but rightly put by a commentator noted later that ANZAC Day is something is unique to Australia and New Zealand. It's a celebration of not only the fallen but of a disaster that showed the old country that the new countries were somebody and that we didn't need the old country to be true to who we are as a country.

Don't get me wrong, I am one of the generation that had no direct family member who was in the WWI and so have only heard the stories second hand of this conflict and since then none of my family have served. The stories that my Great Grandfather told to the family about it and how he celebrated it as much as remember those who he had served with during that time.

I can even now hear my Grams say "the best of them never came home", when she was talking the men that served in WWII. I think that says more about the true story of who Aussies are when we going into battle, whether or not that battle is in a foreign land or here at home.

Remembrance Day may never hold Australia like ANZAC Day does but it is a day we need to remember those went and never came home as well as those who did. The thing that I remember most is those that are serving right now around the world.

In the years to come, we will celebrate ANZAC Day and Remembrance Day more and more; there are more men and women who will need to remembered, the stories will be continued to told.

“They will not go old”