Along with Australia Day, Anzac Day is Australia's most significant and meaningful holiday. It is a day set aside to remember and honor our fallen servicemen and to celebrate the Anzac Spirit. ANZAC was the name given to the
Australian and
New
Zealand
Army
Corps soldiers who landed on the Gallipoli Peninsula in Turkey early on the morning of 25 April 1915 during the First World War (1914-1918). In the 9 months of this bitterly fought campaign more than 36,000 Commonwealth servicemen died.
From the
ANZAC Day Commemoration Committee (Queensland) website:
"Every nation must, sooner or later, come for the first time to a supreme test of quality; and the result of that test will hearten or dishearten those who come afterwards. For the fledgling nation of Australia that first supreme test was at Gallipoli."
You might have seen the movie
Gallipoli which launched Mel Gibson onto the world stage. I think the above quote pretty much describes that movie's message. It left an indelible impact on me, as no schoolroom history lesson or previous war movie had done. Suddenly this war had a human face.
Have you seen a movie based on a real event in history that has changed your view and made the event more vivid and/or human?
posted by Bronwyn Jameson @ 10:05 PM
