Tim O'Dwyer's article certainly is testament to Napier Waller having single-handedly succeeded as an artist: if the principal purpose of art is to make one think, there is not much doubt that it has made Tim think.

Click the crimson text link 'airman' in the fifth paragraph of the article. The image given calls to mind an account I read some time ago, but to which I have lost the reference.

Tim speculates as to the artist's airman's location being the bomb-damaged Cologne cathedral. Perhaps it was. Or perhaps it could have been a church in Kleve? A quick Google search turned up this site: http://72.14.235.132/search?q=cache:funXz0p4EEAJ:www.stmaryswoodford.org.uk/magazines/summermagazine2007.pdf+Bombed+Kleve+cathedral&cd=8&hl=en&ct=clnk&gl=au . The relevant item commences on page 12 of the HTML version, on the third line from the top. Although the airman of this particular account was English, not Australian, many Australians served as RAF aircrew in WW2, and the circumstances and experiences encountered would have been similar for all.

The linked account is not the exact one I once read, but I am sure it refers to the same person and event. Not recorded in the linked account, but from memory, I recall a superb example of diplomatic understatement: when asked, some time after the war by a German resident, whether he (the airman) had ever seen Kleve before, the reply was to the effect of "Only once. From the air.".

Australians killed in action in WW2 numbered approximately half of those KIA in WW1. Of that total, 1 in 4 died as aircrew in the skies over north-west Europe. One can only speculate as to whether there had arisen a determination on the part of WW2 enlistees, perhaps as a result of the counsel of their elders, to serve where they could hit back to greatest effect, and not drown in mud.

Perhaps the look on Waller's airman reflects the artist's inner conflicts with respect to any counsel of his own given as a returned 1st AIF serviceman: in effect, "how did it come to all this?".

For another account: http://www.theaucklander.co.nz/hardquestion/story.cfm?storyID=3791789

reflect on this how come kids have to die for us

WHO IS THIS US that they need to die for us

i thought jesus died for us
but no i get it
your grand father died for us
no your grandfather died as a kid

because some clever banker wanted to take over some euro kings cartel to create their own cartel

200 million died for that [us] last century alone
soon one third of us going to die for the same blood thirsty cartel

lets get over the need to have people die for us
and have people live for a change

enough of this dying ccc-rap allready
how many dead do you need to die for you?

call a spade a spade
[stop shoveling this dying for us cccrap]

wake up your dying for them not us

This ANZAC day give a thought to the victims of Australia's first war overseas: the Boer War.

"The English term "concentration camp" was first used to describe camps operated by the British in South Africa during this conflict." After Britain, "Australia provided the largest number of troops followed by Canada.

ANZACs, defenders of freedom or bemedalled killers for a dying empire?

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Second_Boer_War#Australia

Remember them, and remember, no more war.

Bravo to OUG's call on the "they died for us" stuff. The entire ANZAC commemorative cult reinforces - repeatedly - a depoliticizing firewall. With that firewall in place, Australians are forbidden implicitly from questioning the barbaric imperialist politics that caused Australia's involvement. Such same enforced ignorance prevents Australians from considering the British Empire's major achievement of the (latest) Afghanistan War i.e., the safeguarding of the enormously increased opium production in the UK-Aus-Can-Dutch occupied southern Afghan provinces.

Behind the firewall, the mysticism of ANZAC now depends on an overdose of pathos; militarist and even national (much less British imperial) symbols all shuffle away discreetly, as if hiding from public view, afraid that Australians may see all the ghastly incongruities of their dubious achievement. Even the macho cult makes only token appearance, as in the increasingly hyped Anzac Day football match at the MCG - probably a more popular event after WW1's leg amputees died off in greater numbers.

As I stated elsewhere here (http://forum.onlineopinion.com.au/thread.asp?article=8819), Australia was on the wrong side in WW1. The embargoes, blockades, alliances, and gunboat extortionism before WW1 all compelled the central Europeans and Turks into a war for survival. The British Empire's sadistic treatment of the defeated (Germany in particular) gave the strongest impetus towards that country's later fascist imitation of the same brutal sadism and racism.

Australia was an unthinking, gullible lackey in the whole enterprise. ANZAC mythology now perpetuates such a condition, holding us back still from realizing our independence.

And forget the PC, metrosexual anti-war sentimentality: the virtues of combat can still be considered virtues because they are essential to defeating such plagues as imperialism, fascism, and racism. Consider the celebrations of independence wars in former colonies. Sadly, Australia does not yet fit such a definition.

'Let us be moved not only by the remembrance of war-time killing and suffering but also, …by war-time "destruction of beauty and human ideals".'

We'll have much more to remember quite soon. It looks as if the government is planning to increase the size of the Australian contingent in Afghanistan.

See: http://www.abc.net.au/news/stories/2009/04/26/2552712.htm?section=world

And Australians have allegedly inflicted a "major blow" on the Taliban.

See:

http://australianetworknews.com/stories/200904/2552653.htm?desktop

Quote:

"The Taliban made their stand in a mud walled house. But an American warplane destroyed it with a 500 pound bomb."

Meanwhile the Taliban are inflicting a few "major blows" of their own – mainly on Pakistani civilians.

See:

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/26/world/asia/26buner.html?em

For an insight into what the Taliban insurgency is doing to the Pakistani civilian population listen to this BBC podcast.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p002rs6w

If the Taliban do manage to seize Pakistan's nukes those of us who survive will have quite a bit of remembering to do.

Meanwhile the government is reportedly planning the biggest build up of Australia's armed forces since World War 2. See:

http://www.news.com.au/couriermail/story/0,23739,25383845-953,00.html

Quote:

"The multi-billion-dollar investment in maritime defence, including the F-35 stealth plane, a doubling of the submarine fleet, and powerful new surface warships."

Looks as if the market for war memorials and rememberances is about to enter a bull phase.

As a small isolated nation in a turbulent region whose main ally is looking a bit shop worn Australia is going to need a lot more bang for its buck than conventional weapons can deliver. My guess is that Australia will become a "virtual nuclear power" like Japan. We won't have the bomb but we'll have the capability of developing and deploying nukes fast should the need arise. "Fast" in this context means with a 2 year lead time.