WW-1
Great uncle Frank was an eager 19 year-old that signed up very early in the war. He was amongst the first wave that stormed ashore at ANZAC cove on the Dardenelles under intense gun fire from the Turkish positions on the cliffs. Somehow he survived that campaign and was amongst the final withdrawal. From there he was shipped to France and battled the bombardments, mustard gas and mud and snow of a couple of winters on the western front. Just two weeks before the end of the war, after almost 4 years of constant fighting, he was in a group that had a direct hit from a grenade and died instantly.
His older brother Bill was a more cautious, serious man, and signed up a year later. After achieving the rank of Sgt. Major in a training unit, he too got posted to the French western front. Again, during the last months of the war, he was out on patrol behind enemy lines, when he was hit in the leg by sniper fire. Unable to walk, he lay there not knowing his fate. Just before dawn, four German soldiers came up to him, picked him up and started carrying him toward the allied lines - there were deserting. They reached a village just as it came under German bombardment. They dropped Bill in a ditch and took cover themselves. One of his rescuers was killed. After they reached safety, Bill was repatriated to an English hospital, where his leg had to be amputated. I can just barely remember Uncle Bill, 35 years later in the early '50s, hobbling around with his crutch and empty trouser leg pinned up, a very sad TPI veteran.
WW2
My father was a quiet, thoughtful man. On enlistment, he was assigned to a field ambulance unit. But due to some bureaucratic mess-up, he ended up as a first-aid officer at a Brisbane enlistment unit, treating sunburn and blisters. But as the war in New Guinea progressed, he was transferred to the Army Hospital in Townsville. Here he attended the severely wounded evacuated from the fetid jungles of Kokoda and Lea etc. Apart from the variety of injuries, the constant was the dengy fever, the shitty dysentery and the night sweats and delirium of malaria. All too often he told me, after patching someone up and sending them back, in a month or two, they saw the same men back again. The "lucky" ones got sent home sans leg, arm or eye.
Lest we forget, not just those that paid the ultimate price, but the broken survivors that returned.
WW-Covid
But the world is at war again, this time against an unseen enemy, the Covid-19 virus. There is no separation of soldier and civilian, we are all conscripted. But if Covid is to be defeated, we must have the discipline of soldiers. Could you imagine the soldiers on the Western Front, refusing to put masks on when the clouds of mustard gas swept across the battlefields, claiming it was their 'human right' to do what they like and not mask-up?
In "Free at Last - Covid 2nd Wave Crushed", I wrote of how Australia has fought this virus with fantastic results. After over 3 months of severe lock-down, the city of Melbourne (pop. 5M) has reached 13 days straight of ZERO new cases and ZERO deaths. Empty Covid hospital wards are being closed down. We are carefully opening up to a new Covid-normal.
In the "Land of the free", all too many interpret this to mean "The Land of the ME!". The freedom we have due to the sacrifice of our soldiers in two world wars, is a freedom from foreign interference, a freedom to govern ourselves. But self government requires civil responsibility and the discipline to abide by the laws made by our majority-appointed governments. Like our soldiers, disciplined responsibility to each other must take precedence over personal "Rights".
