- ANZAC thoughts turn to Iraq -
25.04.2003 13:16:15
The ANZAC baton passed from the Gallipoli generation to a nation still at war,
as it has been for a quarter of the past century.
The resurgent ANZAC spirit was evident as over 100,000 Australians publicly commemorated the first ANZAC Day minus any of the "originals" who waded onto Turkish shores 88 years ago.
Uppermost in many minds were the 2,000 troops still serving in the war against Iraq.
Half are expected home within weeks.
Prime Minister John Howard said Australian troops in Iraq were part of a "great tradition of honourable service".
"They went in our names in a just cause to do good things, to liberate the (Iraqi) people," he said in Canberra.
Mercifully there has been no addition to the 100,000 Australian deaths in combat ranging from the Boer War through two world wars, Korea, Vietnam, Afghanistan and the Gulf twice.
But front-line troops were warned that despite the success of military action against Saddam Hussein`s regime, the task of ridding Australia from the threat of terrorism was far from over.
"Winning peace will in itself be difficult," said Defence Minister Robert Hill in a dawn address aboard HMAS Kanimbla in the Gulf.
"Although this new task will be shared by others in civil society, there will still be a role for the Australian Defence Force.
"The tasks will remain dangerous, but the potential benefits are great."
Australia remained a free and much envied society, Senator Hill said.
"It`s something worth celebrating; it`s what the ANZACs would wish."
Defence force chief Peter Cosgrove, also on board Kanimbla, said even soldiers at war remembered those who had gone before them on ANZAC Day, as he and his colleagues had in Vietnam.
At Gallipoli itself, Turkish authorities ensured security was at its tightest ever for a commemoration.
acknowledge:
by The Age
http://www.theage.com.au
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