The Anzac Day ceremony...


The Anzac Day ceremony of 25 April is rich in tradition and ritual. It is a form of military funeral and follows a particular pattern. The day's ceremonies have two major parts: one at dawn and another, more public event, later in the morning.



The dawn service





Sound: Anzac Day dawn service

A typical commemoration begins with a march by returned service personnel before dawn to the local war memorial. Military personnel and returned servicemen and women form up about the memorial, joined by other members of the community. Pride of place goes to war veterans.



A short service follows with a prayer, hymns (including Kipling's 'Recessional' or 'Lest we forget') and a dedication that concludes with the fourth verse of Laurence Binyon's For the Fallen:



They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:

Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning

We will remember them.



The last post is then played, and this is followed by a minute's silence and the reveille. A brief address follows, after which the hymn 'Recessional' is sung. The service concludes with a prayer and the singing of the national anthem.



The Anzac parade

Another ceremony takes place later on the morning of 25 April. Returned service personnel wear their medals and march behind banners and standards. The veterans are joined by other community groups, including members of the armed forces, the Red Cross, cadets, and veterans of other countries' forces.







Patea war memorial on Anzac Day

The march proceeds to the local war memorial. Another service takes place there, and various organisations and members of the public lay wreaths. This service is a more public commemoration than the dawn service. It is less intimate and less emotional. The speech, usually by a dignitary, serviceman or returned serviceman or woman, can stress nationhood and remembrance.



After these services many of the veterans retire to the local Returned and Services' Association (RSA) club or hotel, where they enjoy coffee and rum (in the case of the dawn service) and unwind after an emotionally and, for elderly veterans, physically exhausting event. At the end of the day, the ceremony of the retreat is performed.

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Anzac Day occurs on April 25 every year. It actually commemorates all New Zealanders and Australians killed in war and honours returned servicemen and women...

Anzac Day occurs on 25 April. It commemorates all New Zealanders and Australians killed in war and also honours returned servicemen and women.





Anzac art 1916



The date itself marks the anniversary of the landing of New Zealand and Australian soldiers – the Anzacs – on the Gallipoli Peninsula in 1915. The aim was to capture the Dardanelles, the gateway to the Bosphorus and the Black Sea. At the end of the campaign, Gallipoli was still held by its Turkish defenders.



Thousands lost their lives in the Gallipoli campaign: 87,000 Turks, 44,000 men from France and the British Empire, including 8500 Australians. To this day, Australia also marks the events of 25 April. Among the dead were 2721 New Zealanders, almost one in four of those who served on Gallipoli.



It may have led to a military defeat, but for many New Zealanders then and since, the Gallipoli landings meant the beginning of something else – a feeling that New Zealand had a role as a distinct nation, even as it fought on the other side of the world in the name of the British Empire.



Anzac Day was first marked in 1916. The day has gone through many changes since then. The ceremonies that are held at war memorials up and down New Zealand, or in places overseas where New Zealanders gather, remain rich in tradition and ritual befitting a military funeral.

http://www.nzhistory.net.nz/war/anzac-day/introduction

http://peter-petterson.blogspot.com/

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Aussies slam a 25% increase on cigarettes a day after NZ ...


Yesterday (on another site) I mentioned New Zealand had immediately imposed a 10% tax increase on cigarettes, with two further increases at Christmas over the next two years. Australia has imposed a 25% increase on cigarettes. A pack of 30's will increase byA$2.16 to A$15.00(NZ$19.00).



PM Kevin Rudd said many Australians had stockpiled cigarettes in anticipation of a price increase.



As I also mentioned yesterday tobacco companies will have to use plain packaging, after July1 2012.



Kevin Rudd also claimed the changes would cut (rather speculatively in my opinion) consumption by 6% and smoker numbers by 2.3%.



The extra A$5 billion over 4 years will be spent on public health and hospital reform.



While health groups support the changes, tobacco companies are preparing to challenge the changes.



A week after Anzac Day, it is great to see the two Anzac nations so firmly united in their determination to reduce smoking in Australia and New Zeaand and improve the health of their people.



Whether they will be successful is in the lap of the gods, but Kiwis and Aussies are pretty resourceful people and many would try and find ways around the price increases; by growing their own or obtaining cheaper supplies from overseas.

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Australians have paid tribute to the three Royal New Zealand Air Force personnel, killed when their Iroquois helicopter crashed north of Wellington...


The three pilots were remembered as part of Anzac Day commemorations in Hobart, Tasmania, yesterday.



Australian Peacekeeper and Peacemaker Veterans' Association of Tasmania, Phil Pyke, said many Australians had served alongside Flight Lieutenant Hayden Peter Madsen, who was one of those killed yesterday.



Mr Pyke said Mr Madsen served in the Solomon Islands as operations officer for the for the aviation group as part of the Joint Task Force.



"We remember their families and Squadron members at this difficult time," Mr Pyke said.



Australia Prime Minister Kevin Rudd said he was deeply saddened by the deaths, the Australian newspaper reported.



"I extend, on behalf of the Australian government and people, our condolences to the families of the victims, to the service men and women of the New Zealand Defence Forces, and to the government and people of New Zealand."







Mr Rudd said the date of the accident compounded the helicopter tragedy.



"This tragedy is an especially poignant reminder of the risks that our men and women in uniform continually face on behalf of our two nations and for our freedoms," he said.



Flight Lieutenant Madsen, 33, Flying Officer Daniel Stephen Gregory. 28 and Corporal Benjamin Andrew Carson, 25, were all killed when the Iroquois crashed into the side of a mountain while on their way to take part in Anzac commemorations in Wellington.



Their bodies were found by an Air Force crewman who ran 2km through steep and rugged uphill terrain to get to the mangled helicopter wreck.



The man was on board one of three Iroquois helicopters flying in formation from Ohakea air base to Anzac Day services in Wellington, when another of the aircraft crashed in heavy cloud, killing the three men shortly before 6am yesterday.



Another crewman survived and was last night in a stable condition in Wellington Hospital.



Several investigations have started into the tragedy, which came on the day New Zealand remembered those who gave their lives for their country.

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NEW ZEALAND ANZAC DAY DAWN SERVICES WELL ATTENDED...


April 25 2009:

New Zealand Anzac Day dawn services well-attended:

Thousands turn out for Anzac Day services; wet and windy at War Memorial Museum Auckland, fine in Wellington at Cenotaph.

Dawn services are underway throughout the country.

In Auckland, thousands of people have gathered at the War Memorial Museum on a wet and windy morning.

At the National Cenotaph in Wellington, it is a fine morning. Prime Minister John Key and other dignitaries are at the service.

In Christchurch, Dean Peter Beck is impressed by what he says is an ever-growing young crowd attending Anzac Day commemorations. Two services are being held in Cathedral Square. Nineteen services will be held in the region including at Akaroa, Diamond Harbour and Papanui.

Dean Beck says the number of people braving the dawn parade has been growing year by year.

"And it gets younger every year too. It's an extraordinary service really. Very, very moving indeed. But the real statement in that about a commitment of our people for a vision of the world of peace with justice."

Acknowledgements:
© 2009 NZCity, NewsTalk

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ANZAC DAY, APRIL 25, IS ONE OF AUSTRALIA AND NEW ZEALAND'S MOST IMPORTANT ANNIVERSARIES - IT COMMEMORATES THE LANDING AT ANZAC COVE AS PART OF THE GALLIPOLI CAMPAIGN...

First published at Qassia:

The Gallipoli campaign in World War One was part of the wider invasion of the Dardenelles by British and Empire troops against the Ottoman Turkish Empire to eventually capture Istanbul. For the troops from Australia and New Zealand in the "ANZAC" force, it was a form of baptism under fire and made an indelible impression on the psyche of Australians and New Zealanders for nearly a century later.

But first there was important business in Cairo to deal with: "THE BATTLE OF WAZZA"



The Battle of Wazza in Cairo in 1915 - and sex had a lot to do with it...

In 1915 the Anzac troops were training and resting in Egypt before moving towards the Dardenelles in Turkey and a date with destiny in Gallipoli and World War One history. These were mostly young men, some no more than boys, from the bush, towns and the cities in every state of Australia; and their New Zealand cousins over the Tasman Sea from the North Cape to the Bluff, the North, the South and Stewart Islands, from the countryside, the bush, the towns and the cities, Pakeha and Maori alike, even a few from Cook and Niue Islands as well. These were the Anzacs - the Australia New Zealand Army Corps. And history would, indeed, record and remember their deeds in coming months.

This is one of their stories: The Battle of Wazza.

The Anzacs had been stationed in Cairo in 1915 for a number of weeks leading up to the Gallipoli campaign. Suddenly one hot and dusty day they turned on some of their hosts, and rioted in one of Cairo's most notorious streets on which several handred Anzac troops set fire to brothels while hundreds of other troops looked on. In fact it has been recorded that over 3,000 Anzac troops rioted for three days throughout Cairo's red-light district burning and trashing dozens of these houses of ill-fame.

The actioned was allegedly precipitated by claims that alcohol supplies had been urinated in to make them go further. The difficulties in getting treatment for veneral disease probably didn't help the situation as well. Many troops had been left isolated from their comrades for days at a time in special compounds during this period.

An enquiry made later allegedly revealed that Kiwi troops were more heavily involved than their Aussie cousins. Perhaps it was the beginning of a century when New Zealanders were in the forefront of many campaigns involving social justice in a variety of theatres of action.

This riot, and the actual reasons which precipitated it, resulted in a New Zealand woman, Ettie Rout, setting up a social and sexual support service in Paris for Anzac soldiers on leave from the Western Front. She advocated the supply of condoms and antiseptic ointments to the troops, and the setting up of a safe sex brothel. She would be considered a 'saint' by the troops and the wickedest woman in Britain by a British Bishop. But this is another story for another time.

The Gallipoli Campaign