Commentary
Another ANZAC Day (April 25) already fades into memory as I contemplate its powerful influence not only on our Australian history but on a much broader stage.
When I was a boy in the late 1950s and early 1960s, I used to watch the Sydney parade every year, from start to finish.
I must have been an odd sort of kid because I always found it intensely moving. Men and women in their tens of thousands from World War II dominated the day—they were still in the prime of life, a few even then in their 30s.
There was also a solid contingent of World War I men, too, getting on in years, of course, but still fairly vigorous. And there were also touchingly small groups of very old men who had served in the Boer War (1899-1902)….