ANZAC Day

Today was the first time I've really discussed ANZAC Day in depth with Shmoo and Loo. It's the first time I've felt that Shmoo would be able to grasp the meaning behind it all.

We had quite a few good discussions about it throughout the day, covering lots of topics including what the acronym stands for; the meaning of corps vs. corpse; what 'war' is; World War 1 and World War 2; conscription; the events of April 25th 1915; what it might have been like to be in the trenches and how the soldiers would be deeply affected by what they saw; what ANZAC Day represents for Australians in modern times; and the traditions of the day.

Shmoo was trying to understand the reasons why countries go to war (personally, I think that a lot of the time it boils down to the same reasons why a 6yo gives his 5yo brother a blood nose by whacking him with a vacuum 8-| ) I used analogies to explain some of the reasons why wars are started. One of the examples I gave him was of a hypothetical situation in which a group of people decided that they wanted our house and that they would just walk up and take it, any way they could. We would, of course, try to do whatever we could to stop them. Shmoo pondered this for a few seconds and then looked at me, confused, "But where would they take our house? How would they move it?" :)) There's that very literal ASD thinking again!

We read a library book together about Gallipoli. The boys were fascinated by the pictures of the soldiers holding their bayonets; the photos of the boats landing at the cove; the story of Simpson and his donkey. Shmoo couldn't understand the picture of the ANZACs helping the wounded Turkish soldier. I tried to explain but he couldn't get past the fact that they'd been trying to kill each other and now they were helping him.

Shmoo loved listening to a few pieces of music that are traditionally played during commemorative ceremonies, and he listened to them 4-5 times each... The Last Post, The Rouse; Reveille; and the Australian national anthem. He was quite curious about the bugle.

In the evening the boys got to watch part of the live broadcast of the Lone Pine service. They were pretty excited to be able to recognise the bugle calls!