Hall-Reppens in Singapore: ANZAC Day in Sydney

Thursday was ANZAC Day. ANZAC means Australia and New Zealand Army Corp. On April 25, 1915, those troops landed at Gallipoli, in an effort to capture that peninsula, and open the Dardanelles to the Allied Navies. Those troops were met with fierce Turkish resistance, leading to an 8-month stalemate, in which 8,000 Australian soldiers died. This loss of life made a profound impact back in Australia, and ANZAC Day was marked from April 25, 1916 onward, as a day to remember the soldiers that lost their lives defending their country.

I started noticing signs indicating street closures on April 25th soon after we arrived. I stopped a gentleman on his way to work one day, and he told me that it was ANZAC Day, a National Holiday, with a parade, and many of the shops would be closed. As we were eating lunch on Wednesday, we started people in full military dress, with chests full of medals. As I was getting ready on Thursday morning, I was hearing music. I looked out the window and the parade was going right past our hotel. As Erin was still asleep, I raced down to the entrance to see the parade.

There was a huge crowd, with Australian Flags everywhere, and people cheering for each entry. Every type of soldier and sailor had an entry in the parade. And, there were bands between each entry. After watching the parade for about an hour, I got a text from Erin, asking where I was. I told her that I was downstairs watching the parade, and she asked me to get her an Australian flag. As 2 men were leaving with their children, I asked if I could buy one of their flags from them. They gave one to me, and said they were leaving anyway, and they didn't need all of them. I went upstairs, had more coffee, watched the parade some more, and waited for Erin to finish getting ready. We finally left our room at about 11:30, after the parade had been going on for 2 1/2 hours. We were heading to the Sydney Harbor Bridge, and had to take a detour to get around the parade. There were still many entries waiting their turn to get into the parade. We walked past the War Memorial, with many flowers around it, and the staging area happened just past the Memorial. Entries came from 3 different directions, with the bands going straight back from the Memorial, and Battalions coming from either side. This was definitely the longest parade I had ever seen - and I've been to 6 Parades of Roses!! And, we have never seen so many medals! I watched an older gentleman with a tupperware container full of medals. He gave each of his 6 grandchildren a strip of the larger medals, and kept a strip of the smaller medals for himself. Erin called it the Oprah style of distributing medals; "Here's a medal for you, and here's a medal for you. You get a medal and you get a medal. Everybody gets a medal!"

As we passed the parade route area, we started noticing the bars filling with the recent parade participants. Many of the people were dressed up, and everybody was enjoying themselves greatly. It was kind of like being in Wrigleyville on Opening Day, with even more bars. Erin said that it was similar to going to the first SEC Football game of the year, because people would get all dressed up. She had a friend at Disney who had to get a new dress to go to the first football game of the season. We kept hearing cheers going up from the bar crowds, and Rich told us later that an Aussie that he met that day told him that they play a coin toss game with 3 coins, and that's what the cheering was about. The bars just kept getting fuller with lots of happy, cheering people, and a noticeable police presence.

It was definitely a fun and festive day. I thought about the troops back in the United States. I think of the soldiers that fought in unpopular wars, and wondered if they would benefit from this type of military love fest. Maybe this is something we could adopt from the Australians...