Today is the official day of military remembrance in New Zealand.
(Brought to you by Quake II in video game as you can see in the photo)
Most of the old soldiers are long dead, and the traditional dawn ceremony attendees are politicians and points scoring people who want to post on social media that they were there.
The date used for it is the anniversary of the day Australian and New Zealand soldiers invaded the Dardanelles in Turkey during WW1. This is an absolutely iconic formative event in our history, the first time NZ as a country had stepped out of being a frontier English colony cutting down trees and making farmland, and went to act in something else overseas.
Every year there's a huge memorial day event at the beach in Turkey where they attacked, hoardes of aussie and NZ tourists turn up to celebrate the invasion, and the months of pointless slaughter before we quit and withdrew. I'm surprised the Turkish locals tolerate it TBH. But then, after the war Kemal Ataturk gave a very moving speech about "your sons now lie in the ground of a friendly country, therefore, may they rest in peace" which New Zealanders seem to take as total moral absolution. I guess Turkey is a grown-up country with a long history and a bit more perspective than what we have?
(As an Anglo colony we are a pretty covert racist society even in this cucked PC Era, and I bet if WW2 Japanese had landed here and killed a lot of people in fighting, we wouldn't tolerate a Japanese memorial day here.)
I continued my family tradition of NOT getting up at sparrow's fart for the dawn parade... My mother's father was in Africa in WW2 fighting against the Afrika corps, and he never went to the memorial ceremonies, never got his old medals out or talked about anything he did. So we took our cue from him, that a bunch of normies acting all faux solemn and patriotic for an hour a year is cringe AF, stay away.
So I took a drive out of town and took my dog for a walk by this lake instead. It was super peaceful, there were no couples, foids or children in attendance. It really felt good to be alive. Thanks, granddad, for not getting shot by Rommell.
I see you getting ready to write TL/DR. IDGAF.
(Brought to you by Quake II in video game as you can see in the photo)
Most of the old soldiers are long dead, and the traditional dawn ceremony attendees are politicians and points scoring people who want to post on social media that they were there.
The date used for it is the anniversary of the day Australian and New Zealand soldiers invaded the Dardanelles in Turkey during WW1. This is an absolutely iconic formative event in our history, the first time NZ as a country had stepped out of being a frontier English colony cutting down trees and making farmland, and went to act in something else overseas.
Every year there's a huge memorial day event at the beach in Turkey where they attacked, hoardes of aussie and NZ tourists turn up to celebrate the invasion, and the months of pointless slaughter before we quit and withdrew. I'm surprised the Turkish locals tolerate it TBH. But then, after the war Kemal Ataturk gave a very moving speech about "your sons now lie in the ground of a friendly country, therefore, may they rest in peace" which New Zealanders seem to take as total moral absolution. I guess Turkey is a grown-up country with a long history and a bit more perspective than what we have?
(As an Anglo colony we are a pretty covert racist society even in this cucked PC Era, and I bet if WW2 Japanese had landed here and killed a lot of people in fighting, we wouldn't tolerate a Japanese memorial day here.)
I continued my family tradition of NOT getting up at sparrow's fart for the dawn parade... My mother's father was in Africa in WW2 fighting against the Afrika corps, and he never went to the memorial ceremonies, never got his old medals out or talked about anything he did. So we took our cue from him, that a bunch of normies acting all faux solemn and patriotic for an hour a year is cringe AF, stay away.
So I took a drive out of town and took my dog for a walk by this lake instead. It was super peaceful, there were no couples, foids or children in attendance. It really felt good to be alive. Thanks, granddad, for not getting shot by Rommell.
I see you getting ready to write TL/DR. IDGAF.
Last edited:
