School Stuffs and Feelings

[Ranger of the North]

[Ranger of the North]

I walked through the door of Te Papa feeling excited.

My family and I were going to see the Gallipoli exhibit, and I had been reading a book about the Anzacs on that shore. The book highlighted how terrible it was living in the trenches, and though I tried I didn't understand.

It would've been amazing fighting for king and country! Knowing that the people they were fighting were intent on killing their families and being able to destroy the threat! I thought. I needed a reality check, and I knew it.

I stepped through the entrance into a dark room. Two lights shone upon a tragic scene. A medic, crouched above a comrade he had been unable to save. A blood stained the sheet spread across the sad, still form.

Anguish was in the remaining soldier's eyes.
Loss.
Hopelessness.

Another one, they said. Another mate gone. How many more will follow after?

There was my reality check.
I had seen it with my own eyes: men died during war.

I guess I had wanted their life. I don't now.

Now I'm filled with amazement and respect.

Their mates died. They were mortally wounded. Their commanders told them to attack a place where they knew the Turks could - and would - shoot them down like sitting ducks, but did the Anzacs turn back?

No.

They pushed on.

I'm proud to be a Kiwi,
but I'm even prouder of our Anzac boys.