“When I hobble down to the shop, they push past me, not a thought about how we faced danger, lost friends so they could enjoy trauma-free, latte-sipping lives.” Anzac Day was just days ago. Columnist HUGH SELBY bears witness to a painful week for some.

In the dark

Mate, I’ll take you to the dawn service. I can pick you up.

Forget it, why would I want to be cold with people who pretend to remember for a few unbloody minutes, once a year?

Mate, that few minutes is a lot longer than not being remembered at all. Think of the loser survivors and their families – no public ceremonies, no well-tended war graves for them.

Do I give a rat’s arse about them? Why should I? They were on the wrong side of history, let down by their own.

Mate, does that mean we should excise from our history those first AIF who fought at the debacle that was Gallipoli? We should all be grateful for Ataturk’s ability to admire bravery, from friend or foe. More than a century later we and they remember.

We? We? When I hobble down to the shop to get some groceries, they push past me, not a thought about how we took the risks, faced danger, lost friends so that they could enjoy trauma-free, latte-sipping lives.

Mate, in peacetime there’s not much thought given to how it was won. And in war there’s time only to think about how to survive, and hopefully win.

My Pop came back embedded with shrapnel that played up all his life. He never talked about that time, not ever. But he had memories and he marched. 

Mate, next door to my school there was this pile that was home for the ruins of men who came back with shell shock. They’d been there for nearly a half century. Could they march?

Yeah, the bloody politicians beat their chests as they pour money into memorials that are full of hardware but they’re tight when it comes to resources for the years of combat that follows active service – the mental breakdowns, the violence and the suicides.

Mate, what about all those who spent time in prison? We’re way over-represented, but no one asks why.

Course not. Who cares? Hold on, someone’s at my door making a racket.

Mate, it’s me. Let’s go. We’ll watch the rising glow in the eastern sky and remember what we did, all of us, for ever and ever.

And then the usual two-up and a schooner?

Mate, you don’t need to ask.

At the club

I listened, both of us slowly sipping, and watching a small group noisily playing two up. He was in the mood to go back in time, a long way back.

“Remember why we sent troops to Europe for World War I? That was in defence of the Empire and we were loyal colonials. For World War II it started that way, but things got rather more self-centred when the Japanese bombed Darwin, and put midget subs into Sydney Harbour,” he said.

“Korea was about the red peril and reds under the beds. So my dad used to say.

“I don’t understand why we had to go all the way with LBJ into Vietnam, though I remember that we were told about the domino theory of Communist expansion through Asia. If we won that war then China has won the peace.

“Mate, even less do I get why we went to Iraq or Afghanistan. There were no weapons of mass destruction in the former and the Russians had been driven out by the Afghanis.

“Now we have AUKUS, a bottomless pit of expenditure on equipment for which the defence case is as thin as the case for light rail in Canberra, that is, invisible.

“Are we just puppets on strings pulled by those playing much bigger games?

“Mate, those we elect take us for fools and with good reason – it works. Did you know that the Libs are promising a one-off cost-of-living tax offset, and a tax deduction on mortgage interest payments on new homes? 

“Just one little problem. To pay tax and get a mortgage you need a job. That’s going to be difficult for all those 40,000 or so public servants here in Canberra who will be sacked by the Libs.

“Their Lord Dutton giveth and he taketh away.”

Last post and bugle call reveille

“Mate”, he said, when I dropped him back, handing me his postal vote to push through the slit, “this will be my last post”.

He was wrong about that. Watching spinning coins on Anzac Day, spinning a losing wheel of fate the next day with the Big C.

There’ll be a last post and reveille for him, on election day.

An election fought for what exactly, and for whom?

Was there anything behind the political spin and the promises to be broken that warranted fighting for?

Were the lives of our lost friends, and the decades of survivor nightmares, worth so little?

I can hear the kids in the park.

Hugh Selby, a CityNews columnist principally focused on legal affairs, is describing the experiences of others. He has not served, had a mental illness, nor been a prisoner.

His free legal podcasts on “Witness Essentials” and “Advocacy in court: preparation and performance” can be heard on the best known podcast sites.