Anzac spirit puts sniffles into perspective

I’M SICK. Yes, OK, other than my clothing habits and my rather unusual sense of humour, I mean the latest flu! Poor me.

Here I am rugged up, every form of bug killer echinacea, olive leaf, olive branch, the whole olive tree, cough syrups, vitamin C by the wheelie bin, Sambucol, antibiotics, in fact anti everything, and all the while being fussed over by my beautiful personal Greek physician.

It’s tough. All the sleep, fair dinkum, I’ve had more Zs and more coughs than a Russian phone book.

So I wander to my room, coughing and spluttering, feeling as if I’ve been hit by a Cleanaway truck, cuddling up in a soft bed, hot mug of honey and lemon and feeling sorry for myself as I hate being away from work.

Then I stop for a moment, and I think of what today is.

I wonder if my grandad George had a cough and sniffle on a freezing cold Gallipoli morn, standing with his mates, waiting to go ashore. He was only a boy, a land beyond imagination, hardships to come unknown, and possible death in the shadows.

Did he have someone to make him a cup of hot lemon, make sure he had his echinacea, his antibiotics and check he had plenty of tissues? When George was at the Somme with his mates knee deep in mud, if he had the flu, was there a lovely girl to tuck him in at night, hot water bottle and Vicks, maybe in his mind?

Though I do remember George had a tattoo of a lady ( in rather brief attire, or was it no attire?) on his arm. Maybe she was there.

No, they were tough young men; they had to be.

I’ve walked those sands of Anzac and Cobbers Field on the Western Front, and even stood at the very place where Grandad crossed the wire for the first time.

They were very different places when I was there.

When I look at the photos of the mud, fire, and the litter of war, I have no idea how he and his mates did it. But they did. I guess like they do today, and will in the future, they have their mates.

So as I’m rugged up with this awful flu, which I sincerely hope you don’t get ( hang on, I was just told, in a most alarming way to “get off that bloody computer and go to bed” ... charming).

I wonder if Grandad’s laughing at me saying “Good on you lad, enjoy the glory of freedom”.

These wonderful things we sometimes take for granted.

Days off, people who care, places to go when unwell, and simply so many other things we enjoy and live with, every single day. All these things, could have been so very different, if it had not been for a soldier.

A soldier in the past like Grandad or young soldiers today and into our uncertain future. It’s today we remember them all – all our military services.