When horses carried us to first war as a national force
On Remembrance Day every year we honour the people who died in the service of their country at war. On many occasions when people went to war they were accompanied by animals, many of which also lost their lives.
In 2013 the Australian War Animal Memorial Organisation introduced the purple poppy (purplepoppies.com.au), worn as a way of remembering the animals that served and died in conflict. In 2019 February 24 was named the official Animal Remembrance Day, but on November 11 many still honour those thousands of creatures wounded or killed in action.
Horses figured very high on the fatality list. During the Second Anglo-boer War, the first war in which Australians came together as a national force rather than separate colonies, the army ran on horses. Australia sent 16,314 to South Africa over the course of the war, using them primarily for mobility, rather than cavalry charges against enemy troops. About 60 per cent of the horses used by Australian troops died in the conflict. Although we know few of their names, they are honoured in a moving memorial to Boer War horses in Port Elizabeth, one of the earliest memorials to animals in war.
By World War I, vehicles had mostly taken the place of horses, but they still played a vital role, primarily pulling guns or munitions in carts across terrain unsuited to cars. In the Middle East they were used for cavalry charges on land without roads and inaccessible to mechanical vehicles.
The war made famous horses such as Bill the Bastard, who earnt his name because he bucked most men off.
Accomplished polo player Lieutenant Guy Haydon took his own horse, Midnight, to war when he signed up in 1915. Midnight was killed by a Turkish bullet through her belly at Beersheba. The bullet went through her saddle and lodged near Haydon’s spine, but was later removed.
DEMENTIA DIRECTIVE
DYING with Dignity Queensland (DWDQ) has prepared a submission to the Queensland Law Reform Commission (QLRC) asking, among other things, that a clause relating to the treatment of dementia patients be recognised in an advanced health directive.
Dementia is the second leading cause of death of Australians.
In 2020 (Bureau of Statistics) “an estimated 459,000 Australians are living with dementia and this is expected to increase to 590,00 by 2028 and 1,076,000 by 2058”.
These figures are terrifying and developing this debilitating disease is the greatest worry of older Australians.
DWDQ is asking the QLRC to include in its law on Voluntary Assisted Dying, a paragraph in the Advanced Health Directive (AHD) that would allow people to express
their desire, while mentally capable, to have their life ended under future circumstances where they were unable to communicate and were absolutely totally dependent on other people from dementia or any other neurological disease where they had no quality of life and no hope of improvement.
The Netherlands has such a law, it states: “Euthanasia and patients with dementia. For some people, the prospect of ever suffering from dementia may be sufficient reason to make an advance directive (living will). This can either be drawn up independently or discussed first with the family doctor.
“A physician can perform euthanasia (voluntarily) on a patient with dementia only if such a directive exists, if statutory care is taken and if, in his opinion, the patient is experiencing unbearable suffering with no prospect of improvement.”
The Premier announced, before the election, that a Voluntary
Assisted Dying Bill would be introduced in February 2021.
DWDQ, along with over 80 per cent of the population, hope this Bill will be introduced into Queensland.
Victoria and Western Australia already have such Bills.
The Tasmanian Bill has just passed the Upper House unopposed and will be debating the same in the Lower House in March 2021.
New South Wales hopes to reintroduce its Bill this year or early next year.
New Zealand people overwhelmingly voted in favour of VAD and it has now become law. MARJ LAWRENCE,
Condon.