Thursday 25 April 2013

Lest we forget

So as it rolled around to ANZAC day today, I thought I would look into non-believing ANZAC's. There is very little hard data on this, and unfortunately I have read in a comment on a similar sounding post here that if no Denomination was supplied on their enlistment papers they were given CofE. So their is likely to be no real hard data ever.
But we can go on standard statistics. The 1936 census didn't happen and their was only a "year book" the 1941 census was called off and the next one post WWII was 1947, but it showed if you look  here; http://www.abs.gov.au/AUSSTATS/abs@.nsf/DetailsPage/2109.01947?OpenDocument at the PDF titled 2109.0 - Volume I - Part XVI Religion, that about 0.49% of the population was no-religion in one shape or another at this time post-war.
So we can take that 575,799 served overseas in WW2 so of that at least 2800 where non-believers of some sort. This is just in one war, not to mention WW1, Vietnam, Korea and every other horrible war we have been in.

This could be an interesting research project for someone but I have done my bit.

That aforementioned post does something to me though. I disagree with it, it paints the memorial as a religious service, which it is. But it should be something more. Those words Lest we forget have always struck me. Lest we forget and make the same mistakes and let a maniac into power, or sacrifice life for some silly idea such as the domino theory.
I have always held a reverence for our diggers, our ANZACs, it used to be religious as I would pray that war would end. Now I think their sacrifice was greater than I did before, I think the idea of the ANZACs deserves more reverence.
Lest we forget.

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