I didn’t cry, not really. I certainly wasn’t blubbering. Yet in those pregnant moments after the bugler’s rendition of The Last Post had rung around the Sydney Cricket Ground and 35,273 rugby league fans had stood silently in honour of those who had fought and died for Australia and New Zealand, I thought of my grandad who had gone to New Guinea and of all the other grandads, the ones who didn’t come home. And be damned if my glasses didn’t mist up.
Earlier I’d arrived at the famous old ground for the traditional Anzac Day match between the Sydney Roosters and St George Illawarra Dragons with the same sort of joy and nagging fear I always hold for this fixture. I love the day and what it means, but worry whether it should be “celebrated” and whether all the flags and military imagery are too “American”. There are questions over the fetishisation of war and the fine line between pride and nationalism.
