At the Remembrance Day and Prize Reading Assembly this week, Mrs Anne Byrne, Science Teacher and Debating Coordinator, delivered the following Remembrance Day address.
Good morning Ms Euler, guests, staff and girls. At this Remembrance Day Assembly, a few years ago, Ms Hennessey spoke to us about the importance of story-telling. She reminded us that we use stories to make sense of past events; we use stories to help us understand who we are and we use stories to provide a guide for the future. Today I am sharing a story with you that helped me understand a little better the meaning of that rather quaint phrase ‘lest we forget’ and understand why it is even more important and more relevant today than it was ninety-eight years ago. It is a very simple story that begins with an ordinary young man who many years ago went on to do extraordinary things with his life. My story, like all such stories, may offer you something to think about and perhaps to act on as well as inviting us to reflect on who we are as a culture and a nation. The hero of my story went to St Joseph’s College Gregory Terrace and in most respects he was just like many of you in terms of his background and experiences. He played a lot of sport, did well at his studies, and of course, was a great debater. But in addition, he was passionate about ships and the Navy so it was no surprise to his teachers when he opted to sign up for the Defence Force and head off to Jervis Bay, the Defence Academy for the Navy in those days.
After four years he had collected his first two degrees, Surveying and Arts, and he was ready for his big naval adventure. He spent a few years as a navigator working on patrol boats up in Broome, repelling Indonesian spy boats, and then later he headed off to Bass Strait for a while. And because he was clever and ambitious — and had collected the first of his Master’s degrees — he ended up as Aide-de-Camp to the Admiral of the Fleet — a sort of PA to the Navy CEO — and spent time in Hawaii. It was a good life which led to him being seconded to represent Australia, lecturing in the Indonesian Naval Academy in Jakarta — a very prestigious posting.
But then in 1991, his story changed direction. Iraq had invaded neighbouring Kuwait and Australia sent troops to support the US in driving Iraq out of Kuwait. This was the beginning of Operation Desert Storm and was the beginning of what is now twenty-five years of Australian engagement in that region. The world saw for the first time, a real war played out on television in real time through the eyes of CNN. The hero of my story saw the same war in real time through his own eyes as Baghdad was bombarded. The following year our protagonist was sent to Mogadishu in Somalia (North Africa) to assist the UN with peace keeping in a vicious and never ending civil war. Then he went on to East Timor to assist the UN in peacekeeping during the rocky transition to independence. And eventually he was off to Afghanistan to take up the role as Australia’s Director of Military Intelligence in Kabul. In that fourteen year span of his life he served in virtually every hot spot and war zone in the world.
Yet he was an ordinary fellow, who had never seen death before he left Australia. Suddenly he was being confronted by angry militants in Somalia. He saw the devastation wrought on civilians from the bombings in Baghdad and who knows what atrocities he witnessed in his three years in Afghanistan while confronting a resentful and violent Taliban. We do know his life was threatened more than once by Taliban supporters simply for organising a shipment of paper, pencils and sharpeners to be sent to Kabul for little girls who were allowed to go to school for the first time in two thousand years.
It was about that time he started to break into little pieces.
He had lost so much by then. He had lost a marriage, he had lost many good friends, he almost lost his life countless times, and he came so close to losing his belief in the inherent goodness of people. He had begun to view life through a black filter.
In 2005, he returned to Australia with his mind in a dark place and his joy of life and his faith in humanity seemed extinguished. It took two years to heal with the support of those who loved him. In 2007, he spoke at the Terrace Remembrance Day Assembly about his life experiences and his beliefs. He delivered a remarkably powerful yet simple reflection on his interpretation of what ‘lest we forget’ meant to him.
He began by setting out his belief that we all have the potential to do harm given the right circumstances, rather like a seed lurking underground waiting to be watered and warmed in order to grow. Then, he went on to propose that it is the good and ordinary, everyday people who are the ones most likely to provide the conditions for harm to be done. How, we have to ask, could that be so?
Well, Edmund Burke, 250 years ago told us that ‘the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing’. In 2016, we will take that to include good women who do nothing!
And this is what the soldier of my story believes is at the heart of ’lest we forget’. He sees this phrase as a powerful call to action for us all. He maintains that we are the guardians in our world and if we remain passive, ignoring what is around us then harm can flourish. He charged us with two whole-of-life tasks by insisting it is our responsibility as the privileged, educated and affluent of this world, to be vigilant and to watch for opportunities where we can make a positive difference.
And so what exactly are we looking for, when we speak of ‘opportunities’? Sadly, we see instances and examples every day, large and small, of malice, of spite, meanness, greed, intolerance and envy. They are all old fashioned words, but they are none the less harmful whenever and wherever they appear. And most importantly, if left unchallenged, they grow in intensity and frequency. It is up to us, he maintained, to challenge these instances of harm.
But I mentioned a second role he tasked us with. He reminded us that we must be the ones to provide shelter, support, strength and a helping hand to protect and empower those in need. Bullies need unprotected victims to flourish; greed and envy need a powerless opposition to spread their poison; meanness and spite thrive in the absence of a robust opposition.
And so what happens if we forget to live up to the two tasks he set?
We have Auschwitz, Hiroshima, genocide in Uganda, the killing fields of Cambodia, we have Syria and Isis, terrorism in France. We have desperate poverty and racial intolerance. The challenge my hero leaves you with then, is quite clear. There are choices to be made if we wish to make a difference. Australia is fortunate in that we are one of the very few nations to have never fought a battle in our own land. For most of the past 120 years our military actions have been in support of our allies or in extending a helping hand to those in need – in East Timor, in the Solomon Islands, in Fiji, in Papua New Guinea, to those who come to us from Africa and now from Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq. It is what we do. It is who we are. And he insists, it is who you can be.
We were all there that day as he spoke, to show to my brother how proud we are of what he and all those like him have given to the vulnerable and unprotected, regardless of the cost to themselves. But, as I reminded you at the beginning of my story today, this is not just a story of one person, my brother; rather it is a story for all of us.
He is in Mongolia at present, no doubt extending a helping hand to someone somewhere. But his message remains clear. We must not forget because lest we forget we may permit harm to take root and spread. And that we cannot allow.
Thank you for letting me share my story with you today.