Last week I was in Melbourne attending a conference.

     What a lovely way to start the day being able to read about our soldiers.  Not a dry eye here either Mike.  I wear red alot so will make sure I wear it every Friday.  

REad most of it through a blur of tears what a lovely way to honour our soldiers. Helena.

GAWD DIDNT THAT HIT THE SPOT

Beautiful guys, only now I have to re-do the Mascara. Cheers, xina.

Oh dear.... very emotive feelings expressed there.... If I wore mascara  (I only wear it when I wear fishnets) it would have run tooooooo

yep started out from the good ole U. S. of A about twenty years ago when the troops set off for the gulf only it was US marines and a little blonde american girl, been tugging at heartstrings all over the world since then and apparently still is, but to all those tissue terrorisers out there it is a load of crock, it was exposed on national tv as such and the little no life dweeb who started it is still laughing, plenty more where he came from, my spam box is full of it!!!

  Where's your heart Dave, it might have been doing the rounds for years and years, but just think, wouldn't it be nice if it was actually REAL.  Doesn't hurt to pretend sometimes does it?  and if it makes you feel good, what's the harm.

yes it would be nice if it was true but it aint!! spam is spam, whether it be nice spam or bad spam. no need to keep it going!!! there is more than enough true storys out there without the dribble coming from yankeeland constantly regurgitated, I'm sick of it filling up my inbox neverlone reading it in a travel forum!! would you like to hear what happened to the easter bunny or how santa lost his way one year and was helped by an american now thats another good tear jerker of a story and just as true just a couple of bad ones to watch out for is "bin laden captured or bin laden hanged" the other is "the olympic torch" if you find these then delete them immediately they will burn your hard drive of all info

Guess maybe I'm mellowing with age.  Thanks for the infor on the other ones though.

I see cynism is alive and well, I wonder if we all became as cynical as the some of the other people we have met is our lifetimes the world would be a better place, I doubt it, nor would it be any the worse, With out the belief in Fairies, Santa Claus, Dragons, and Robin Hood, it would be a dull place to live in, And probably if you go back far enough in time there is some fact that these actually existed, Myths, and stories handed down over the millinium can change it quite a bit but we are still in the dark as to whether or not they are REAL in the modern day sense In these days of hard evidence and not believing till you see it with your eyes, is a hard world to grow up in ,even when grown up ?? I feel sorry for the people who cannot shed a tear for a fantasy show ,I feel sorry for the people for the cartoon character who misses out on the girl, and I feel sorry for the real circumstances that people can find themselves in, Admittedly there is bad things going on, and it would be a mistake to ignore it ,also it is a sensible thing to pass on the info to the people around you that these things are happening just in case they have their heads up there ass, but I still like to read GOOD news, watch a tear jerker movie, and see the good guy win over in the end

Thanks Mike and Judy for adding this to the forum. I don't care if its a spam mail, it should be endorsed just to show our troops that we are thinking of them. My own experience of returning from a military assignment was a bit different. There were no fanfares or marching bands, no speaches or parades. There were only twelve of us, returning from an extended term of duty. We were ferried back into Aus in an old C-130 along with a stack of 'personal effects' of people who were in the embassadorial staff in another country plus some other passengers we had picked up on the way (It took us eight days to get home). We finally arrived at our home base which was where we had to pass through customs and immigration. We were told to wait as all others would be processed before as, just in case we had picked up any contaminated dirt or, dread the thought, exotic maladies that we may pass on to other people. The riot act read to us was simple, no mixing with anyone through customs and immigration, report immediately to sick bay and expect to be released the following day if all went well. We had hoped for a few days leave before we were subjugated to the demoralising POST SEA medical check. Even though circumstances were that our return to this fine land had been delayed, our families were at the base for our inglorious return to greet us. They were shattered when some jumped up young recent graduate from a cadet college told them there would be no contact with us till we were medically released. By some luck of fortune, we had a public servant working for either customs or immigration who took offence at this ruling and allowed all the children of the returning persons through the barriers. Two of these "Escaped children" wrapped their arms around my legs, it took me a few seconds to realise that these were mine as the youngest was only a six months old when I departed Australias shores and never near walking, let alone running to greet me. Moral is, I don't give a stuff if its spam, I'm gonna wear red every Friday

Guru & Ma.Good on you.Well said.To quote."Lest We Forget".Remember, you have to go to return..Cheers.Ibbo.

After 20yrs serving for king & country I will defend any service persons right to celebrate their GOD given right.They should be able to accept any accolades sent their way without any discontent.Soap box parked. Greg

the rights of a returned soldier is not in question I will defend it in any way possible and have done many times (read my posts), what is in question is the posting of some little ****s mind dribble if you like I can post at least thirty of these idiotic little meanderings right now, they are everywhere, i get it everyday, this never happened people, it was all a 14 year olds dreaming, the posting of such spam should be discouraged and I dont care if you believe in santa or the tooth fairy or cry when daisy rejects donald again, lose yourself in as much yank garbage as you like, fact is it is a bunch of lies and should be treated as such, nothing more than a joke played on the world by a little twit who has no touch with reality where are the acolades in danger that need defending??? that one's got me whacked cynic I may be ( I dont think I am, just read my posts) but never acuse me of not standing up for our service men and women, but dont spread lies about what didnt happen either, the truth is real enough I show our troops that we are thinking or them by talking to their widows, I average at least 2 a month (young and old) that contact me through the organisation, I know the real heart wrenching stories, I dont need the false ones, I'm on standby 24 hours a day ready to listen to the real ones, believe me they are far more gut wrenching I take umbridge at the insinuation that I am somehow unpatriotic or I remove any praise from our troops just because I happen not to like spam turning up on a travel forum???, I collect for our returned soldiers, I was the first in line for catering to our anzacs on anzac day (12 hours on my feet for that one, starting at 5 am), I support our local and our interstate widows as well as returned soldiers but what I will not support is spam put about in any form of media and that includes garbage in emails to pass on this information ("for people who have their heads up their ass") passing on spam is not passing on information it is merely perpetuating a lie!! and keeping the crap going which serves no usefull purpose to any one, analy sighted or not find the good news true storys like the soldier who lost the use of both his legs after a mine explosion and finished a marathon on crutches just recently now thats worthy of note!! dont keep the rubbish going

At the recent ANZAC Day parade I was surprised and impressed at the high number of ethnic, (Eg: Either not originally from Australia or non-Australian parents) people attending, and also the extremely high number of teenagers.

The later threw me a bit, as I had never before seen such a number of teenagers at an ANZAC parade, pretty impressive stuff. Sadly the majority were female, so obviously the males of today need some ongoing eduction.

Another story of the same type...
Few years back at the Shrine in Melbourne, some local young hoons were throwing water at the flame, in an attempt to extinguish it. A group of Japanese tourists, yes Japanese tourist took extreme offense to this act, and set upon said group of now worried teenagers and flew into them about having no respect and so forth. It was pretty impressive stuff they were going hammer n tong at the teenagers, god I laughed.

Dave, I hope I have not upset you by my personal experience. I agree with you that the origin of this story is spam. However, my response was purely from a very memorable day in my life and even if the original post is spam, to me, the intent was honourable. Sorry if it has upset your feelings. Bob

as the younger generation learn more of the conflicts and see the ages involved we have noticed that far more want to get involved we had 5 helping us (around 15 - 18 yo? I think) on anzac day 

and they were moved to tears by some of the stories which started a hell of a lot of times with "well I was about your age or not much older when I first joined up, lied about my age" then as the day went on and the mood became more reflective the horror stories came out which really threw the kids, who by that time knew there was very little age difference between them and the fallen, thats when I seen the tears and had to reasign them
 
as more information is revealed to these kids then the more they want to become involved, a little too late I feel but better late than never, oh the rsl fellers love the younguns as well the mischievous old buggers 

as for the japs getting grumpy well I guess a warrior is a warrior and most people have great respect for them and their monuments

guru you didnt upset me mate, I just get grumpy because I know the true stories, I have nothing but the greatest admiration and respect for our returned and that is why I feel "protective" of them, and their stories
 
I do a lot of work for our returned warriors and I am a proud man indeed to say that I have, I feel I owe all you fellers a great debt that I cant hope to repay, simply for our way of life I know how close it came to us speaking japanese and bowing to the emporer

the yanks left us in the lurch with no protection of our own borders, if it wasnt for our boys and girls well I wouldnt like to think!! believe me I am one who is truly gratefull

-- Edited by dave06 on Tuesday 12th of May 2009 09:06:48 PM

Fact or fiction, it's a story to be told. We sometimes need to be reminded of our blessings in this free country. I'm a member of Sing Australia, and this ANZAC day, 4 of the Cairns members joined twenty other "Singers" in Galipoli. They came back with wonderful stories of their reception by the Turks. It's amazing how war has brought about forgiveness and united our countries. Lest We Forget.

I understand where everybody is coming from, I think what Dave is trying to point out is that there are those who enjoy putting spam out there and get great pleasure in playing on people emotions with things that are plainly not what they seem.

eg; Little girl dying of cancer, send this to as many people as you can as each email is tracked and so much goes to cancer research etc for each email sent etc....like many others this was a Hoax.

By they way, the links to Red Friday & the story of the little girl at the airport are on snopes and are shown below, it is worth a read;

http://www.snopes.com/politics/war/redfriday.asp

http://www.snopes.com/glurge/daughter.asp



Berg

-- Edited by Bergholt on Wednesday 13th of May 2009 12:02:30 AM

-- Edited by Bergholt on Wednesday 13th of May 2009 04:08:15 AM

-- Edited by Bergholt on Wednesday 13th of May 2009 04:10:17 AM

If you look at U Tube,print in soldiers returning from Afghanistan,I think that you will find that the footage is real and quite moving.Cheers.Ibbo

the wording "red friday" for some reason kept on bringing up a long distant memory so I started tracking it back to its origins and I FOUND it, it can be found here http://www.redfridays.ca/ it's actually a very good cause in canada and is to be commended, perhaps we could start a similar thing here maybe a "silly shirt sunday" or a "waffle wednesday" just a thought!!!

yep Dave, I agree, start our own tribute.  For the moment we will be wearing a red shirt on Fridays.

I don't know if this has been posted here, the search option was down for maintenance; The Anzac on the Wall. I wandered thru a country town 'cos I had time to spare, And went into an antique shop to see what was in there. Old Bikes and pumps and kero lamps, but hidden by it all, A photo of a soldier boy - an Anzac on the Wall. 'The Anzac have a name?' I asked. The old man answered 'No, The ones who could have told me mate, have passed on long ago.' The old man kept on talking and, according to his tale, The photo was unwanted junk bought from a clearance sale. 'I asked around,' the old man said, 'but no one knows his face, He's been on that wall twenty years, deserves a better place. For someone must have loved him so, it seems a shame somehow.' I nodded in agreement and then said, 'I'll take him now.' My nameless digger's photo, well it was a sorry sight, A cracked glass pane and a broken frame - I had to make it right. To prise the photo from its frame I took care just in case, 'Cause only sticky paper held the cardboard back in place. I peeled away the faded screed and much to my surprise, Two letters and a telegram appeared before my eyes. The first reveals my Anzac's name and regiment of course, John Mathew Francis Stuart - of Australia's own Light Horse. This letter written from the front, my interest now was keen, This note was dated August seventh 1917. 'Dear Mum, I'm at Khalasa Springs not far from the Red Sea, They say it's in the Bible - looks like a Billabong to me. 'My Kathy wrote I'm in her prayers she's still my bride to be, I just can't wait to see you both you're all the world to me. And Mum you'll soon meet Bluey, last month they shipped him out, I told him to call on you when he's up and about.' 'That Bluey is a larrikin and we all thought it funny, He lobbed a Turkish hand grenade into the CO's dunny. I told you how he dragged me wounded in from no man's land, He stopped the bleeding closed the wound with only his bare hand.' 'Then he copped it at the front from some stray shrapnel blast, It was my turn to drag him in and I thought he wouldn't last. He woke up in hospital and nearly lost his mind, Cause out there on the battlefield he'd left one leg behind.' 'He's been in a bad way mum, he knows he'll ride no more, Like me he loves a horse's back, he was a champ before. So please Mum can you take him in, he's been like my brother, Raised in a Queensland orphanage he's never known a mother.' But struth, I miss Australia mum and in my mind each day, I am a mountain cattleman on high plains far away. I'm mustering white-faced cattle, with no camel's hump in sight, And I waltz my Matilda by a campfire every night. I wonder who rides Billy, I heard the pub burnt down, I'll always love you and please say hooroo to all in town'. The second letter I could see was in a lady's hand, An answer to her soldier son there in a foreign land. Her copperplate was perfect, the pages neat and clean, It bore the date November 3rd 1917. ''Twas hard enough to lose your Dad, without you at the war, I'd hoped you would be home by now - each day I miss you more' 'Your Kathy calls around a lot since you have been away, To share with me her hopes and dreams about your wedding day. And Bluey has arrived - and what a godsend he has been, We talked and laughed for days about the things you've done and seen.' 'He really is a comfort and works hard around the farm, I read the same hope in his eyes that you won't come to harm. Mc Connell's kids rode Billy but suddenly that changed, We had a violent lightning storm and it was really strange.' 'Last Wednesday just on midnight, not a single cloud in sight, It raged for several minutes, it gave us all a fright. It really spooked your Billy - and he screamed and bucked and reared, And then he rushed the sliprail fence, which by a foot he cleared.' 'They brought him back next afternoon but something's changed I fear, It's like the day you brought him home, for no one can get near. Remember when you caught him with his black and flowing mane?, Now horse breakers fear the beast that only you can tame,' 'That's why we need you home son' - then the flow of ink went dry, This letter was unfinished and I couldn't work out why. Until I started reading the letter number three, A yellow telegram delivered news of tragedy. Her son killed in action - oh - what pain that must have been, The same date as her letter - 3rd November 1917. This letter which was never sent, became then one of three, She sealed behind the photo's face - the face she longed to see. And John's home town's old timers -children when he went to war, Would say no greater cattleman had left the town before. They knew his widowed mother well - and with respect did tell, How when she lost her only boy she lost her mind as well. She could not face the awful truth, to strangers she would speak, 'My Johnny's at the war you know, he's coming home next week.' They all remembered Bluey, he stayed on to the end, A younger man with wooden leg became her closest friend. And he would go and find her when she wandered old and weak, And always softly say, 'Yes dear - John will be home next week.' Then when she died Bluey moved on, to Queensland some did say, I tried to find out where he went but don't know to this day. And Kathy never wed - a lonely spinster some found odd, She wouldn't set foot in a church - she'd turned her back on God. John's mother left no will I learned on my detective trail, This explains my photo's journey, that clearance sale. So I continued digging 'cause I wanted to know more, I found John's name with thousands in the records of the war. His last ride proved his courage - a ride you will acclaim, The Light Horse Charge at Beersheba of everlasting fame. That last day in October back in 1917, At 4pm our brave boys fell - that sad fact I did glean. That's when John's life was sacrificed, the record's crystal clear, But 4pm in Beersheba is midnight over here....... So as John's gallant spirit rose to cross the great divide, Were lightning bolts back home a signal from the other side? Is that why Billy bolted and went racing as in pain, Because he'd never feel his master on his back again? Was it coincidental? Same time - same day - same date? Some proof of numerology, or just a quirk of fate? I think it's more than that, you know, as I've heard wiser men, Acknowledge there are many things that go beyond our ken. Where craggy peaks guard secrets neath dark skies torn asunder, Where hoof beats are companions to the rolling waves of thunder. Where lightning cracks like 303's and ricochets again, Where howling moaning gusts of wind sound just like dying men. Some Mountain cattlemen have sworn on lonely alpine track, They've glimpsed a huge black stallion - Light Horseman on his back. Yes sceptics say, it's swirling clouds just forming apparitions, Oh no, my friend you can't dismiss all this as superstition. The desert of Beersheba - or windswept Aussie range, John Stuart rides forever there - Now I don't find that strange. Now some gaze at this photo and they often question me, And I tell them a small white lie, and say he's family. 'You must be proud of him.' they say - I tell them, one and all, That's why he takes the pride of place - my Anzac on the Wall. This poem was written by the talented Jim Brown who lives at 12 Adrian Court, Heathmont. Vic. 3135. The poem is recorded on CD and is available for $25 which may be sent to the above address (includes postage and handling). Phone contact: 0438 339 459.

some clever buggers around!!

There sure are Dave, an beautifully written and expressed.

On the subject of Red Friday, I think you would need to have something (badge/logo) or something to wear with the shirt, otherwise people wouldn't know what you were wearing it for and it would lose it's impact on others and be confused with others wearing Red.

While I am as patriotic as the next person and grateful of the sacrifices made by our men and women in uniform and those of our allies and salute them all, there are too many other worthy causes around that usually use Friday to promote their cause (T shirts, badges/street collections etc) and our gratitude is best kept for those days that count (Anzac Day, other rememberance days etc), Red would probably be best to keep for those days.

However this is a personal choice and if a group want to do this then go for it.

Berg
(Ex 20 years Full time Defence Force, twice overseas)

-- Edited by Bergholt on Thursday 14th of May 2009 02:36:25 PM

yes Mate I agree 100% that friday is probably not the best day and thats why i chose silly shirt sunday or waffle wednesday or maybe thong thursday or whatever, up to me I'd carry a dirty big flag around stating what it was for but my boss wouldnt like it as for the world knowing what it was for well you got me on that one, perhaps it could be a simple sticker that could be worn on our vehicles stating something like "I remember" with maybe a solitary honor guardsman with rifle pointed down and bowed head, you know the one that I mean, instantly recognisable country wide I think, the vets would certainly know what it means and you fellers are the ones that matter in this, it would ride with pride alongside the grey nomads sticker on squeeky and little blue just something so we (the aussie troop supporters) are instantly recognised

Saw this on another site, not sure where you get them from though, there is some printing in the bottom corner but I can't read it properly;



-- Edited by Bergholt on Thursday 14th of May 2009 02:50:34 PM

yep I'd be proud to whack that on board my vehicles

I put it in photoshop and enlarged the fine print and the closest I can come to reading it is "graphics xxxxx and assembly by Linda"   so i dont know if they are in production or what ever

-- Edited by dave06 on Thursday 14th of May 2009 07:34:00 PM