Patriot Realm

Each war seems to produce its own under-appreciated heroes who, for reasons that have nothing to do with their courage, competence or devotion to duty, are by-passed for promotion or otherwise demoted.

In the Boer War it was Breaker Morant, in WW2 it was Brig Arnold Potts and in more recent days Cpl Ben Roberts-Smith. In WW1 it was Brigadier General Elliott, otherwise known as “Pompey”. Elliott was one of the most direct and forceful brigade commanders in the Australian Army. 

Loved and admired by the troops he commanded because they knew that he would never ask them to perform tasks that he was not willing and able to carry out himself. He was an outspoken critic of the British Army higher command and of the Australian as well when they deserved it. His belligerence and refusal to kow-tow to British higher authority was the seed of his undoing. He clashed with Kitchener, Haig and Birdwood and the fact that he was usually proved right, probably carried more weight against him that his insubordination.

Pompey Elliott was born in an era when Australia seemed to have an endless supply of natural leaders, adventurous explorers and trail blazers, innovative business people and an inborn ethic that gave precedence to common sense.

Just before dawn on August 7, 1915, the men of the 8th and 10th Australian Light Horse Regiments waited in silence on a narrow strip of Turkish soil known as the Nek. They stood shoulder to shoulder in the dark, clutching rifles with bayonets fixed, their nerves tight as piano wire. In the trenches behind them, mates shared final words, quick prayers, a letter home folded into a breast pocket. Some kissed crucifixes, others stared ahead into the blackness, hearts thudding. Then, as the first grey wash of light crept over the ridgeline, the whistle blew.

They went over the top in lines - neat, ordered, hopeless. They charged not into glory, but into annihilation. Within minutes, dozens lay dead, cut down by Turkish machine guns positioned just yards away. Still the whistle blew again. And again. And again.

It is not often that a hero can also be a larrikin and vice versa. But John " Scotty " Simpson was such a man. A deserter who found himself thrust into the horror of Gallipoli instead of implementing his plan to jump ship in England  

John Simpson Kirkpatrick was an Englishman of Scottish parentage who wanted to get away from his wife.... so he joined the Merchant Navy in 1909. 

In 1910 he deserted from his ship when it was docked at Newcastle in Australia. He led an itinerant lifestyle as a cane cutter, coal miner and various jobs on coastal merchant ships. He also became a left wing activist with The Industrial Workers of the World. Hardly the stuff of heroes.  

But he went on to become a hero. 

On ANZAC Day we remember the fallen, the brave, the heroic. But behind every name etched in stone was a mother who gave life, and often, gave that life up to forces beyond her control. I suppose I am thinking about a reflection on grief, not just of war, but of all we have lost and still carry. It is a quiet meditation on the love that never stops, even when the world does.

At what point does loss become grief?

Loss can live quietly for a time. It can trail behind us like a shadow we refuse to turn and face. We speak of absence, of change, of distance. We say things have been lost - as if they might be found again. We tell ourselves stories of adaptation, of coping. But grief? Grief doesn’t ask us to cope. It asks us to stop and feel. To stand still in the debris of what once was and realise...  our problem is that we remember too much to ever truly let go.

Loss becomes grief not when something leaves us, but when we realise it will not return. And then....what then?