My war story
My great uncle enlisted in the Australian Defence Forces at age 22 (incidentally, I’m 22 now). He was sent to France where he soon became ill on the battlefield with the mumps and was admitted to hospital before being discharged back to duty. It was then, writes Private McDougal, that ‘the Germans made and attack on [a] village…[and he] appeared to lose control of himself and ran into where the shell were falling thickest.’ [sic]. And, like a hollow, waxless candle burned out, the words ‘killed in action’ were dutifully stamped in violet ink upon his war record, no doubt by some administrator who had been stamping out proverbial flames all morning. It is certainly true that the original ANZACs earned the adjectives we placed upon them in the tomb of the unknown soldier - inscribed upon the stained glass windows: ‘comradeship’, ‘patriotism’, ‘chivalry’, ‘curiosity’, ‘audacity’ and ‘control’, amongst others. however, this is just part of being in war. They may well have been ‘patriotic’ and ‘chivalrous’, but above all they were human. Desperate, terrified. If anything, this story illustrates the disparity between the perception of what war might bring and the actuality of war. Certainly, no young man in the prime of his life would have felt duty-bound to bolt towards a downpour of enemy ammunition. This could not possibly be for the Crown, nor for Australia – and if it were? The reality of war could not justify obedience to a force that would allow such atrocities to happen. Nor was this exciting, either. This was downright senseless and scary. I am unable to connect this incident in my genealogy to reason.
