For those of you who don’t remember from the last two springs – 25 April is ANZAC day – standing for Australian-New Zealand Army Corps.
This year is the 100th anniversary of the landing at Gallipoli in WWI. The casualties on both sides were horrendous. What was supposed to be a preemptive strike turned into 8 months of hard fighting with little to no progress.
The significance of today (25 April) hit me a few days ago which should not be surprising considering that I was on the Mariner two years ago when there was standing room only in the upper lounge for the memorial service complete with New Zealander bugler from the crew. Last year was the Legend. With a bit of nudging from Val, Ian and a few others the CD managed to get together what turned out to be an impressive service with ANZAC biscuits at the end.
This year I asked the Cruise Director about a service and mentioned that I still had the documents and audio clips I had pulled last year. We also have a larger Australian contingent on the ship one of whom came equipped with flag, readings and the audio for the Last Call.
So there we were, a small group of 15 this morning at 0600. On the pool deck with the wind blasting and the temperatures barely over freezing. There is the Aussie who has the readings, the Padre (Catholic, USAF (ret)), passengers, cruise director and two Yanks (Cheré and I, and she is from Oklahoma).
A second service was held at 1100, up in the Vortex Lounge. Much better attended.
Meanwhile, it is first formal night and we have already started the time jumps ahead. So need to change clothes, wander to dinner and then go back to reading #NewHugoAwards and #NewHugoCategories…
