Increasingly I keep finding myself singing, even humming or whistling the old Graham Nash song, ‘Military Madness,’ sometimes hardly aware that I am doing so.
‘Military madness is killing my country
Solitary sadness comes over me,
War, war, war, war, war, war.’
Of course Australia has always been obsessed with war. While still ‘opening up the country’ in the Frontier Wars, euphemistically called, ‘the drive,’ we couldn’t wait to test our military mettle overseas. Involvement in the Maori Wars (1845-72) was followed by an expeditionary force sent to Sudan (1885), with Australians soon back fighting on the African continent in the Boer War (1899-1902).