Like many Aussies and Kiwis I spent the early hours of this morning at a dawn service commemorating the commencement of the Battle of Gallipoli during WWI.

I did so at an RSL (RSA for you Kiwi readers) in a little seaside town called Port Noarlunga in South Australia. The Port Noarlunga RSL is perched on a clifftop overlooking a sandy beach and beautiful clear water, and as the sky grew lighter I tried to imagine what it was like for the Turkish defenders looking down at their own little bay in 1915.

One thing that has always given me the shits is the memorialisation of the Gallipoli campaign, and WWI in general, as some sort of noble endeavour where the ANZACs went and saved freedom. WTF? Reality check: WWI was a clusterfuck, an utterly pointless disaster of a war that should never have happened and one in which Australia and New Zealand should never have been involved.

The most heartwrenching comment I've ever heard regarding the ANZACs at Gallipoli was from the commanding officer of the Turkish defenders, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk, whose words are inscribed on the memorial at Anzac Cove:

Heroes who shed their blood and lost their lives! You are now lying in the soil of a friendly country. Therefore rest in peace. There is no difference between the Johnnies and Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours. You, the mothers, who sent their sons from far away countries wipe away your tears; your sons are now lying in our bosom and are in peace. After having lost their lives on this land they have become our sons as well.

If that doesn't bring a tear to your eye, check your pulse. You might be dead.

Those were Mustafa Kemal's words in 1934. He spoke a bit more bluntly to his men at Anzac Cove in 1915:

Men, I am not ordering you to attack. I am ordering you to die. In the time that it takes us to die, other forces and commanders can come and take our place.

If my homeland was about to be invaded by a foreign army Mustafa Kemal sounds like the sort of guy I'd want waiting on the beach.

Later, as a statesman responsible for the foundation of the modern Turkish state, he was quoted as saying

I have no religion, and at times I wish all religions at the bottom of the sea. He is a weak ruler who needs religion to uphold his government; it is as if he would catch his people in a trap. My people are going to learn the principles of democracy, the dictates of truth and the teachings of science. Superstition must go. Let them worship as they will; every man can follow his own conscience, provided it does not interfere with sane reason or bid him against the liberty of his fellow-men.

And we went over there to kill this guy? For no other reason than the British told us to? Now that's a tragedy.

That the people of Turkey can allow the word ANZAC to be mentioned without spitting on the ground is, to me, an act of incredible grace and dignity. That they actually allow Australians and New Zealanders to visit Gallipoli and commemorate the attempted invasion their homeland, a nation that had no quarrel with Australia or New Zealand, is almost inconceivable to me. Lest we forget.

In memory of my grandfather,16/153 Pte Pita Tapihana, Maori Pioneer Battalion, who 96 years ago managed to keep his head down on a beach in Turkey.