ANOTHER AUSTRALIAN SOLDIER FALLEN IN AFGHANISTAN. DON'T DELAY. ONE DAY IT MAY BE TOO LATE.

Following my recent culinary success with the flag cake, I’ve decided to extend my repertoire to the unbeatable antipodes cookie…the humble ANZAC biscuit.

My Grandma was probably the best ANZAC biscuit maker in the entire universe, and since she is no longer with us to prove that statement, it shall remain forever true. 

You’ll just have to take my word for it.

I’ve been meaning to make ANZAC biscuits for quite some time, but as is often the case in our too-busy lives, I’d been putting it off for one reason or another.

This morning I visited a blog I’ve never been to before and was shocked and saddened to read that the writer’s brother-in-law was working for the nation in a dusty and dangerous location, and it was there that he lost his life.

She too had been meaning to make ANZAC biscuits and send them to him. 

But now it was too late.

The reason it shocked me, is because my batch of biscuits was intended for a friend who is currently hanging out in that very same dusty and dangerous location.

A friend we met through my brother, who is also a member of the organisation that sends highly trained individuals to dusty and dangerous locations.

Lord knows I’d rather my brother was a secretary for the Society of Safe Use of Tea Strainers, but that’s just not going to happen.

And I love him.

And I love his friends.

They’re good and honest men.

They’re adrenalin junkies to be sure.

But they’re also fit and smart. Tactical but caring. Pragmatic and reasoned, but thoughtful and cautionary.

I don’t want to argue about the rights or wrongs of our military, or its presence in various locations about the world.

But I would like us all to think.

Think why these men and women are over there at all.

Because for the most part, we humans haven’t managed to settle our differences any other way.

Ever.

In the history of time, in the history of the world.

It’s pathetic.

We’re pathetic.

And as long as we are, good men and bad, women young and old, children, the elderly and everyone in between will be caught in conflicts.

Conflicts that are the result of our own complacency. Our own ineptitude. Our own carelessness.

Whatever the reason, the result is the same.

Violence.

And if there’s one thing I’m going to try and teach Miss Q, it’s that violence is not the answer.

And now I’m going to make those ANZAC biscuits without further delay.

Because God forbid I make them too late.