Halloween - come on, get real

I'm just not getting it, I have kids dressed up in ghoulish costumes banging on my front door asking for "trick or treat" celebrating some American tradition I know nothing about apart from seeing it on television. Now I have no issues with Americans although I do have issues celebrating American traditions and forgetting our own history.

At dusk on the 31st of October 1917, the 4th Light Horse Brigade of the Australian Imperial Force charged the Turkish defenses at Beersheba in a decisive battle. These guys were mounted infantry and not cavalry; they would ride their horses to the battle, dismount and fight as standard infantry. The battle had raged all day and a decision was made around 5pm to stage a cavalry charge as the wells were still in Turkish hands.

So with their bayonets in hand as they didn't have swords; their rifles were strung across their back, they charged the Turkish trenches under heavy fire and actually took the town. Now we blindly follow some American tradition wrapped in commercialism handing out lollies and scary stories. I could think of nothing more scary of charging dug in Turkish defensive positions on horseback with only a bayonet in my hand. How quickly we forget the real sacrifices made 90 years ago to embrace foreign traditions at the expense of our own history - unreal.