ANZAC Day

So in Australia and New Zealand, April 25 is a huge holiday commemorating the landing of Aus and NZ troops on the beaches of Gallipoli in Turkey during WWI. It's a pretty big deal because it was the first time Aus troops had seen battle (remember Aus didn't fight for independence) and supposedly they fought extremely bravely despite the fact that they were at a strategic disadvantage, etc, and it's a huge deal to the Aussies that when tested in battle, their soldiers "were not found lacking..." and its kind of seen as Aus' coming of age. So I got up before 4 and went to the dawn service where the governor of Western Aus spoke of the "ANZAC spirit, forged in the fires of Gallipoli..." (direct quote from WA's governor, I swear...but doesn't it sound Lord of the Ringsesque??) and built on the values of "courage, honour, and mateship" (those values which supposedly form the basis of the unique Australian national identity.) Seriously, MATESHIP...my "character value" education was sadly lacking without that one.... Anyways, they have a dawn service at the war memorial in King's Park, so I went to that, and later to the parade and commemorative service at Langley Park, which was interesting for several reasons. First, it included several prayers. Kind of funny, because Aus is overall more secular than the states, but they threw in all these prayers and everyone was fine with it. Then, and this just blew me away, they said a prayer for the Queen of England and sang "God Save the Queen." I just don't understand why she is still their Head of State...granted Aus' history with Britain is quite different from the US', and in their eyes, its not causing any problems, so why change it? But still...you're an independent nation and you're keeping Britain's queen as your head of state?