Ds, Remembrance Day, white poppy- Daily Mail do your worst!

[BertrandRussell]

We are a pacifist family and we have always worn a red and a white poppy together at this time of the year. This year 17 year old ds has chosen to wear a white one on it's own to his school remembrance service. I probably could have insisted he wear the two together as usual-should I have done? He was asked to take a significant role in the service and declined- the Head was very accepting of his reasons. I don't think he's just being a teenage dick-he's wearing a suit and has cleaned his shoes (is there anything more heart melting than a nearly adult boy in a suit?)-but ..but...what should I have done?

@exLtEveDallas Well said!

My 10 year old daughter wears her red poppy with pride as she remembers the brave family members who gave their lives to protect the freedom and lives of others.

"I think you have your answer in the majority of posters above"
The trouble is, many of the posters above don't know about white poppies. And I find the attempt to discredit Harry Smith more distasteful than anything I have read for a long time.

Unless the lad is going in there with his chest puffed out & a banner saying 'red poppies mean war' the only disrespectful people will be the ones who make a scene about a white poppy I hope everyone ignores this protest.

There is no "glorification" of war in wearing a red poppy, I don't honestly know who thinks this sort of shit up! Very well said.

Everything Shatnerswig said. Ironically those men who died were fighting for the right for people to chose what they do - wear a red poppy, or a white one, or not at all.
OP I think even at 10 your son would have been well informed about which one he chose, if both are explained to him.
It's not disrespectable to wear a white poppy. I wear mine every year.
T|he 1st world was was meant to be the war to end all wars. How many wars have there been since? Too many. I'm glad for the women who brought the white poppy to life, and as someone else said, some of them would have been war widows.

soup Dragon what point? That people died on all sides in both wars, that not all of them were soldiers, and that we should be working to stop this happening again? Does wearing a red poppy not make a point? Remembrance is remembrance and it is individual to all of us.

I wouldn't make a 17 year old wear anything in this context. It's up to him. He's free to go with no poppy, white or red. What kind of person goes to a Remembrance service and is more concerned with watching what other people are wearing and doing than actually remembering the people they or others have lost? It's like frothing over someone wearing non-black at a conservative type funeral- it misses the point of attendance.

I just think about my lovely kind grandpa who really did face the slaughter on the beaches on the first day of D-Day and was honoured for it and ask- what would he think? What would he do? He would be so delighted any 17 year old came to a service, he loved connecting with old and young. Would he be monitoring their poppy wearing? No.

And no, I don't think the red poppy glorifies war.

Thumbwitches money raised in the sale of red poppies is meant to go to ex-servicemen and women. That money doesn't even put a dent in the amount they need after they've been to war. It's a disgrace that governements meake dubious decisions to send young men to war and then don't give them the support they need when they come back.

I tell my dds that red poppies aren't just about remembering the fallen. They are to show solidarity to those who have returned from war and are struggling mentally.

There is nothing to celebrate about ww1 imo, it was a stupid war and the deaths were needless. But that doesn't mean we can't take 2 minutes to think about those sons and those who have returned with lasting mental and physical damage.

onefoot well said. Are we not betraying what those people died for, if we try to tell people what they should and should not think, and what they should and should wear, and how they should and should not feel?

People who have chosen to attend a Service of Remembrance are there because they want to be, are there to remember and honour the fallen, are there because they believe in the Service, and wear their red poppies with pride.

How does wearing a white poppy go against that? The purpose is to honour all victims of war.

Where on earth did people get the stupid idea that red poppies glorify war? They are worn in remembrance of the millions of conscripted soldiers who were given no choice but to sacrifice their young lives for our current freedom.

Well, no, they aren't. It would be quite bizarre if they were only for the purpose of honouring conscripts whilst leaving volunteers out.

LtEve and Soup My grandfather who died last year just shy of 100 fought in WWII. He always wore a white poppy, along with his medals, even when marching and attending a remembrance service. My great uncle served in WWII and was involved in the liberation of Belsen. He would never ever talk about what he saw but even the mention of the place on TV 30, 40, 50 years later made him weep. He also wore a white poppy to remembrance services. Because, in his own words, he didn't just fight for British people in WWII but for many other peoples of other nations. He worked alongside soldiers of other nations. He felt the white poppy remembered everyone killed in war, not just British soldiers, but civilians too. No one ever told him, or my grandfather, they were disrespectful.

I wish the white poppy wasn't a poppy. That makes it seem aggressive and chippy! If they'd picked another flower it would make more sense.

rains before he died my grandfather would get very upset at how people were perceived for not wearing a poppy. He wouldn't and never did - he lived with the effects of the war every day and he'd attend a service and donate but not wear a poppy. In the last years of his life he stopped going to the service because people there were more concerned with people wearing poppies than why they were there and it upset him hugely. We spoke more than once about how freedom means exactly that.

I went to a service one year on rememberence day by local forces and didn't have a poppy and got berated by people for it. I wasn't making a political statement I've never worn one by choice. Instead of thinking of why we were there people were more concerned I'd not worn one, tutting and complaining except for the silence at 11. I spoke to my grandfather about it and he just looked sad and mentioned how people should think more about why those services exist and not what others are wearing.

You don't need a poppy to remember.

soup Dragon what point?

Read exltevedallas's post. She put it far better than I could.

There's so much in this thread that's unfortunately become what's wrong with the poppy campaign. People get to choose whether they wear a poppy or not. They get to choose whether they wear red, or white, or purple. I prefer to support a charity that doesn't accept donations from arms dealers.

Well tell him to stop appropriating the war widows grief then. I am presuming he isn't a war widow?

Given that white poppies have never been intended purely as a sign of grief, and that the widows in question positively wanted the wearing of white poppies to be promoted, it's hardly appropriating their grief, is it?

Origins and purpose of white poppy are slightly besides the point at a remembrance service, it’s how it will be perceived. If there’s a spectrum moving from ‘dick move’ to ‘respectful’ it’s slightly dick move leaning in that context.

At many Remembrance services i attended as a child the soldiers wore white poppies. Nobody ever complained. Since moving back to the UK however, people seem to get really uptight & now i rarely see the soldiers wearing them. Our men were not the only ones fighting for their country, many forced.

Does your DS wear his white poppy on 21st September? Or just 11th November?

It isn’t about whether you agree with war, and this year, 100 years after the war, none of us remembering would have been directly affected by the events/reasons/victories/losses

Missing the point of this thread totally, but I read this and suddenly realised that if WWI had never happened I wouldn't have been born. I know lots of people wouldn't have been, but it's very direct for me as my great-grandparents were refugees.

This is why I wear a red poppy. It’s for my grandfather. Shot on the d-day landings 6th June. Died from his wounds 13th June.

Regiment - Royal Army Medical Corps.

Thankful to all the men and women who gave their lives to save us from tyranny.

Steakandkidney, when precisely were 14 year olds conscripted into the army?

I think that wearing the red poppy is often associated nowadays with support in general for the British Army and the State. Most of the money raised goes to help those involved in the recent wars the British have become embroiled in that many opposed. I know many young people who object to it because they don't want to be associated with looking like they support our recent military interventions (Iraq, Afghanistan) or the support services and weapons we supply to the Saudis that have been used in Yemen

I think the 100 year remembrance is helping to re establish the link with WW1 and wearing the poppy to remeber those who fell and certainly when I was a child I was told it was to make us never forget so we would never waste young life like that again.