To not buy a poppy

[Hippymum89]

Why is it more important to remember the death of a soldier who died fighting for the country (or so he believed) than the death of every other person who has died?
What about all the others who have died helping others? Were their lives less important? Or the little old lady who died in hospital at the age of 97, she didn't kill any Germans, or rescue people. She lived her life, but doesn't that count?
I think poppys glorify war and therefore murder, so I will not be buying one.

@weblette as it was silly, imperialistic nonsense. And if people had refuse dto get involved nothing bad would have happened. Only good imo.

@ltEveDallas I'm actually very proud of the peace keeping the UK did in Serbia in my lifetime. Thankyou very much for your work. If this thread had been about the work of UK forces there I would like to think it would have been a very different thread. I went to Croatia for the first time this year, and it is amazing that that part of the world has developed in the way it has, largely due to UN peacekeeping forces.

In my opinion you ANBU. But wear a white poppy instead? Actions speak louder than words, either spoken or posted on an internet forum.

I don't tend to buy a red poppy as I do feel similarly to you, although maybe not quite as strongly. Any life taken is wrong, regardless of how it's taken. I don't support war or really the armed forces, but I respect some of what they try to do. Young lives taken in action are sad, but no more or less sad than a life taken by a murderer knifing a young man on the streets for example. The minutes silence does annoy me though. I believe people being silent about things causes some of the problems of the world, and actually we need to speak up about things that are wrong. I understand it is to remember and respect the dead but isn't it disrespectful to be silent about what caused their death and the deaths of thousands of innocent people in the first place.

I would also not buy a poppy having worked in a company with British Legion affinities in the 80s, and having learnt how poppy money was misused.

Hopefully, this doesn't happen anymore, but I still can't quite bring myself to put the money in the box.

Sorry.

I'm actually very proud of the peace keeping the UK did in Serbia in my lifetime. Thankyou very much for your work. If this thread had been about the work of UK forces there I would like to think it would have been a very different thread. I went to Croatia for the first time this year, and it is amazing that that part of the world has developed in the way it has, largely due to UN peacekeeping forces

So Ethel, your issue is what, exactly? Same Army, same soldiers, same views. I was in Bosnia with IFOR, after the UN had 'given up'. The reason it calmed down enough to bring the warring factions together, to work towards the peace they have now, and the freedom they have now was that as a UN Force the Mil can't 'fight back' they have to be impartial - people were being killed in front of the UN soldiers and inspectors and they couldn't do a damn thing about it.

When we finally wore our own berets and carried our own weapons, made ready, the murdering bastards on all sides realised we were serious, and that they had to give mediation a try.

I was there for the first elections. I was in the middle, literally, of a riot and saw what they did to each other. I lived with females who had been brutalised, and didn't want peace - they wanted their attackers dead.

There is peace now, but ONLY thanks to IFOR. We made it safe for the UN to work. Peace comes at a price. The UN Peacekeeping Force is worthless without a Protection Force to back it up.

Kosovo didn't run as long as Bosnia because KFOR went in FIRST. If we had done that in Bosnia thousands more would have been saved.

no not same views. Completely different wars and different views. UK were there as part of peace keeping forces.

They weren't for ww1, wwii, Iraq 1 and 2 and Afganistand and Falklands. Its v different.

Thank you armed forces, past and present. You do a grand job.
My poppy is worn with pride.
I was reading, only today, about the new bridge that has been built in Afghanistan which will be a massive help to the locals it serves.
Sadly, I read this story on Defence Intranet, not in a tabloid, so most won't even know of the great work our forces are doing to make their lives better after years of suppression from the Taliban.

But I digress, thank you to my colleagues and heartfelt thanks to Grandad, who died just 1 year ago this week and was never able to talk about WW2
Thanks also to my Dad who saved some villagers somewhere remote whilst being shot at. Thanks to DH for his services too.

The people complaining, you wouldn't be sat there on your computers or smart phones right now if it weren't for these people. The same people you're so against honouring. You make me sick. They sacrificed their childhoods, their sanity, their limbs, their families, their nerves, and in a lot of cases: their lives. How dare you not respect them.

Ethelb as you very obviously have absolutely no idea of actual history and no appropriate answer I have no hesitation in ignoring your obviously inflammatory posts. Theorising about a just war is, I'm sure for you, a lovely intellectual exercise.
My father in law was a committed Catholic. When he found himself in the midst of WW2 he had no hesitation in acting against what he felt was the far greater evil. The things he saw and endured caused him and his family immense harm, none of them would have said no, don't get involved.

@weblette please do tell me about your "actual history" based on what you heard from your father in law. I'm sure it is really really valuable.

Since he's well dead I doubt it. Save your patronising shite for some one else.
Pretty much every history book would have the Kaiser deciding to invade the neutral Belgium en route to occupying France contrary to the declared support of Britain I would hesitate to see how the UK were warmongering in that circumstance.
Or was Versailes just a teeny mistake in your view.

Ethel I'll leave you to your wonderfully conceptual and utopian high ground. I'm not sure which precise bit of Catholic teaching you seem to be basing your views on.
Meanwhile in the real world people are remembering others who thought back in the early 1900s there was something worth fighting for. And people in the 40s who decided that the evil of Nazism was something to be denied and repelled.
If you'd rather they hadn't, that says volumes.

A member of the forces kills only when life is in danger; his own, his comrades or the people he is protecting. It is a form of Self Defence, whether you are defending yourself or your country.

That may be mostly true, its not always true, is it? The british soldiers that shot unarmed people in the back on Bloody Sunday were not shooting in self defence, were they?
You're going back there to pretending that every single soldier has only noble motives at all times.

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That may be mostly true, its not always true, is it? The british soldiers that shot unarmed people in the back on Bloody Sunday were not shooting in self defence, were they

Bloody Sunday was a shameful episode in the British Army's past. The soldiers may well have thought they were in danger, but it does not excuse what they did. I hold the same anger, disgust and disdain against those soldiers as I do the IRA and UVF. I would no more defend what they did then I would the terrorists they IRA.

Ack ...'than I would the terrorists' (rogue IRA there, sorry)

As poppy petals gently fall
Remember us who gave our all
Not in the mud of foreign lands
Nor buried in the desert sands.

In Ulster field and farm and town,
Fermanagh's lanes and drumlin'd Down
We died that violent death should cease
And Ulstermen might live in peace.

Lest we forget.

Definition of murder in online dictionary:

Law . the killing of another human being under conditions specifically covered in law. In the U.S., special statutory definitions include murder committed with malice aforethought, characterized by deliberation or premeditation or occurring during the commission of another serious crime, as robbery or arson (first-degree murder), and murder by intent but without deliberation or premeditation (second-degree murder).

Whereas 'kill':

to deprive of life in any manner; cause the death of; slay.

So it would appear that they are different, may I use the example of a soldier of the Wermacht killing a Russian soldier on the battlefield in the heat of combat. That is a killing.

The SS in the death camps murdered thousands of Jews. This was murder.

I understand the wish for there to be no war but it is an ideology. Words can only go so far, there comes a point where diplomacy fails & this is where the armed forces enter. Humans have an inbuilt tendency to want to possess & expand, its part of what makes our species so successful. However it also means we wish to take what others possess, as far back as our written & verbal history began there have been dictators & war. Its part of being human in these times & even if peace was widespread & all the peoples of the earth came together to exist side by side in peace & love there would still be armies. Somewhere. Because occasionally we get a Hitler, or a Gengis Khan, or an Alexander the Great & we need a means to suppress them.

Nobody wants war, but it is inevitable because our species is hard wired to start them!

Excellent post honeytea on remembering innocent civilians killed in wars too. I believe they deserve equal remembrance especially as they did not choose to participate in war. If the poppy marked both fallen soldiers and civilians I'd feel more comfortable about it - I think this is what the white poppy is for.

On OP's title question - are you unreasonable not to wear a poppy - the answer is no. If people choose to wear a poppy, fine but I really dislike the pressure laid onto people, especially public figures, to wear one. I remember reading that newsbloke Jon Snow received death threats for not wearing one! Which seems ironic given soldiers were fighting for our freedom

Indeed MrsD. How odd

This for obvious reasons is a very emotive subject. All four of my grandparents were active in WWII, one being incapacitated for life. They all played their part in what they believed was an effort to "fight for their country". I am proud of them all. Their emotional scars are still with them today.

However lets not look at war through rose tinted spectacles. We all assume "our side" were the goodies, fighting for their country and doing nothing wrong. But the truth is that nobody goes to war to make friends, every side do what they have to to become the winners. That includes murdering other people shock horror. Whoever feels the need to deny that is the dimwit. Every soldier who goes into war knows that.

What seriously irks me is the disproportion that war comes with. I don't believe that the "war on terror" in Iraq or Afghanistan is about that at all, it is the government trying to monopolize and get its own way in the world. The US allied with Osama bin Laden happily against the former USSR, but suddenly then he became a terrorist when it wasn't in their favour.

The US pay a family in Afghanistan approx $200 for any civilian they murder kill accidently. Why is the price of life there so much cheaper?

I grew up in Northern Ireland where I had many family members who were servicemen. The troubles were always glorified in the sense that "our men" were fighting for our safety. My own Mother was in an explosion that injured her and killed another family member. It was only years later that I realized that the british (ie MY people) were not all the halo wearing heroes. A lot of suffering came from their side too. Families beaten, girls abused etc etc.

So if I wore a poppy (which I don't) it would be to remember ALL fallen soldiers around the world.

OP

Do you ask the same of the NSPCC?
The pink ribbon?
Macmillan?
cancer awareness?
Movember?

What makes any of these more important?

What makes the the poppy important? That you are even able to ask your question makes it important.

I am tremendously grateful to all the servicemen and women who have died and been injured while trying to protect us and our freedom. My heart breaks for their shortened lives and their families.

But I won't be buying a poppy because I will be continuing to support other charities that try to make the world a better place and remove the causes of war. So charities that help people in developing countries (so that they don't have to migrate or rebel or attack other countries in order to survive); charities that feed, clothe and educate children (so that they grow up with more opportunities to have a better life - and never get so angry and desperate that they feel they have to lash out); and charities that protect the environment so that global warming doesn't cause more droughts and famines in less well-favoured parts of the world.

The battle I want to fight is the one against poverty and inequality and ignorance, which cause those brave servicemen and women to lose their lives in the first place.

And I also vote against governments who invade other people's countries for reasons I disagree with.

hippy I agree with you and well done for being brave enough to speak up cos I have never told anyone, apart from DH.
Fighting is their job and they go into that job knowing what's to come.
And their wives marry them and have their children knowing full well what their job entitles.
dawn you make a good point, but I think the news coverage, poppy appeal and various tv programmes are too much, and the support given to other deserving people pales into insignificance compared to the support given to soldiers and their families.

No, Deja, I think you're wrong about the support given to ex-service people. From what I know, they are not treated well at all by the govt. What more can you ask of someone than that they risk their lives? They should be given everything they need and want, imo, when they are invalided out.