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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

To post this for the anti Poppy brigade?

392 replies

Jakebullet · 09/11/2013 12:43

Just posted on Facebook by a poet friend of mine

The whistles could be heard
Along the trenches below
The young men weren't ready
But they had to go
Some held photos
Of loved ones back home
They charged together
Yet died alone
The bulkets n bombs
rang loud in their heads
Yet forward they ran
Running over the dead
A war against tyranny and for freedom they fought
A price was to be paid
Yet could never be bought
But their actions
Should be remembered
Even tho with regret
By wearing The Poppy
LEST WE FORGET

By Billy Isherwood

Love this poem......it's been in his head several days and this morning was finally written down.

OP posts:
morethanpotatoprints · 09/11/2013 13:47

YABU, some people don't support RBL because they aren't gullible and know where the money actually goes, and it isn't where many presume.
Personally, I support local heroes and other charities who actually look after the people that matter.
Sorry OP, but you asked.

Kundry · 09/11/2013 13:47

YABU purely because it's a nauseatingly sentimental poem. And for using the phrase 'anti-poppy brigade'. Some people wear poppies, some don't. It should be a free choice.

paxtecum · 09/11/2013 13:49

It wouldn't be for me, but it would be for some.
Imagine wearing a white poppy and working in Whitehall?

Some previous posters have alreadt stated that wear a red poppy in work, because they are expected to.

chibi · 09/11/2013 13:49

see, this is what i mean. there is no refusing to wear a poppy unless you are some kind of selfish bastard who cries for military help during the Olympics etc but then won't honour them etc etc

i wear one at work because i don't want to have a discussion about whether it's because i am a selfish bastard or merely an arsehole.

Hmm
ChrisTheSheep · 09/11/2013 13:49

YABU, for the reasons that others have given more eloquently before me. I am a Forces child, but being compelled to wear a poppy would make me very uncomfortable. I have worn white and red together in the past, but have sometimes chosen not to wear one. I'm afraid the poem is sentimental nonsense.

sashh · 09/11/2013 13:49

That is a terrible poem.

We should spend more money on intelligence and less on bombs.

In all senses of the word intelligence. In WWI 90% of those killed were soldiers, in modern war 90% killed are civilians. We don't have poppies for civilians. We hardly give them a thought.

There are children in Afghanistan who have survived their villages being bombed with terrible injuries. The only freely available medicine is heroin so they are now disabled heroin addicts, and still children.

I don't want to sound crass but probably will, there is nothing we can do to help WWI soldiers, there is a lot that could be done to help children in conflicts today. Those are the people I'll be thinking about tomorrow.

ANormalOne · 09/11/2013 13:50

I knew a simple soldier boy
Who grinned at life in empty joy,
Slept soundly through the lonesome dark,
And whistled early with the lark.
In winter trenches, cowed and glum,
With crumps and lice and lack of rum,
He put a bullet through his brain.
No one spoke of him again.

You smug-faced crowds with kindling eye
Who cheer when soldier lads march by,
Sneak home and pray you'll never know
The hell where youth and laughter go.

Siegfried Sassoon.

Saltire · 09/11/2013 13:50

morethanpotaotprints - where does money donated to RBL go then if not to help veterans?

hobnobsaremyfavourite · 09/11/2013 13:52

ah a poem written by a poet so much more eloquent

DoctorRobert · 09/11/2013 13:53

YABU on several points:

  1. That poem is awful - if you want to post some WW1 poetry, at least choose the decent stuff
  1. Do you really think that people who choose not to wear poppies aren't already aware of the atrocities of war & that poem is going to help educate them? Don't be so patronising.
  1. Who are the "anti poppy brigade" anyway? My grandparents both fought in WW2 - and they lost siblings to the war - but they chose not to wear poppies.
IamInvisible · 09/11/2013 13:56

If you feel you're a selfish bastard for not wearing a poopy, chibi, then that is you're problem not mine because I didn't say that.

I said the military do lots and lots of good, all over the world. But every single Remembrance Day, without fail, the same shit about them being career killers is dragged out. Like another poster on a different thread said this morning, all we need now is to be told we shouldn't have kids and boarding schools are wrong and our bingo cards will be full!

morethanpotatoprints · 09/11/2013 13:57

Saltire

The clubs and associations that many volunteers work in up and down the country, tirelessly fund raise to keep the clubs going especially for those who need them, ex service personnel.
Some have mental health issues, shell shock etc and the entertainment provided for them is paid for by fund raising.
They gain no support from the RBL but regularly come dishing out bequest packages for its members Shock
The person delivering these bequest packages is on about 90k per year and drives a lovely top of the range sports car.
They don't provide any funds for them at all and are "By name only".
I find this disgusting.

pigsinmud · 09/11/2013 14:00

I don't wear a poppy. To me it feels like it has almost become compulsory. The fuss a few years ago when the FA wouldn't let footballers wear shirts with printed poppies on. I thought it was all crazy - have a minute's silence, but emblazoning the poppy everywhere seems odd.

The poppy makes me think of the first & second world wars and the sacrifice those who were forced to join up had to pay. However, it seems to have become entangled in a 'support our troops wherever they are' sort of message and I'm not sure I agree with that sentiment. Perhaps that is just my reading of it, but that's how it feels to me.

Calloh · 09/11/2013 14:00

Christ ANormalOne that is fantastic. A lot of WW1 veterans hated poppies as they felt it was glorifying it and making the ludicrous waste of life more palatable.

I am an army brat and come from a long line of army/navy. I really don't want us to get into fetishising the forces. Forces and civilians have heroes and dickheads among them. There is an incredible amount of bravery around, and yes it's obviously going to be more visible in the forces where people do die, often to save others. But personally I find a quiet and understated remembrance the most fitting.

I wear a poppy, donate to The Soldier's Charity and British legion etc but that's my choice, others can chose as they wish.

I am very, very glad though that we have them and they are the way they are. I am proud of them whatever I think of the politicians who send them to war and the electorate who vote the politicians back in again.

chibi · 09/11/2013 14:01

lol at your epic freudian slip

poopy indeed.

i don't care what good you think they do. it isn't good enough, and not only am i not, i will never be grateful. if you disapprove, then that's your problem, not mine. i never asked for you to celebrate my choices. don't insist i celebrate yours.

Saltire · 09/11/2013 14:03

morethan - sorry am a bit confused. When you talk about clubs and associations are you meaning Legion clubs or different ones? And who is the person on 9ok a year, is that 90k paid for by RBL?

WilsonFrickett · 09/11/2013 14:05

That poem is shit.

ANormalOne · 09/11/2013 14:07

It's haunting isn't it Calloh? One of my favorite WW1 poems, I've always preferred it to In Flanders Field. An anti-war poem is much more fitting for Remembrance Day in my opinion.

I also love Dulce est Decorum Est;

Bent double, like old beggars under sacks,
Knock-kneed, coughing like hags, we cursed through sludge,
Till on the haunting flares we turned our backs,
And towards our distant rest began to trudge.
Men marched asleep. Many had lost their boots,
But limped on, blood-shod. All went lame; all blind;
Drunk with fatigue; deaf even to the hoots
Of gas-shells dropping softly behind.

Gas! GAS! Quick, boys!—An ecstasy of fumbling
Fitting the clumsy helmets just in time,
But someone still was yelling out and stumbling
And flound’ring like a man in fire or lime.—
Dim through the misty panes and thick green light,
As under a green sea, I saw him drowning.

In all my dreams before my helpless sight,
He plunges at me, guttering, choking, drowning.

If in some smothering dreams, you too could pace
Behind the wagon that we flung him in,
And watch the white eyes writhing in his face,
His hanging face, like a devil’s sick of sin;
If you could hear, at every jolt, the blood
Come gargling from the froth-corrupted lungs,
Obscene as cancer, bitter as the cud
Of vile, incurable sores on innocent tongues,—
My friend, you would not tell with such high zest
To children ardent for some desperate glory,
The old Lie: Dulce et decorum est
Pro patria mori.

hobnobsaremyfavourite · 09/11/2013 14:08

I studied that poem in school, utterly haunting

IamInvisible · 09/11/2013 14:09

It is not about what I think they do, I know what they do. The trouble is people like you think you know, but you really don't have a clue. I like to make informed choices, that's where you and I differ!

JanineStHubbins · 09/11/2013 14:10

The old lie indeed. Sadly, I think the poppy has become a way to perpetuate that lie, and is used by the governments and military leadership in a v unsavoury manner.

MOIST · 09/11/2013 14:11

Bollocks.

ANormalOne · 09/11/2013 14:12

I think people have genuine issues with the poppy, I think they need to be discussed. You can remember the sacrifice of the men without wearing the poppy, you can remember them without hero worshiping soldiers and you can remember them whilst having issues with the politics and the lies that forced them to sacrifice themselves.

KateCroydon · 09/11/2013 14:15

That is an awful, awful poem. Suggest sticking to the Ode of Remembrance 'Age shall not weary them...'.

KateCroydon · 09/11/2013 14:15

Sorry - should have said that I meant the OP's poem, not the W. Owen.