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Why I No Longer Feel Comfortable Wearing a Poppy

1000 replies

Geckos48 · 31/10/2013 13:21

www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/madeleine-fry/poppy-day_b_4169581.html

very eloquently put. Exactly how I feel about the whole debacle.

November 11th should be for those who selflessly gave their lives in the World Wars, not those who chose to fight dubious campaigns abroad.

OP posts:
Geckos48 · 31/10/2013 22:42

Trust me, I've been to war-torn countries and this 'building and keeping the peace' doesn't happen.

NI is a classic example of that. If we couldnt keep that under control why on earth did with think we could keep Afghanistan under control?

No I dont 'have a problem' other than not feeling like I can spend the 11th Nov celebrating it as it is intended and instead having to either support the whole of the armed forces or not give remembrance to those who deserved it.

That is a problem for many people I think and should be addressed. 11th November should be a celebration of peacetime and the sacrifices to achieve that, not a celebration of wartime as it is now.

OP posts:
cocoleBOO · 31/10/2013 22:43

I don't know anyone who is pro-war.

Geckos48 · 31/10/2013 22:43

Actually, in the second world war it was not just soldiers (this is another thing that really annoys me) my nana was out there in bomb raids, picking people up, they had massive home front assistance, everybody in the country fought in that war and all types of people died.

Saying it was 'just' about soldiers totally demeans the good work that was done for the war effort at home and that shouldnt be forgotten either.

OP posts:
cocoleBOO · 31/10/2013 22:45

Oh good grief. Why am I even on this thread? Its bonkers.

Geckos48 · 31/10/2013 22:46

Well if you are finding it so hard to follow you should probably leave.

OP posts:
SatinSandals · 31/10/2013 22:46

Who is forgetting it?

SatinSandals · 31/10/2013 22:46

I shall go to bed. It is a bonkers thread!

Geckos48 · 31/10/2013 22:48

I would say when remembrance day becomes all about soldiers past and present and less about the war effort, that is forgetting.

I think, basically that we should all be able to have that day to remember and give thanks regardless of our political standing and I dont think we have that anymore. Its such a shame.

Now I am going to bed too.

OP posts:
cocoleBOO · 31/10/2013 22:50

Good.

MuggedByTheSleepThief · 31/10/2013 22:57

The right to choose is hopefully beyond question, the reasoning behind it is not beyond challenge. Poppies are about remembering the fallen. Don't try to rebrand them in order to disagree OP. they are not, nor ever have been about supporting war in the round or hurting people.

cjel · 31/10/2013 23:05

GECKOS your last post has finally recognised what remembrance day IS all about. It is exactly about having two minutes silence very dignified remembering all the horrors of the suffering of war, ||Whether it is your nanna you remember or friends of my son who have lost limbs in the Royal Marines since that are in my thoughts.
Goodnight

RaspberryPear · 31/10/2013 23:13

My poppy will be worn with pride as a symbol of my thanks to all those that died in uniform.

Thank heavens some were prepared to sign that blank check so we could ague today if they were right or wrong to do so.

Geckos48 · 01/11/2013 07:06

What about the people who didnt die 'in uniform'?

what about the kids and the wives and civilans that died?

If the day is set around soldiers, we are forgetting all those people. I dont agree with it.

I will be wearing a white poppy, for peace :)

OP posts:
flatpackhamster · 01/11/2013 07:19

Geckos48

I think that the WW's were different, i think the majority of people fighting in them thought they were doing so for good, nowadays we know different, its easy to see that the armed forces are used for corruption and greed.

WW1 wasn't fought for 'good'. It was an Imperial war, fought between two Imperial powers. If you want to find a war that wasn't fought for 'good' then WW1 is a classic example! You should be energetically condemning WW1 as evil and bad and all the blah blah you've been saving for the Falklands.

I shouldnt have to 'remember' them to 'remember' the fallen from the first two wars.

By your own standards you shouldn't be 'remembering' the fallen from WW1 at all.

Your position is SO cockeyed it's untrue. There is no logical consistency to it.

Geckos48 · 01/11/2013 07:22

I would say there is a lot less opportunity for folk who died in the first world war to know what they were fighting about, they were just told they had to fight for their country and they did.

We have more education and resources available to us now.

The biggest thing for me is that in making it about 'people in uniform' we forget the rest of the war effort, the lives that took and the civilian dead, who are just as important and I would say more important in modern conflicts as they are the ones truly without the option of choice.

OP posts:
LtAllHallowsEve · 01/11/2013 07:36

What about the people who didnt die 'in uniform'?

The RBL also provides assistance for the Reserve and Auxilary Services - people like your Nana, Geckos

"Shoulder to shoulder with all who serve"

The 'war effort' of WWI and WW2 was about far more than soldiers in uniform. I thought you would have known that.

SatinSandals · 01/11/2013 07:41

I don't understand why you think we are not remembering the families of the soldiers, the civilians, the medical staff, the horses, the members if the resistance, the fire fighters, home guard, etc etc etc.
I will be wearing my red poppy for peace.

SatinSandals · 01/11/2013 07:45

I really can't see the need for a white poppy when the red poppy is already doing it all,but it is your choice. Some people wear both, some people wear none, some people choose one or the other. It is personal choice and no big deal.

ThursdayLast · 01/11/2013 08:04

I'm with flatpack on this one,
OP you are romanticising both the world wars in the way that quite the fasion nowadays.
How about we had left Germany to deal with its own human rights issues in the 30 and 40s, as you propose we do in the Middle East now? So that they can learn our own lesson as we, the British did?

The difference is also in the weaponry available at the time.
Britain couldn't have been bombed in the Victorian era as you so emotively suggest, because there were no bombs. Now, countries are in charge of nuclear weapons...so the peacekeeping force of more developed nations is important.

differentnameforthis · 01/11/2013 08:08

I dont buy poppies because I dont want to support servicemen who have gone off to dubious wars

You know that the service men & women don't actually get a say where they go or what wars they fight, don't you? They don't get to say "rather not do that one Gov, if it's all the same to you"

Which in my opinion is MORE reason to wear a poppy & support those on the front line, who probably don't want to be fighting that war either.

Geckos48 · 01/11/2013 08:28

I don't think I am romancising anything, the last a war was fought to prevent Britain from being attacked, was in 1945, therefore I respect the people who died in that war. In the previous war people had no idea they were not fighting for our freedom, so i respect them too.

People who sign up to go and die in wars which do not protect me, I do not support. It is akin to terrorism, just with people who are paid and in uniform.

My nana gets no support from the poppy appeal, none whatsoever, neither do any of her friends. Yet soldiers wounded in current conflicts do, that makes no sense to me and they feel very much forgotten.

No Victorian Britain could not have been bombed, but what if it could have? Who had the right to do that? Would it have helped us? You can dodge the question or just answer it, would britain be better without our heritage? Without our ability to have improved ourselves rather than being 'freed' by a foreign nation?

I dont think it would have. Arms have very little to do with it actually because the last big wars we have been involved in have been fought with weapons that we have made and given to the other sides.

Arms is where the regulation needs to be, stop making nasty guns and then getting upset when other people have nasty guns (that you have sold them)

the whole thing is a joke, a joke that costs countless lives and ruins whole countries.

There HAS to be another way.

OP posts:
SatinSandals · 01/11/2013 08:41

I will leave you to it, it gets the point where I simply can't be bothered. If you are happy with that view then you stick to it.

Geckos48 · 01/11/2013 08:44

Fair enough, I am not asking you to 'be bothered'

I do find it quite telling though, that nobody seems to want to discuss how it would be if we were bombed and 'freed'

quite happy to 'free' other people but not so happy to think of it here.

very telling.

OP posts:
ThursdayLast · 01/11/2013 08:46

You can't argue with 'what ifs' Gecko.
Most of your points have been made through rhetoric rather than fact.
Don't wear a poppy that's fine.

Just don't be one of those idiots who talks through the two minute silence eh?

cjel · 01/11/2013 08:47

our war in afghanistan is exactly to stop us being attacked. We were being attcked by people who were hiding and training there. the very fact the attacks have become much less is because we went and fought there.

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