Why I No Longer Feel Comfortable Wearing a Poppy

[Geckos48]

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.

I live on an Army base where a month ago half the base deployed for Afghanistan. The amount of absolute bullshit about soldiers on this thread is mind blowing.

DS1(18) has a friend who went with them. Before X went he had a party, just incase he didn't come back. How do you think his parents are feeling right now?

DS1 is going through the application process to join the Army ATM. Like it or not, there is precious little in the way of jobs or opportunities for our young people in this country. DS has AAB at Alevel. He doesn't want to be a teacher, or work in an office, or do anything else.

If it weren't for these kids, and they aren't just joining to kill people, or go to war, everyone's kids would have to join. Is that what you'd rather? Really?

"'Have a choice in what i wear'"

"what on earth are you talking about?"

Wars have been fought to preserve our freedom of expression, e.g. to wear a red poppy in November out of remembrance of fallen soldiers.

Now do you understand?

OP you are the 'Duracell Bunion' of Mumsnet- you keep on and no, mithering and niggling away when you should just agree to disagree and move on.

Time for some board appointed surgery I think.

He is applying because he wants to join the Army. It is all he has wanted to do since he was about 7, its all he has worked at school towards.

I think in the 90s there was an idealism about joining the forces. The Falklands was over, the original Gulf war didnt make huge impact on the people of the UK (although it did make huge and lasting impact on the soldiers that deployed) and the only 'terror' we had to deal with was Northern Ireland. Even after Brighton/Warrington et al there as a sense of joining up and 'seeing the world' rather than joining up and fighting.

Bosnia came along and we had to learn a different way of fighting. As a UN contingent we were powerless, had to stand and watch atrocities in front of our eyes but not be able to stop them. There were those that did, but ultimately they were punished even though behind closed doors they were patted on the backs. The idealism about joining the forces was quickly kicked in the teeth having to watch men being dragged into trucks leaving their families screaming for them and being powerless to stop it. Certainly stops you feeling like a 'hero'

Once we put our own berets back on, we discovered that the best way to win the hearts and minds was a show of force followed by a conversation. We could go into the villages tooled up to the hilt, wearing our weapons, driving our armoured vehicles and ask for the leader/elder. We could listen, we could argue and we could tell them NO. We could suggest solutions, and they would listen.

We were able to offer support and back up to villagers that wanted the invaders out, but without our backup had been too scared to try. We gave an awful lot of men back their balls . They had been emasculated in front of their families, been impotent in the face of automatic weapons against their hunting shotguns. We pointed our Armoured Vehicles in the right direction and they discovered they could win after all.

But for thousands of civilians we were too late. Yesterday's discovery proves that, alongside the 1000s of people killed and 1000s of people still 'missing'. We have had to learn from that. We have had to understand that waiting costs more lives.

I truely believe that going into Iraq was the right thing to do. We fucked up before. We didn't finish the job we started. We supported the wrong cause and waited too long. Because we waited, just like in Bosnia, more lives were lost. Look at the numbers - look how many Iraqis were killed BEFORE we went in. 700,000 between 1991 and 2003. 700,000 whilst we waited. Afterwards, between 2003 and 2009 that number dropped to 100,000.

Yes, we were told there were WMD, and there weren't. Yes, maybe our deployment was based on lies. But you know what, I am STILL glad we went in. For 600,000 very real reasons.

The article in the OP doesn't touch on ANY of that. It's a fluff piece. A piece of shoddy journalism that strikes of someone, very much like the OP, who has a singular idea, but no insight - and more irritatingly, no will to obtain that insight, no will to listen to the real people with real experiences.

MrsDeVere - re social workers. If you take it as not a personal attack and simply an analogy I can actually see Geckos point.

as a social worker makes decisions on they need to take personal responsibility for their actions. Personally I couldn't support a charity that supports social workers.

Geckos argument is that a soldier takes personal responsibility for the continuing of the war therefore she shouldn't support poppy appeals

Problem with analogies is that they don't always demonstrate what you want them to and pick a controversial one they can end up quite unneccesarily offensive

Not saying I agree. Personally I think if you don't agree with wars you should be engaging with the political process

kim147 its the lifestyle and the opportunities.

He always been part of a 'Forces family', always been amongst other forces families so is very aware of what forces life is all about. DS2 would have loved to have joined too, but he is a severe asthmatic.

I disagree that the armed forces are inherently about occupying other countries and waging war. It has been said in many different ways in this thread bit you still aren't listening OP, the forces do much much more than just fight.

Security at events such as the Olympics.

When the tanker drivers threatened to go on strike the army prepared to step in to avoid fuel shortages.

If fire fighters go on strike the armed forces will step in.

Helping out after floods/other natural disasters.

But the OP is convinced that all the forces do is kill, despite many in the forces having never been on an operational tour, and even of those who have gone on tour many have never killed.

People are STILL dying in Iraq, there is little help for them to rebuild their country. The culture, heritage, history is destroyed. Its tragic.

I have read the whole of this thread and want to bang my forehead on the table in front of me.

OP your opinions might be better understood (if not actually agreed with) if you demonstrated any level of understanding of history whatsoever. You are clearly completely lacking in knowledge about the reasons the First World War came about, and have little to no concept of the issues in the Falklands. You are taking an utterly romanticised view point on the world wars. In neither war were we directly under threat at the point that we joined in, at best we joined the Second World War with the aim of preventing future threat to us (curiously similar to the campaigns we have been fighting recently) but the First World War was, as a number of people have pointed out, an imperial war. Thousands joined up because they wanted to fight - you seem to think everyone was conscripted!

Regarding the Falklands - you say we should give them back or make them independent - err, who would you give them back to?? Surely not Argentina, to whom they have never actually belonged?! And given the Falklands population is largely British, and wants to remain British, why would you make them independent? Who benefits from that?

We are a (relatively) safe nation because we have an Army, Navy and the RAF to defend us. The people who join these services do so out of choice, true, but they have no say where they fight. Whatever their motives for joining, they serve us and we should be bloody grateful for the sacrifices they make on our behalves. If you have issues with where our forces are fighting you should take them up with the elected government. While we still have active soldiers, sailors and airmen we should give them every support - god knows they and their families need it.

If the army were just about helping out firemen and sorting out the olympics I would definitely support them.

We are a (relatively) safe nation because we have an Army, Navy and the RAF to defend us. The people who join these services do so out of choice, true, but they have no say where they fight. Whatever their motives for joining, they serve us and we should be bloody grateful for the sacrifices they make on our behalves. If you have issues with where our forces are fighting you should take them up with the elected government. While we still have active soldiers, sailors and airmen we should give them every support - god knows they and their families need it.

^^^^ spot on

Oh Gecko, you are a one

Quick, someone call up the soldiers/ sailors / airmen [or is it just the soldiers on the ground you despise] and tell them that Geckos got their back if they only help firemen and help out at massive sporting events.

They'll be relieved I'm sure

Geckos, the heritage and culture was destroyed long before we got there. Priceless artifacts were plundered by the 'haves' and the 'have nots' had nothing to trade. If you were rich, or part of the Hussein dynasty you were having a jolly old time at the expense of your citizens. If you were Kurdish you were killed, slowly and horrifyingly. The military force that went in was actually able to recover some of those 'lost' artifacts and give them back - some to the people, some to the safety of collections that are protected to this day.

Yes, people are still dying. I don't deny that. But nowhere near the scale of before.

But we were involved in that Eve we supplied the weapons and the dictator.

I am saying we shouldnt have done ANY of it, rather than separating it out as others seem to.

I disagree that we are a safe nation because of the armed forces, I think our armed forces destroys our safety and has done so consistently since the second world war.

But that's politics. It's the politicians you shouldn't be supporting not the soldiers

I'm not denying that Gecko. I never have. But you cannot base your hatred today on 'what ifs'. We fucked up (or at least our then Government did) but we had to make it right, and we did. There is no point in saying 'but we shouldn't have' - we did, and the past cannot be changed.