Does wearing a Poppy now glorify war?

[mikem8634 10]

My father never wore a poppy as a matter of principle and he fought against the Nazis in WW2 (actually Germany). My Grandfather fought in WW1 against Germany and I suspect he never wore a poppy either, but I don't know this for sure.

 

The reason was the Remembrance Poppy had the words "Haig Fund" inscribed in the black centre until relatively recently. Haig was the much hated British army chief who was responsible for so many of the deaths in trench warfare in WW1. He thought nothing of sending hundreds of thousands 'over the top' to be senselessly killed by German machine gun fire.

 

After the war he set up the Haig Fund, probably to assuage his guilty conscience, but many didn't fall for it and refused to buy the hated poppy.

 

I always thought it was a US born idea - see the story of Moina Michael: “The Poppy Lady”:http://www.greatwar.co.uk/article/remembrance-poppy.htm

 

The idea came to us via a French lady (Anna Guerin) who had been inspired by Moina -

 

In 1921 Anna Guérin sent some French women to London to sell their artificial red poppies. This was the first introduction to the British people of Moina Michael's idea of the Memorial Poppy. Madame Guérin went in person to visit Field Marshal Earl Douglas Haig, founder and President of The British Legion. She persuaded him to adopt the Flanders Poppy as an emblem for The Legion. This was formalized in the autumn of 1921.

The first British Poppy Day Appeal was launched that year, in the run up to 11th November 1921. It was the third anniversary of the Armistice to end the Great War. Proceeds from the sale of artificial French-made poppies were given to ex-servicemen in need of welfare and financial support.

 

Since that time the red poppy has been sold each year by The British Legion(6) from mid October to to raise funds in support of the organization's charitable work.

 

However, anybody who doesn't want to wear one has every right not to. As I said earlier, it means many things to many people.

Edited October 31, 2012 by mikem8634

[janie48 95]

First of all, and to be clear, there is no part of me that supports our position in Afghanistan. My heart does, however, go out to the individuals who find themselves in that awful situation, many of whom come home irrevocably damaged, some of whom do not come home at all.

 

Thats another reason why i wear a poppy,as well as what i mentioned before about respect for the fallen in past wars.

I'm anti-war,but they're was no alternative with WW2.

Our position in the Afghanistan and other conflicts is certainly questionable,but our military needs our full support,it isn't their fault those situations of conflict are happening and our Country is involved.

[Rupert_Baehr 10]

The quakers used to wear white poppies to show mourning the dead but also to register their opposition to war. don't know if they still do that

 

Have you heard the names 'Eley' and 'Kynoch'?

 

Jon Kynoch was a manufacturer of ammunition who made a significant amount of money from his business.

 

Ammunition is what you use to shoot people and Kynoch supplied the British Army.

 

Kynoch was a prominent Quaker.

 

(As my very good Quaker friend said to me: "We Quakers are pacifists. We don't kill anybody. - But if you buggers want to go around killing each other, we've no problem with making money out of selling the 'wherefore' to you.")

 

I bet white poppies cost more than red ones.

[Rupert_Baehr 10]

Nothing wrong with showing your oppostion to war but choosing the colour white will only cause more tensions and be adapted again by right wing organisations.

 

I thought 'red' was a colour ordinarily identified with the Left wing?

 

The (alleged) reason for using the Poppy to commemorate people injured (or more usually killed) in battle was that where the shells had dug up the ground 'In Flanders' fields' the poppy seeds sprouted and subsequently there were (allegedly) almost as many poppies as there had been dead soldiers.

 

If you've been to some of the WWl battlefields (and to the cemeteries associated with them) then, if you've any feelings whatsoever for humanity, you can hardly fail to be awed by the sheer number of dead.

 

I used to go to Menen whenever I could for the 'reading of the names'. It happens every night. Many of those people died nearly 100 years ago, but if you're there when they read their names, it seems like yesterday.

 

I'm retired military and I share the responsibility - as do the civilians who sent the military to do the job. In early September I was in the UK (for a Squadron reunion.) I met a lady (way too young to have been involved in WWll) who told me about a friend of her Mother who had died in a raid on Ulm and was buried in a cemetery in Bayern (where I live in summer.) I promised to go to the grave, take a few photos (there were two people she knew) and send them to her. I did so (not a problem.)

 

The cemetery was well-tended and neat. Not huge (only a few thousand people.) But those were people who gave their lives - and didn't have a whole lot of choice about it, either.

 

Poppies are not - and never were - a means of 'glorifying war'.

 

They are a means of remembering those who gave their lives in war.

 

People who didn't want to die - but who did die.

 

I do spend quite a bit of time around war memorials. - Not because 'I think war is neat'. I do not. I've been there. One of my favourite war memorials is das Heldenkreuz (the Hero's cross) near my home in Bayern. It's not a monument to local soldiers, it's a monument to all those who died in war.

 

There is nothing glorious about war (and I'm aware that there are a number of people on this forum who are entitled to agree with me.)

 

I doubt that there are any who are entitled to disagree (am I arrogant, or what?) because anybody with first-hand experience of war is hardly likely to be such an arsehole that he would either attempt to glorify it, or would be so gauche as to start a thread like this.

[hazel 11]

Never Forget

 

Armistice a day of remembrance yet

for our young who died, lest we forget

or have we not known the face of war

I hear you say ‘what is it for

that Poppy, it’s old hat

I’m not going to pay for that’

 

Never forget we are here to day

Because young lives were there to pay

the price of death among the fields

of blood red poppies that fields do yield

Were the poppies there before the dead

Or are they for remembrance in bright bright red

 

hazel

[janie48 95]

Never Forget

 

Armistice a day of remembrance yet

for our young who died, lest we forget

or have we not known the face of war

I hear you say ‘what is it for

that Poppy, it’s old hat

I’m not going to pay for that’

 

Never forget we are here to day

Because young lives were there to pay

the price of death among the fields

of blood red poppies that fields do yield

Were the poppies there before the dead

Or are they for remembrance in bright bright red

 

hazel

That couldn't be more fitting to this topic Hazel.

"Lest we forget"

[monkey104 10]

As explained not everyone in a military uniform is brave, most in fact aren't, they're just easily manipulated, its like saying the EDL are brave.

 

What a plonker! do you know what bravery is? Do you!

I'll tell you what it is and this can apply not just to a soldier it can apply to anyone.

It's a young man having had a few months training, sent out to an unfamiliar country full of people wanting to do him and his colleagues serious harm.

Its a young man who is sent even deeper in to that hostile terrain with fewer of his colleagues, fearing for his life and that of his colleagues ,wanting to stay in the relative safety of the compound but having to go out on patrol.

Its then fighting that mind numbing fear and going out and doing your job.

When the bullets are flying it's fighting that fear to protect yourself and comrades.

When you have an armed insurgent in front of you, its fighting that fear to pull the trigger.

Its fighting that fear to go out in the open to bring back your wounded colleague.

Yes, not everyone in a uniform is automatically brave, but training, teamwork camaraderie,love for their brother makes them so.

 

This can also apply to the police officer that has to approach a violent drunken male, they don't just walk away from him,their adrenaline will be through the roof, but they have to deal with it.

 

As I say there are a million and one examples of bravery out there committed by ordinary citizens who wouldn't class themselves as brave.

Its what you do with your fear that counts.

 

The red poppy also commemorates the bravery of the Miners during the war, known as the Bevin Boys, who were conscripted to the mines but did not want to go down the mines, the AFS ,auxiliary fire service,Land girls, factory workers and millions of others who kept the country running during the war.

 

So Green Web, don't go away angry, just go away.

[L00b 441]

Well I think we should stand up to warmongers and say no, not now or ever agian, and honour those who have some backbone.

Yeah...they said that in November 1918 as well. And look what happened

 

Your political take on the poppy is utter poppyco*k indeed.

 

I suppose you're entitled to it, and even to voice it publicly on here (thanks in no small part to all those we chose to remember by wearing a poppy, by the way...oh, the irony!)

 

Just don't be surprised when you get lambasted by most, if not all, for it.

 

As a north-eastern French person, from a region pulled apart by wars between France and Germany over decades and centuries, I wear a poppy to remember all those fallen during such wars, so that I could still be born freer than most.

 

My great great grandfather was born French, my great grandfather (same village) was born German and escaped German conscription for WW1, my grandfather (still same village) was born French and wore the French uniform in WW2, a cousin of his of similar age in nearby Alsace was born French just the same, wore the French uniform in 1940, then made German and made to wear the Das Reich SS uniform in WW2 in 1942 (or his family would be deported). He didn't come back from the Eastern front.

 

You try and reflect on the horrors of war, and on those forced to fight them for one side or the other, without consideration of politics...then we might have a constructive chat about 'remembrance' and poppies

Edited October 31, 2012 by L00b

[WeX 10]

It seems to have been hijacked by the military and extreme right wing organisations to mean you support the current terrorism wars we're involved with, and its now used by the 'Help For Heros' where you're told to beleive that anyone in a military uniform is somehow a hero, when we all know there clearly not.

 

anyone who puts their life on the line for their country is a hero in my book no matter what you think about the wars they have fought.

[Rupert_Baehr 10]

I've forgotten a lot of my mother tongue L00b, but isn't there a french expression which translates into English as 'stupid prat?'

[regatta 10]

anyone who puts their life on the line for their country is a hero in my book no matter what you think about the wars they have fought.

 

Totally agree Wex.

[L00b 441]

I've forgotten a lot of my mother tongue L00b, but isn't there a french expression which translates into English as 'stupid prat?'

That would be 'stuuupiiid idiôôtt', heavily fake-accented as voiced by Michelle Dubois