Wearing a white poppy

(to Elegran)

gonegirl They probably join the cadet force for the companionship of their pals, to look good and "responsible" on their CVs and to enjoy the social aspect of the away camping trips. Dh joined at school, and said it was quite fun, except that he got pneumonia on a camping trip to Nissan huts in Cultibraggan, and ended up in hospital in deepest Perthshire.

Or perhaps in the same spirit that in 1955 I joined a Young Conservatives group (shock horror!) in Paulsgrove, Portsmouth (Pompey dwellers will recognise how typically Tory that wasn't) Almost every one of us skipped anything vaguely political, and only turned up for the Saturday night record hops, held in a tin-roofed temporary church in what was otherwise a desert for teenagers.

And the poem is mostly about the mud and the gas.

trisher I don't think those men would have been taught any such thing as the last line of the poem. Many were dragged kicking and screaming from their villages, and from their mothers.

I don't like cadet forces for youngsters, but I think most join for the adventure they can get out of it today. I doubt if many of them go on to serve in the forces.

Prefer the Scouts myself.

I once heard someone say - they didn't support war but they did support the men and women who fought. Isn't that what Remembrance Day is all about?

Yes, sunseeker, it is.

The service is also a heartfelt plea for peace, a remembrance of all those who lost their lives, civilians as well as servicemen and women, remembering those who are still suffering from conflicts around the world and prayers for the future of the world.

Nowhere did I hear it say that war is noble but I think those who fought against fascism, against domination and for freedom of the oppressed, those being starved into submission in WW1 should be remembered and thanked.

DH also wore a purple poppy.

how did the millions who died in atrocious circumstances allow us to wear a poppy today, of any colour indeed.

Virtue signalling - in a nutshell. If we didn't have brave men and women prepared to put their lives on the line for us today as they did in the past, none of us would be free to wear a poppy of any colour.

Elegran I have and believe me they don't think in terms of what the things they design or build do. They are totally caught up in their technical know-how and ability to make them more efficient. Some ex-military personnel may be aware of the horrors but I don't think they all are, and I do think there are those in command who regard some people as completely expendable.
Gonegirl if all you can gather from WO's poem is what the gas did to men I think he would probably feel he had failed. The gas is awful but the real horror is that the men who died had been taught when they were children that dying for your country is glorious. If he knew about the increase in school cadet forces he would be turning in his grave.

If anyone was directly "responsible" for trying to normalise war and make it glamorous, they didn't succeed. I don't think I have ever met anyone who thinks war is either a normal condition or a glamorous one. Ex-military personel and their families are well aware of the sordidness and brutality, and also of how some people treat them as pariahs for participating.

And as for putting up the Wilfred Owen poem, we've all read it. We all know what the gas did to men.

You are virtue signalling.

I heard Hitler was very fond of the British Quakers.

I think we should all be aware that there are people who actually don't care about death and killing

What an absolutely stupid thing to put on this thread.

Thanks for the link Eleothan the Quakers have my unqualified admiration for their sustained work for peace. They say everything I believe about the scares of militarism.
I think we should all be aware that there are people who actually don't care about death and killing. Aparently one of the designers of the landmine which injured and immobilised rather than killing kept an inactive mine on his desk as a paper weight he was so proud of it.

Thank you for that link to the Quaker briefing, Eloethan - interesting read.

quaker-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/store/b34beeeb2b64bfebaea4a969f2bc9410c0bdd3fe341d0f139438f0f4488e

. The Red Poppy is not glorifying war, it is an outward sign of remembrance of the many who gave their lives.

We only have to read ‘the war poets ‘ to remind us ,not that we need reminding , of the many who died .

Sunseeker, I think that sums it up perfectly. None of us want war, but surely we should all be incredibly grateful for those who are willing to put themselves at risk - and who have made the ultimate sacrifice - to keep the rest of us safe and protect our freedom?

I once heard someone say - they didn't support war but they did support the men and women who fought. Isn't that what Remembrance Day is all about?

I certainly don't normalise the idea of war or present it as something noble. We should commemorate the heroic and noble soldiers but yes, war is nothing to be proud of. I don't see the commemoration of Remembrance Sunday as glorifying war and don't suppose many others do either.

trisher, as I said I do understand the history that led to the rise of Hitler after WW1. None of the men in my family glorified war, they had direct experience of it. The current wars are horrific and despite our 24 hour news, we actually see little of what is really happening in Syria and any African countries.
No simple fixes but I'd like to start by the UK no longer being involved in selling arms to anyone.

For those who are interested - in, I think, 2014 the Quakers produced a paper entitled The New Tide of Militarisation which analysed the methods that are used to normalise the idea of war and present it as something noble.

There were certainly heroic and noble soldiers but war itself is something the human race should be ashamed, not proud, of.

Here is the link for anyone who is interested: quaker-prod.s3.eu-west-1.amazonaws.com/store/b34beeeb2b64bfebaea4a969f2bc9410c0bdd3fe341d0f139438f0f4488e

Couldn’t agree with you more Bluebell .

Iam64 I do see differences and I agree that once Hiter had been allowed to gain power war was inevitable. However the story of how and why he came to power and the events surrounding the concentration camps do need to be looked at carefully. There is an idea that Hitler was seen as a good thing by many people in the UK (he was seen by many as the solution to stopping the spread of socialism and communism) and his policies were actively supported. As for the concentration camps it has been proposed that many people knew what was going on but chose to ignore them. Whatever the situation (and we shouldn't forget the way Germany was treated at the end of WW1) the inevitability of war slowly rose. The men who weilded the power were not of course the men sent to fight. I do remember that almost all the men who taught me who had fought in that war were opposed to militarism.
I hope that helps.

trisher forgive me if you've already covered this but, do you see any difference between WW1 and WW2?
I'm avoiding getting into debate on eg Falkalnds, Vietnam for obvious reasons.

Attempts were made to negotiate with Hitler, rightly so. They failed. His murderous desire to conquer the world continued. The concentration camps need no more to be said, other than the reference to them and the millions who died there.

If there hadn't been a war that led to his regime being defeated, I suspect I wouldn't be sitting in my warm, comfortable home. I'd have been shipped off years ago as some kind of heretic. My autistic grandson wouldn't now be aged 24. My friends and relations who aren't entirely white anglo Saxon wouldn't be here either.
I do understand the history from WW1 to the 1930's people living in uncertain times seek strong leaders. Echoes of our current place in history.

I wear a purple poppy

I haven't made it controversial Elegran unless you think it is controversial to post my views because they don't conform with the accepted norm. And I do think the spirit of remembrance has in many ways been hi-jacked by those who think that Dulce et Decorum est still applies and were worried that it was slipping away. When I was younger the men who marched or stood in silence did so believing that peace was better than war. I think they would be shocked by what the RBL has done and the money they have taken. That doesn't mean by the way that I think that everyone who wears a red poppy has bought into D&D est just that there is a body of people who have and they are using remembrance for their own ends.

But wearing a red poppy doesn't say that it is sweet and fitting to die for one's country, it says that they did die and we who did not die mourn them.

Do you scorn the red poppy because some see it as the glory of dying in war? The flag of our nation (the United Kingdom) is the Union Flag, combining the flags of the component parts. Some bigots tried to use it as a rallying call for their own extremism - but it still represents what it has always done.

(That doesn't mean that I am calling your pacifism extremism, Trisher, but that this thread is another example of throwing away the baby with the bathwater. There is no need for the colour of a symbolic poppy to become a controversial issue )