I completely disagree with your post and for me the key bit is the bit i have amended.

If more people challenged the reasons for going to war there would be a hellof a lot less injured and dead squaddies and grieving families.

More important there would be a hell of a lot less dead civillians.

I think that 99% of those that wear the red poppy think those thoughts as they're putting it on.

Still sticking with your anti-Semitic avatar?

Or do you only worry about symbols when it suits you?

Having just spent a week in Afghanistan and hearing about the death of a TA soldier on Wed and one I suspect that will be released today that happened yesterday soon brings the ongoing reality home.

Good to see the Defence Minister in Bastion this week.

Same one who may be presiding over the redundancy of 16000 soldiers and sacking those injured on duty.

"Sacking" staff that cant do their job as heartless as it sounds has to be right. The issues has to be appropriate remuneration, compensations and assistance with a new future.

I have a friend who was blown up in Helmand 3 years ago and has been pretty much "lay down" since due to back injuries and the Army aren't very supportive of his claim. He just wants out as he is sick of it and recognises there is no place for him in the Army.

Wilfred Owen :-

[iWhat passing-bells for those who die as cattle?
Only the monstrous anger of the guns
Only the stuttering rifles' rapid rattle
Can patter out their hasty orisins.
No mockeries now for them; no prayers nor bells
Nor any voice of mourning save the choirs,-
The shrill demented choirs of wailing shells;
And bugles calling them from sad shires.

What candles may be held to speed them all?
Not in the hands of boys, but in their eyes
Shall shine the holy glimmers of goodbyes
The pallor of girls' brows shall be their pall;
Their flowers the tenderness of patient minds,
And each slow dusk a drawing-down of blinds.
[/i

[url=http://www.kipling.org.uk/poems_youngbrit.htmThe Young British Soldier[/url

[iWhen you're wounded and left on Afghanistan's plains,
And the women come out to cut up what remains,
Jest roll to your rifle and blow out your brains
An' go to your Gawd like a soldier.[/i

How little have we learned in the 120 years since that poem was written?

Was I hearing things or did anone else hear, during the 2 minutes silence this morning, one lone, distant voice shouting, "no more war"?

W B Yeats poem looks at another aspect of 'service'.


[uAn Irish Airman Foresees His Death [/u

I know that I shall meet my fate
Somewhere among the clouds above;
Those that I fight I do not hate,
Those that I guard I do not love;
My country is Kiltartan Cross,
My countrymen Kiltartan's poor,
No likely end could bring them loss
Or leave them happier than before.
Nor law, nor duty bade me fight,
Nor public men, nor cheering crowds,
A lonely impulse of delight
Drove to this tumult in the clouds;
I balanced all, brought all to mind,
The years to come seemed waste of breath,
A waste of breath the years behind
In balance with this life, this death.

Wilfred Owen MC died in the last days of the war and is buried in a village cemetery along with a couple of dozen fellow soldiers including another MC plus a VC for bravery beyond the call of duty

this poem,one of his most famous ends with the poet taking the mickey out of the idea that's it's somehow good and honourable to die for ones country - his way of sticking two fingers up to the cheifs that sent the millions to their death...

Dulce et Decorum Est
by Wilfred Owen

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 tired, outstripped Five-Nines that dropped 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.

Siegfried Sassoon :-

[iAt dawn the ridge emerges massed and dun
In the wild purple of the glowering sun
Smouldering through spouts of drifting smoke that shroud
The menacing scarred slope; and, one by one,
Tanks creep and topple forward to the wire
The barrage roars and lifts. Then, clumsily bowed
With bombs and guns and shovels and battle gear,
Men jostle and climb to meet the bristling fire.
Lines of grey, muttering faces, masked with fear,
They leave their trenches, going over the top,
While time ticks blank and busy on their wrists,
And hope, with furtive eyes and grappling fists,
Flounders in mud. O Jesu, make it stop!

[/i

Try this song The Green Fields of France by Eric Bogle. check it out on youtube the men they could not hang version is very good.

Well, how do you do, Private William McBride,
Do you mind if I sit down here by your graveside?
And rest for awhile in the warm summer sun,
I've been walking all day, and I'm nearly done.
And I see by your gravestone you were only 19
When you joined the glorious fallen in 1916,
Well, I hope you died quick and I hope you died clean
Or, Willie McBride, was it slow and obscene?

Did they Beat the drum slowly, did the play the pipes lowly?
Did the rifles fir o'er you as they lowered you down?
Did the bugles sound The Last Post in chorus?
Did the pipes play the Flowers of the Forest?

And did you leave a wife or a sweetheart behind
In some loyal heart is your memory enshrined?
And, though you died back in 1916,
To that loyal heart are you forever 19?
Or are you a stranger without even a name,
Forever enshrined behind some glass pane,
In an old photograph, torn and tattered and stained,
And fading to yellow in a brown leather frame?

The sun's shining down on these green fields of France;
The warm wind blows gently, and the red poppies dance.
The trenches have vanished long under the plow;
No gas and no barbed wire, no guns firing now.
But here in this graveyard that's still No Man's Land
The countless white crosses in mute witness stand
To man's blind indifference to his fellow man.
And a whole generation who were butchered and damned.

And I can't help but wonder, no Willie McBride,
Do all those who lie here know why they died?
Did you really believe them when they told you "The Cause?"
Did you really believe that this war would end wars?
Well the suffering, the sorrow, the glory, the shame
The killing, the dying, it was all done in vain,
For Willie McBride, it all happened again,
And again, and again, and again, and again.

Alternatively this song by Eric Bogle an excellent recording by the Pogues is a great song as well

.
AND THE BAND PLAYED
WALTZING MATILDA



When I was a young man I carried my pack
And I lived the free life of a rover
From the Murrays green basin to the dusty outback
I waltzed my Matilda all over
Then in nineteen fifteen my country said Son
It's time to stop rambling 'cause there's work to be done
So they gave me a tin hat and they gave me a gun
And they sent me away to the war
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we sailed away from the quay
And amidst all the tears and the shouts and the cheers
We sailed off to Gallipoli

How well I remember that terrible day
How the blood stained the sand and the water
And how in that hell that they called Suvla Bay
We were butchered like lambs at the slaughter
Johnny Turk he was ready, he primed himself well
He chased us with bullets, he rained us with shells
And in five minutes flat he'd blown us all to hell
Nearly blew us right back to Australia
But the band played Waltzing Matilda
As we stopped to bury our slain
We buried ours and the Turks buried theirs
Then we started all over again

Now those that were left, well we tried to survive
In a mad world of blood, death and fire
And for ten weary weeks I kept myself alive
But around me the corpses piled higher
Then a big Turkish shell knocked me over tit
And when I woke up in my hospital bed
And saw what it had done, I wished I was dead
Never knew there were worse things than dying
For no more I'll go waltzing Matilda
All around the green bush far and near
For to hump tent and pegs, a man needs two legs
No more waltzing Matilda for me

So they collected the cripples, the wounded, the maimed
And they shipped us back home to Australia
The armless, the legless, the blind, the insane
Those proud wounded heroes of Suvla
And as our ship pulled into Circular Quay
I looked at the place where my legs used to be
And thank Christ there was nobody waiting for me
To grieve and to mourn and to pity
And the band played Waltzing Matilda
As they carried us down the gangway
But nobody cheered, they just stood and stared
Then turned all their faces away

And now every April I sit on my porch
And I watch the parade pass before me
And I watch my old comrades, how proudly they march
Reliving old dreams of past glory
And the old men march slowly, all bent, stiff and sore
The forgotten heroes from a forgotten war
And the young people ask, "What are they marching for?"
And I ask myself the same question
And the band plays Waltzing Matilda
And the old men answer to the call
But year after year their numbers get fewer
Some day no one will march there at all

Waltzing Matilda, Waltzing Matilda
Who'll come a waltzing Matilda with me
And their ghosts may be heard as you pass the Billabong
Who'll come-a-waltzing Matilda with me?

Listened to a fascinating 1hr long documentary today on Radio Leeds, its on iPlayer at the moment, listed at 11am as "Radio Leeds Documentary".

Its the story of the 1911 FA Cup winning Bradford City team and how nine of their players lost their lives in the first world war including their captain Jimmy Spiers who scored the only goal in the FA Cup Final replay.

The documentary took a coach full of supporters and battlefield historians to France to trace where each of those nine players lost their lives in various battle fields and campaigns that spanned the whole four years, one in particular described how during the first day of The Somme both the Leeds Pals and two Bradford Pals battalions were lined up together, one of the Bradford Pals battalions went out first and were decimated by machine gun fire, the Leeds Pals were sent out next and met the same fate and then the second Bradford Pals had to follow, it was in that battle that two Bantams players lost their lives.


You might also want to check out the iPlayer for last nights (Saturday) Radio 2 documentary "Victor" which describes, in his own words and narrated by John Hurt, the WWII story of Victor Gregg, an incredible true story of a young lad who joined up in 1938 and fought in North Africa and Arnhem, but his description of his experience as an escaped prisoner of war in Dresden on the night it was fire-bombed to dust should be on any school history curriculum list - his biography is here [urlhttp://www.amazon.co.uk/Rifleman-Front-Line-Victor-Gregg/dp/1408813963/ref=sr_1_1?s=books&ie=UTF8&qid=1321212466&sr=1-1[/url

I can't believe that it's eight years since this event:



The Lord Mayor of Hull pays tribute to the monument to 2nd Lt Jack Harrison VC MC. Rugby League's only VC & MC awardee. Unfortunately Jack's body was never found but thanks to the brethren of Rugby League fans worldwide, a fitting and lasting tribute was installed outside the KC Stadium and officially dedicated prior to the GB v Australia game on 8 November of that year.

i am still in mourning for my mam who died on the 31st august 2011.
anything remotely sad or emotional sets me off and im sure will continue to do so for a while.
this mornings playing of the last post after the 2 minute silence got me.

RIP MAM.
RIP GRANDAD.(my mams dad) MERCHANT NAVY SS ALBANO HULL MARCH 1940 NEAR COQUET ISLAND NORTHUMBERLAND.
RIP TO THE FALLEN.

i heard it to

I did think the Queen's multi poppy corsage thing was a bit OTT

Where was Thatcher? Surely she would've taken the opportunity to cop some more expenses

Sorry to hear about that. For what it's worth, condolences to you and the rest of your family. It's a difficult thing to deal with.



More widely: thanks for the poems, everyone. I had not seen the Yeats one before, French Ray: seriously found my eyes prickling.

[url=http://www.socialistrevolution.org/3923/the-problem-with-the-poppy/Some points raised about the poppy that some of you might find interesting[/url.

cheers minty.
most of the family are on here so ill thank you too on their behalf.