How ever the we decided to stick our noses into other countrys affairs and the names went onto the memorials. By the way it was a fight to get names added after the second world war.

It was also a hard fight to get the war widows reconised and on parade. perhaps seeing them there with their husbands medals on the right hand side of their chest was uncomfortable for those in power. As it should be.

The poppy is not about the living and it is not glorifying war. It’s about the dead and the futility of war.

I have seen walls come up and walls come down and for what. Death and misery.

For those who dont know. The first call is the last post which does end with Lights out. ( the militery is never too subtle ) The second call is the reveille which starts with rise soldier rise. Very christian concept. Some times you will get a piper playing flowers of the forest in between to the two calls.

Well, so what? Am I really supposed to say I like boisterous, overly-macho (including the women who now serve) people who have a liking for violence and Authority? That anyone who can say “I would feel I’d be justified in killing if… and sign me up for potentially being put in those situations!” isn’t already part of the problem? I used to volunteer with an ex-SBS soldier, and whose every single story would end up with someone being punched or shot, to the point he’d be telling the elderly we worked with about human rights violations during his service in Northern Ireland as if they’d be impressed by them; what’s wrong with saying he was a horrible example of a human being?

I was re-reading some of my old John Pilger books last night, and I came to the chapter on the SAS training the Khmer Rouge in the use of land mines to terrorize and kill innocent villagers because America hated the Vietnamese who’d overthrown them more than they cared about Cambodian civilians; interestingly, looking for a link for here, I found that some of the famous Bravo Two Zero team were involved in that. Am I really not allowed to say that such people, showing Pol Pot how to most efficiently maim children, are not in any fucking way heroes?

That’s different from saying “We shouldn’t try and help service people if they get wounded or damaged”, which I absolutely think should be the case, but that’s because I’m a more caring person than the people in the Armed Forces. So are firemen, nurses, pre-school teachers, social workers… Sorry, that’s just a simple fact. Different people have different skill sets. Being caring doesn’t make me a professional footballer for instance.

And the people in the Armed Forces may be essential, but they can’t and shouldn’t be expected to be loved by everyone. Amputation is sometimes essential but no one romanticises it; If your doctor turned up and took an extreme joy in performing surgery itself, rather than pleasure in the eventual results, you’d naturally be suspicious, but we suspend judgement when it’s a group of people who take pleasure in the possibility of killing by choice?

That’s the real fascism in the modern day Poppy movement, that it’s slowly taken away any right to state that the Troops aren’t necessarily or automatically Heroes as a subtle way of destroying pacifism and humanism as acceptable political values. By the very same people who usually dare claim to be Christians too; Matthew 5:9 apparently doesn’t appear in their copy of the Bible.

“These people are fighting for you to have the right to insult them!”, yes I can hear the protests already; SO STOP TRYING TO TAKE THAT RIGHT AWAY THEN. Because you’re just proving my point otherwise… if you’re not fighting for a democratic country with a civilian controlled military that is deployed according to the will of and needs of it’s people, why don’t you move to North Korea or any other military-dictatorship instead?

None of which is directed at every single person in uniform ever; did you know that James Blunt, He Of Seriously Wimpy Ballad Fame, SAVED THE WORLD?   But he, and his commanding officer Sir Mike Jackson, did so by querying and stalling from obeying valid orders and following the responsible, logical, and ultimately better course of action instead. As did Stanislav Petrov when he didn’t follow his orders to the letter and begin a nuclear retaliation to an attack that wasn’t actually happening. As did every single Wermacht soldier who quietly disobeyed valid orders to commit war crimes…

And there’s lots of soldiers whose orders, valid and decent, they’ve followed to the letter with dedication and skill and helped lots of people too; there will be many across Asia doing just that in the wake of the terrible typhoon. But that still doesn’t mean I have to want to sit in a bar afterwards and listen to them talk Tom Clancy weapons porn all day; or see in my media their children being manipulated into providing propaganda extolling the virtues of our uniformed Ubermenschen…

Point me to the person who discovers clean energy production and saves us from climate catastrophe, now that’s a hero to me. He’d ensure Scottish Independence in the long term AND do more to defang militant religious terrorism than every single soldier lost to short sighted and stupid political egos to date too; Everyone should be a winner then; but what depresses me is that this is now consider a fringe opinion when expressed in our media these days.

But you sure as hell had better be wearing a poppy on TV…

While im on my soap box. Why does the queen not wear her medals. At least she served for a couple of them unlike Edward. Quite sickning to see him on Sunday morning. There were men and woman who did their 22 and came out with nothing. Not even the 1977 piece of tin. He is just a slap in their faces.

Notice Phil has a load of campain stars. Was he sailing ships in all theaters. Surprised he hasent got one for bombing Berlin. Sorry forgot that would be family.