Friday 8 November 2013

Poppy Collection? - Old fashioned, out of date, meaningless .....

I am a Falkland's Vet with PTSD I don't need to remember, I'd rather forget. I do not wear a Poppy but I do support the Poppy Fund.

This is not an easy time of the year for me, as the media focus on 'Remembrance' while images from the Falkland's and other conflicts intrude from television and news programs which send me back 30 odd years to sights I would rather not have in my head: but let me be very clear the Poppy Fund is about the living. It is needed because the UK Government has never, ever fulfilled on its promise on the non-existent 'covenant' with the Armed Services. The norm is still as Kipling stated over one hundred years ago:

"Its Tommy this an' Tommy that an' Tommy go away

But 'ullo Mr Atkins when the bands begin to play."

The money raised fills the gap between what the Government claims its does and what is actually needed. Poppy Fund money is held by the RBL in England and the Earl Haig Fund in Scotland then disbursed through RBL welfare and support systems and in conjunction with organisations such as SSAFA, regimental and other ex-service associations and non service charities such the Merchant Navy Association or Red Cross. It's use is based on actual need. Poppy Fund money is used with great care and diligence.

The work that is done by the RBL Welfare teams, SSAFA and other charities ,on a daily basis, is unseen. it could be arranging and funding for someone with a PTSD breakdown to spend time on a two week Combat Stress course in Hollybush. It could be helping a new Afghan widow or widower deal with the complexities the death of their spouse and its impact creates. It could be helping an ex-soldier out of homelessness. It could be simply being there to hold someone's hand and listening.

Your Poppy money is conscience money, its is a token of regard for those who did and still do the UK's political dirty work for it, War is just politics by other means, because the UK Government requires it of them as part and parcel of a UK political system in which everyone is culpable of allowing men and women to be sent in harms way whether voter, non voter, pacifist or right wing extremist - whether in your name or not and until the out dated political system of the 'democratic', minority dictatorship that is Westminster is changed, this will remain the case.

As for the dead?

"They will not grow old, as we that are left grow old; at the setting of the sun and in the morning, we will remember them."


That's how my life is ...

How about the rest of you?

1 comment:

  1. I'm afraid that far from being old-fashioned, or out of date, the RBL has crossed a line for me this year, Peter: http://logicsrock.blogspot.co.uk/2013/11/oft-in-stilly-night.html

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