Ranty McRant graduates to the Land of Gold and Poison.

[gayalondiel_bak]

Supporting the Armed Forces; or, Why I Wanted To Give an Army Cadet a Clip Round the Ear.

I am very proud of the fact that in my circles, Remembrance Day is a big deal. Most of my friends have poppies of some kind on their clothes, Facebook pages, Twitter userpics, Livejournals, and so on. Many of them have posted in the last couple of days about those from their families who have gone before. I find this admirable, and more so because mostly I know these people have a bit of an idea of what they're talking about.

Some don't.

Comments

[the-marquis.livejournal.com]

But even a cadet deserves to have the fact that, yes you do have a poppy at home and a husband who has just come back from serving off Libya on HMS Liverpool, pointed out to them in no uncertain terms. You could also inform that that they're effing lucky that the reason you were not wearing a poppy today was absent-mindedness and not because it was your boyfriend who'd died yesterday in Afghanistan, because I daresay that is the case for someone that poppies are 'just too traumatic right now'

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Snap judgements about total strangers are never a good idea - I've heard too many stories along the lines of "teenage girl with baby brother must be an underage mum", and this is a variant on that.

My favourite, actually, was a woman who was out with her father, and overheard someone commenting that he looked old enough to be her father.

[adaese.livejournal.com]

Our next-door-neighbour at our old house always avoided Remembrance Sunday, for exactly that reason.

[sally_maria]

Thank you for sharing this, it's a side of the story that also needs telling and the stupid children you were dealing with today obviously haven't learnt yet.

[inzilbeth-liz.livejournal.com]

Sending *hugs*. Youth is no excuse but at least these kids were selling poppies and not burning them. I only wore mine for a few hours yesterday but I had been out several evenings last week knocking on doors and collecting. And I noticed more people putting in tenners than in previous years.

[didiusjulianus.livejournal.com]

I completely agree, having read the full post, but at the same time I don't necessarily entirely blame the youth.

Supposedly for the right reasons, but with some misguidedness, the "Poppy Police" mentality now abounds in a way it never used to, and has led to, for example, the BBC having to be sure to have poppies on everyone several weeks early to avoid complaints about disrespectful missing poppies (such as lack of poppies on the costumes of the dancers (but note not absent on the presenters) on Strictly last year or the one before) - yes a trivial example, but of something more widespread and important.