The choice is yours

I'm wearing my poppy - November now being well underway (see post dated 30/10/09). but it seems that fewer and fewer people are with every year that passes.  Not that surprising maybe - every year there are fewer and fewer people who remember the last war and none now I think with any meaningful memory of the Great War.  But what is perhaps more worrying is that there seem to be a growing number who are making a conscious decision not to wear a poppy.  Why worrying?  Because the reasons they give for this decision appear to completely misunderstand what the poppy is all about.  Phrases like "glorifies war" and "advocates war" are bandied about, and yet the Royal British Legion whose emblem the poppy is, exists simply to help members of the armed services - past and present - who need financial assistance.  I wear mine to honour those who didn't come back or who came back destroyed, physically or mentally.  You have a right to wear one or not as you choose, but please don't make your decision based on a false premise.