Many readers contributed comments on Ollie Wright’s article in TCW yesterday, ‘The poppy doesn’t glorify war, you Cambridge snowflakes. It recognises our debt to the fallen’.
Here is a selection of extracts:
Barry Sheridan wrote:
As I young boy I was taken to the Imperial War Cemetery at Arnhem. I recall it like it was yesterday even though it was nearly 60 years ago: it was a bright sunny day in early May, with a breeze rustling the beech hedging, the fresh green leaves forming an amphitheatre to the rows of the immaculate headstones. What has really stuck with me through the years were the ages of the fallen, they were all so young, they never had a life. Yet modern youth, or some of them who have never done anything but whine, feel able to condemn a single moment in a year when we can remember the sacrifice of those that gave us our today.
Andy wrote:
The simple dignity of Remembrance Sunday is without equal anywhere in the world, and far from ‘glorifying war’ it underlines the folly of war and man’s inhumanity to his fellow man. It is not for nothing that the ceremonial has remained unchanged since its inception, and Blair got very short shrift when he suggested changing it – the Queen wouldn’t have it and rightly so.
So I will wear my Poppy with pride as I always have and in grateful thanks that I can live in this wonderful land because of the sacrifice made by those I never knew.
Labour_is_bunk wrote:
This is more widely linked to the general lack of patriotism by the Left. If the Brexit vote demonstrated anything, it showed up a soft underbelly who have contempt for democracy and contempt for this country and its past.
It’s no coincidence that there is a strong overlap between rabid Remainers and those who denounce our ‘imperialist’ past, (and throw in the Highland Clearances and Ireland for good measure) as if totally embracing the EU will somehow wipe the slate clean.
MeandMyDog wrote:
How times have changed. Funeral of the Unknown Soldier in 1920. I can’t watch it in one sitting:
LoveMeIamALiberal wrote:
I guess you have to be as educated as a student to make a comment as dumb as that. The people of Wootton Bassett stood on their street in silent tribute to soldiers returning dead from Afghanistan; by doing so they were also holding the Government to account for their continuing involvement in a war most people did not support.
PutinCooksSocks wrote:
Can I suggest a compromise? I will wear my poppy with pride. Stella Swain can wear a white feather in memory of the mob who forced many men to their deaths in the name of the very ‘gender roles’ she no doubt claims to despise.
rapscallion wrote:
I remember friends who died in the Falklands war, I remember my mate who suffers from PTSD, from the same war, I remember being in a ‘O’ Boat in the Gulf during the Gulf War of 1991, I remember my Father who suffered such terrible sights that he could hardly speak of them and who eventually drank himself to death. I remember my 4 uncles who were killed in WWI. I remember my Great Grandfather who won a VC in the Maori War. I remember, and I am eternally in their debt. Better Men than me, Gunga Din.
gs_schweik wrote:
It must take a very special ignorance and lack of empathy to conflate a grey November day and the simple eloquence of the poppy with ‘glorifying war’.
I was a soldier for 23 years and I can assure Stella that Remembrance is a sombre recognition of the debt we owe those who were killed, maimed, scarred or emotionally crippled in war.
And I can’t help thinking that this silly agenda is being driven as yet another erosion of our identity.
Harley Quin wrote:
The Cambridge students passed a motion pre-World War II that endorsed uncompromising pacifism. No change there then.
A similar motion passed by the Oxford Student Union pre-war is claimed to have encouraged Hitler.
Students have a lot to learn, almost by definition.
Most of the more importance lessons though are to be found in life, not in lecture halls.
UKCitizen wrote:
Our centres of learning have just become indoctrination centres where our brightest are told what to think, not how to think.
39 Pontiac Dream wrote:
Expect it to get worse if Corbyn gets in. He plans to ‘educate’ kids on the terrible atrocities committed by the British in the past and don’t be surprised if that includes WW1 and WW2. The Left-wing leeches who attach themselves to Corbyn will continue to denigrate this country and our heroes until their acts of bravery are washed away.
We cannot allow them to do this.
Oaknash wrote:
We remember those who gave their lives for us because
1 It is the right thing to do
2 It stops us repeating the mistakes of the past.
These spoilt and delicate children have no idea what is the right thing to do and no idea what they are they destroying and thus what they are creating in the future.
And if they did they should be bloody ashamed.
But they won’t because as always with the Left only their ‘feelings’ matter.
Audre Myers wrote:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Makes me weep. May we never break faith.
The young don’t know there are things worth dying for.
