White Poppies

Tomorrow being Remembrance Day, the flap about wearing white poppies got me in an uproar. Wearing a poppy is a big deal here in Canada and over in the UK, where few people in the USA wear them. So be it.

Some years ago, a bunch of peace lovers in the UK got together and thought that by wearing a white poppy on Remembrance Day would show how they stood up for peace and denounced wars in general. My wife is English and I never thought too much about it. Her father, an RAF vet, would rail against them, but I honestly thought this silly idea would be confined to the island and the Brits would have to deal with it. It has now shown up on our shores and the result is that I'm writing this rant to voice my displeasure. In the words of Yakov Smirnoff, "What a great country." We can write about whatever pisses us off and not have to worry about being beheaded for expressing our views.

Many newspapers will do their best to write glowing tributes to all of our war veterans, both the fallen and the living. They will want tomorrow's editorial to be a positive one, so let us dispense today with the unworthy few who dare to usurp Remembrance Day by hijacking its central symbol, the RED poppy.

The "peace" activists have tried to hijack Nov. 11 for their own purposes by selling "white" poppies for "peace." Filled with the smug self-righteousness of the arrogant and shallow, they care not that this practice upsets many vets. That fact alone should have been enough to cause them to cease and desist years ago. Instead, these ignorant fools presume to lecture our war vets about peace.

It seems they do not know that the red poppy, by serving as a reminder of the enormous sacrifices that so many were called upon to make in war, is the ultimate symbol of peace. To even suggest that our war vets do not care about peace, which is EXACTLY the message the purveyors of the white poppy are sending, is bullshit. An outright lie that offends not only those who died for us, but their survivors and families alike. Our vets don't sit around the local Legion Hall, drinking and reminiscing about battlefield heroics and the "glory" of war. What they do instead is reminisce about, both at the Legion and when they go about their lives, their lost youth and innocence.

Our vets value peace more than anyone because they know the horror of war. Ask them and they will tell you. That is the full message conveyed by all those who will wear the red poppy tomorrow.

The pointy heads should keep their white poppies to themselves.