Time to Wear the Poppy
(Hat tip: Blue Blogging Soapbox. Cross-posted from The Phantom Observer.)
Last week, the Royal Canadian Legion began its poppy campaign for Remembrance Day. This link explains some of the history behind the wearing of the poppy, and it's worth a look if only to improve your understanding of Remembrance Day and its primary symbol.
It's important to understand one thing, although given the way our media environment works, it's easy to confuse the issue: wearing the poppy has nothing to do with "supporting the troops." Even if you don't like the idea of our people fighting in Afghanistan, you should still wear the poppy -- and not just because everyone else is doing it.
We wear the poppy to remember the sacrifices that our soldiers made in the Great Wars of the past: the two World Wars, Korea and to a smaller extent Vietnam. We also wear the poppy to remember the sacrifices made in the name of peacekeeping: Cyprus, Gaza and other operations.
We wear the poppy because we, the people, ask our fellow people in uniform to do things we wouldn't dream of doing, to go where the rest of us wouldn't want to go, to put their lives in jeopardy in situations we don't want to find ourselves in, and yes, sometimes to lose them. We wear the poppy to remember those people, in pasts both long and recent. We don't remember their politics, their beliefs, and sometimes not even the features on their faces, although some of us try. We remember that they existed, that they fought in a war Canada asked them to fight, that many of them died, and that our Canadian life exists today as a direct result.
"Supporting the troops," on the other hand, is more than remembering. It's making sure they have what they need to do the jobs we ask them to do. It's making sure they have some comfort to sustain them in a task that's harder than we can appreciate. Above all, it's demonstrating in all the right ways that we think they're doing a hard job and that they're doing it well.
The poppy, in short, is a fleeting symbol of history. "Supporting the troops" is an ongoing activity that doesn't stop on November 12th.
Oh, and remember that if you bend the end of the pin to an acute angle after you put the poppy on, there's less chance of it falling off and getting trampled.
Last week, the Royal Canadian Legion began its poppy campaign for Remembrance Day. This link explains some of the history behind the wearing of the poppy, and it's worth a look if only to improve your understanding of Remembrance Day and its primary symbol.
It's important to understand one thing, although given the way our media environment works, it's easy to confuse the issue: wearing the poppy has nothing to do with "supporting the troops." Even if you don't like the idea of our people fighting in Afghanistan, you should still wear the poppy -- and not just because everyone else is doing it.
We wear the poppy to remember the sacrifices that our soldiers made in the Great Wars of the past: the two World Wars, Korea and to a smaller extent Vietnam. We also wear the poppy to remember the sacrifices made in the name of peacekeeping: Cyprus, Gaza and other operations.
We wear the poppy because we, the people, ask our fellow people in uniform to do things we wouldn't dream of doing, to go where the rest of us wouldn't want to go, to put their lives in jeopardy in situations we don't want to find ourselves in, and yes, sometimes to lose them. We wear the poppy to remember those people, in pasts both long and recent. We don't remember their politics, their beliefs, and sometimes not even the features on their faces, although some of us try. We remember that they existed, that they fought in a war Canada asked them to fight, that many of them died, and that our Canadian life exists today as a direct result.
"Supporting the troops," on the other hand, is more than remembering. It's making sure they have what they need to do the jobs we ask them to do. It's making sure they have some comfort to sustain them in a task that's harder than we can appreciate. Above all, it's demonstrating in all the right ways that we think they're doing a hard job and that they're doing it well.
The poppy, in short, is a fleeting symbol of history. "Supporting the troops" is an ongoing activity that doesn't stop on November 12th.
Oh, and remember that if you bend the end of the pin to an acute angle after you put the poppy on, there's less chance of it falling off and getting trampled.
posted by VW at 5:31 p.m.
1 Comments:
How do people feel about taking one of those little Canadian flag lapel pins and replacing the pin?
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