It is that time of year again, and because clearly we have forgotten, I’ll say this again, so that some day, it will be “never again”.
Remembrance Day is coming and once again I see and hear that people have indeed forgotten. So…
I wear a poppy. Because I wish to remind those around me that there are those who would sacrifice their lives, their freedoms, their loves, their futures for what they believe in. The poppy represents the cost of war.
War is not a good thing. The poppy reminds us that people we know, people we loved died in horrible wars. That the cost of war is the lives of people.
The poppy is not to honour war, but to honour those who went because they were asked to go. We have to be reminded that war should never be the first option, but always the very last choice. We have all forgotten that the first Great War was not celebrated, but mourned. They wanted to be certain that another like it would never happen again. They failed clearly, for many reasons. Can we learn from their sacrifice, can we learn not to repeat it?
Seems not, but I live in hope. We are seem too self-involved in our own egos to actually recall that the poppy is not a symbol of war, but a symbol of reminder. It is Remembrance Day, not war monger day, not soldiers day. We forget the past at our own peril.
So, wear a poppy proudly, and tell anyone who asks, “lest we forget”.
William Allen
Errington