Lest we forget

Do you get emails and Facebook messages about supporting the annual Poppy Appeal? I do too. I'm always surprised at the tone of these messages, usually along these lines: I'm buying a poppy to support our service personnel and "I don't care who's offended by that."

It's ok - I'm not offended. I don't wear a poppy myself. I used to buy a white one from the Peace Pledge Union but I don't know where to get them any more.

So why don't I wear a poppy? It's got nothing to do with supporting our service personnel (or with wanting our troops brought back from Afghanistan - tomorrow if possible). I don't come from a service family, but my grandfather served in the army and was at Gallipoli in World War 1. My father was in the navy in WW2, on warships that escorted merchant vessels anywhere from Gibraltar to Simonstown in South Africa and all points in between. Neither of them was injured but they were certainly marked by their war service. Adjusting to everyday life after war service (4 years in one case, 5 years in the other) wasn't easy for them, and I don't suppose it was easy for many others either.

I remember my father's friend Harry C who had been a prisoner of the Japanese in Burma. He never talked about his war service but was known to have periods when he couldn't work, didn't eat and shut himself away from family and friends. He was in a mental hospital several times. He told my father he had flashbacks - he saw and heard vivid scenes from his wartime experiences - right up to the end of his life.

Was there support for ex-service people like him? I don't think so.

I know that kind of support exists in the US. The US system is called the Veterans' Administration. It offers nationwide health provision for ex-service people. It is funded by federal government and provides support for their mental as well as physical health. I know of people being looked after by the VA today who were injured in the Vietnam War in the 60s.

The VA doesn't depend on contributions to charity or selling poppies: aftercare is an entitlement, not a gift. If we take our support for service personnel seriously - and surely we must with so many seriously injured young people, often disabled for life, being returned to civilian life from Iraq and Afghanistan over the past 10 years - then we have to put their entitlement on a firm footing and stop behaving as if raising £50 million is a tremendous act of unselfishness on our part instead of what it is - a drop in the ocean when you're trying to rehabilitate and support sick and wounded ex-service people.

Of course, it's more than Starbucks paid in taxes last year. Anybody want to tackle that one? And I suppose we should be grateful that at least the poppy appeal is no longer named after one of the most incompetent commanding officers the British army has ever known. But the poor haphazard support we're offering now isn't right and we need to fix it. So buy a poppy if you want but write to your MP, your MSP, your MEP - anyone you can think of - and ask them to support the establishment of a VA here in the UK.