Armistice day, or more accurately the run up to it, usually finds me in a bit of a moral quandary

I bought a poppy today but I didn't like the look of the chap i bought it from. A young man with neatly groomed hair, dark suit and polished shoes so shiny i could see right up my nostrils in them.

Now I don't usually take instant dislike to people, well maybe I do but only sometimes, but there was definatley something about his look that found unsettling. A sort of young conservative look. All power to the bloke as it is a decent cause and everything (East Africa might be a slightly better one right now however) but the militaristic angle bothers me some what. I know it is a military remembrance day, DUH! But none the less I am sometimes uncomfortable.

There is a very fine line between remembering the sacrifice of others on our behalf and the glorification of armed conflict.

I have met many ex servicemen through my work. None of them mentioned it as being in any way "glorious". I think I have made this point before but of all the servicemen and women I have met from WWII the battle stories from the infantry are conspicuous by their absence. Sailors and pilots will tell you almost everything but infantry just won't talk. I will leave it to your imagination as to why that is.

The reason I buy the poppy is as a mark of respect to the ordinary rank and file people who died in 2 world wars but also to support the service personnel whose occupational hazards are a little more hazardous than mine.

The moral quandary for me is that military forces often carry out operations I have no support for politically, but I feel a need to care for the individuals who are damaged physically and emotionally.

My own personal experience of serving personnel is not on the whole a positive one. I grew up in a naval town and sailors on shore leave are a lively bunch to put it mildly.

In the days of yore when I used to my drinking in Portsmouth it was considered a spectator sport on a Friday night to watch the Naval Provost vans lurking around the various drinking refuges and see what happened when it all kicks off. The Naval Provost was feared by all sailors on shore leave as they had a reputation of busting heads and asking questions later.

If the Provost was called into action a van would draw up and half a dozen Gorilla's would leap out the back and set upon anything that moved hopefully separating the ordinary matelots from the locals and dragging the matelots off for an evening of table football (with the matelots as the footballs) back in the dockyard. In those days as long as they could deliver you back to your ship with all limbs intact no one bothered too much about what happened in between.

I have to admit that on several occasions it has been of some comfort to me that the lad in front of me giving me a hard time would soon be dodging bullets in Belfast and other far flung corners euphemistically termed "Sphere's of influence"

Some years after the Falklands conflict of 1982 I was brought up sharp on that attitude. That was a conflict I "supported" like many Brits at the time. I saw an interview with a sailor rescued from HMS Sheffield and his disgust, when returned home shortly after, at seeing all these people back home acting so normally even though his comrades were invloved in a life an death struggle.

So my purchase of a poppy is to recognise the sacrifice of these men and women as individuals. We do care what happens to them even if we aren't sure we want them to be there.