We never forget our men. But what we are allowed to do for them by the MOD is an utter disgrace: the military are supposed to be a family, but what kind of family leaves its members dossing on the streets?
It's partly because the weight of the local regiments has been demolished. Once, the lads were locals, and owned by the locals: now they can be from anywhere.
We saw what happened when the Army was disbanded after the Napoleonic Wars. The difference between then and now is that now, these lads are all volunteers, putting their skins in the way of harm to stop it coming here. They deserve better: I quote from the MOD's own Armed Forces Covenant, "Special consideration is appropriate in some cases, especially for those who have given most such as the injured and the bereaved". So why are they not getting it? Why does the RBL and its peers have to fill in the gaps? This is obviously the Gret Lie once again, some things never change.

Keith, your comment on what the money is being raised for utterly misses the point: it should not be the RBL's responsibility in the first place. If HMG puts volunteers in harms way, it's HMG's responsibility to deal with the consequences. Fair enough, if you volunteer for something which is likely to do so, then you have some responsibility yourself, but it's part of the Military Covenant that the State must look after you reasonably if you get hurt defending the State. The RBL is simply letting warmongers and bloody incompetent MOD civil servants off the hook. Next time, i'd dearly like to send an equal number of MOD staff with the troops to get a serious experience of what they are doing: only something like that will shake their ideas up, and I'd start with senior grades. Get them to do the cooking, they spend enough time cooking the books as it is.

And as far as whether the wearing of the poppy was compulasory or not, the one time it came up in the The Papers BBC News program a couple of days back, what transpired is that one of the critics had forgotten theirs so one was provided for her - lest the oversight be taken for nonconformity.

If for some reason you dislike this bitter truth, the answer ois not to shoot the messenger, but rather target the bastards who said one thing and did another with the oprobrium they so richly deserve. and that does not mean bands and ceremonial next Sunday.