The James McClean Sponsored Poppy Thread

[RedRob72]

They CHOOSE to do it, I'll assume that is where VirginTon was going.

Absolutely, it is their choice, but young people starting out on a career in the Army today, hardly do it for the attractive salary package, share options, private healthcare and pension benefits do they?

[topcat(The most tip top)]

25 minutes ago, Grant228 said:

I'd imagine the vast, vast majority don't reach Lance corporal in three years tbh.

 

Your imagination may be correct I was looking for further data to clarify this that but didn't find any so I posted what I had

If anybody else wants to dig deeper then feel free

[Gordon EF]

2 minutes ago, RedRob72 said:

Absolutely, it is their choice, but young people starting out on a career in the Army today, hardly do it for the attractive salary package, share options, private healthcare and pension benefits do they?

Not usually a viable option for folk who can barely read or count to a primary school standard tbf.

[throbber]

Its a decent opportunity for many school leavers who aren't very academic and are into sports.

[1320Lichtie]

No mainly because they're stupid and never stuck in at school.

Eta: in reply to Rob

[throbber]

Yes, i have met many a soldier and they are quite often thick as f**k.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

4 minutes ago, RedRob72 said:

Absolutely, it is their choice, but young people starting out on a career in the Army today, hardly do it for the attractive salary package, share options, private healthcare and pension benefits do they?

The people doing the display at the front of the recruitment office I pass on the way to work seem to think that these things are important.

http://www.army.mod.uk/join/Careers-in-the-Army.aspx

[Dee Man]

Soldiers and ex-soldiers are like vegans - you get to find out within the first few minutes of meeting them.

[1320Lichtie]

Yes, i have met many a soldier and they are quite often thick as f**k.

And complete arseholes. There's a lot of shite things about Arbroath but pished Marines going about on the weekends is by far the worst. Fucking can't stand them.

[Jacksgranda]

42 minutes ago, Tartantony said:

Can't believe the amount of people that get so upset with this poppy stuff every single year.

If you want to donate, donate. If you don't, don't.

If you want to wear a poppy, wear a poppy and don't worry about what other folk are doing.

Correct

[RedRob72]

No mainly because they're stupid and never stuck in at school.



Eta: in reply to Rob

It's a bit unfair to say it's mainly because they were stupid. I remember there were those kids at School who never seemed that they were going to amount to anything at. Leaving at 16 without any qualifications and ending up at the Army Recruitment Office with the desperate plea 'please can you give me a LIFE Sir'!? ( It certainly wasn't just for the money alone)
Some have gone on to build a decent career with a good trade behind them, they may get have hated School but they certainly weren't just stupid. There's different ways of nurturing someone's particular skills that's all.

[1320Lichtie]

Wasn't being totally serious and actually agree with your post..

[Romeo]

7 minutes ago, RedRob72 said:

 

There's different ways of nurturing someone's particular skills that's all.
 

 

By training them to kill people?

[RedRob72]

By training them to kill people?

Aye fair point, tbh the two examples I was thinking of, one lad came out as a qualified mechanic, the other an electrical engineer, both self employed now and earning a decent crust.

[Dee Man]

1 hour ago, RedRob72 said:

Aye fair point, tbh the two examples I was thinking of, one lad came out as a qualified mechanic, the other an electrical engineer, both self employed now and earning a decent crust.

Plus the hitman-for-hire sideline is a nice little tax free earner.

[topcat(The most tip top)]

Interesting as this diversion into the nature and motivations of those currently serving has been it should be remembered that this is supposedly about Remembrance Day as opposed to Armed Forces day which was in June

[Miguel Sanchez]

There's a bit on the news about this FIFA business right now. Simon Weston has been wheeled out. An assortment of public people are bemoaning FIFA "not getting" it and being unflexible and wrong.

I think the well-meaning but rather naïve comments saying wear one or don't, everyone has a right to choose etc. are becoming increasingly unworkable as time goes on. People who are vocal about wearing a poppy don't seem to be focused on wearing a poppy so much any more as being focused on showing that they care more than other people regardless. The mawkish sort of displays you see at places like Ibrox (and regardless of available budget/facilities, annual events at Ibrox far surpass anything done anywhere else at football in Britain never mind Scotland) aren't something I would have any interest in regardless of whether I was fundamentally on board with what's being celebrated.

In a previous life when I was out in public regularly and in town I would usually stick whatever spare change I happened to have on me in a tin if I saw one and put a poppy through the strap of my backpack. Within about three hours it was invariably ruined so I stopped that. I will say that I personally have never witnessed or experienced any of the fervent self-appointed dignity police that so many facebook screenshots appear here document but my response to them would be the same to anyone on here. You don't know me. You don't know who I am, what I donate to, who any of my family or friends are or why I do what I do in life and I'm in no position to explain myself to you, predominately because in your eagerness to display just how much more you care than everyone else you've completely missed the point of it in the first place.

When I was younger every Remembrance Day I can remember always had a focus on WWI/II veterans. You'd usually see some of them at a memorial of some sort on the news. Obviously with it being currently the centenary of WWI there's been a bit more attention on commemorations which is understandable and is genuinely sombre given the ever decreasing number of veterans from then. Remembrance of mass-conscription wars like the World Wars I'm all for. Ordinary citizens who volunteered or were called to go and defend their country against threats in a situation not seen before or since, the social upheaval which still shapes the country to this day that resulted from them fighting and dying and recovering, they deserve to be thought of with veneration and given support when it is lacking. My main issue with the modern day displays of poppy vigilantism is the re-appropriation of it as a symbol for all armed services, anywhere, ever.

People fighting in World Wars didn't have a choice. They were faced with situations incomprehensible and beyond any description of humanity at any other point in human history. The people who have since voluntarily joined the armed forces, well, no. They've done an extremely difficult, demanding and dangerous job ostensibly for my benefit, if indirectly. That doesn't mean I have to support them or the conflicts my government has sent them into. The entire point of the poppy appeal in the first place was to commemorate/support people who didn't have a choice but to fight against an oppressive, threatening force. Anyone who berates people for not supporting are troops as much as them would no doubt bring up the fact that people died or risked their lives to uphold your right to freedom of expression, blissfully unaware of the irony therein.

I personally am not the most outwardly emotional sort of person anyway, but even if I was fully on board with supporting all of this stuff I would be utterly mortified to be involved in the sort of parades you see at Ibrox every year. Never mind that the fetishisation of the military appears to approach the levels you see in America (where in addition to sports teams regularly having Armed Forces Nights seeing the rappelling personnel and the tearful family reunions on-ice/court/field you have an actual advertising industry encouraging people to join up for much seedier reasons than you do here), it's inappropriate on virtually every level. Never mind that my own focus would be for those I've mentioned who don't have a choice, but the apparent shift from poignant remembrance to celebrating militarism doesn't sit right with me. It's inappropriate and I wouldn't be comfortable with it being done in my name or for my benefit. It somehow is even worse when you see it on a smaller, individual scale. Poppies on car grills, on lorries (I once saw a ghastly tattoo on a bus driver that as best I can remember/describe was effectively a fern leaf made up of silhouettes of soldiers gradually shifting into poppy flowers the further it went up the leaf) and in similar locations just reinforce the increasing sense that public remembrance has become a case of one-upmanship removed from any original intention of it as a symbol.

Now, on the matter of FIFA and the assorted hand-wringing that's resulted, I can sort of see the angle for the Scotland/England game at least. Two distinct footballing nations but with a shared social history concerning their military and the public recognition thereof. I'm sure if England were playing, Say, The Germans Germany nobody would be kicking up this amount of fuss. I do fail to see what the issue people have with it is though. No extraneous political symbols on the strips. It's quite simple and quite understandable. The fact that nobody wailing at FIFA seems to have picked up on their judgement of the poppy as "political" puts the tin lid on pretty much everything I have to say about it, though.

Edited November 1, 2016 by Miguel Sanchez
pretty much

[Dee Man]

I liked your first post, Miguel, but not your second.

[TheCelt67]

6 hours ago, LinkinFighter said:

Reaction on stv Facebook

I think all we need is a "we won ra wars, why ir we lettin those forenurs tell us whit to dae?" and a "I'm glad ma granda is deed, as this wid a killed him" for a clean sweep of a moron's guide to Poppy perma-rage.

[throbber]

16 minutes ago, Miguel Sanchez said:

There's a bit on the news about this FIFA business right now. Simon Weston has been wheeled out. An assortment of public people are bemoaning FIFA "not getting" it and being unflexible and wrong.

I think the well-meaning but rather naïve comments saying wear one or don't, everyone has a right to choose etc. are becoming increasingly unworkable as time goes on. People who are vocal about wearing a poppy don't seem to be focused on wearing a poppy so much any more as being focused on showing that they care more than other people regardless. The mawkish sort of displays you see at places like Ibrox (and regardless of available budget/facilities, annual events at Ibrox far surpass anything done anywhere else at football in Britain never mind Scotland) aren't something I would have any interest in regardless of whether I was fundamentally on board with what's being celebrated.

In a previous life when I was out in public regularly and in town I would usually stick whatever spare change I happened to have on me in a tin if I saw one and put a poppy through the strap of my backpack. Within about three hours it was invariably ruined so I stopped that. I will say that I personally have never witnessed or experienced any of the fervent self-appointed dignity police that so many facebook screenshots appear here document but my response to them would be the same to anyone on here. You don't know me. You don't know who I am, what I donate to, who any of my family or friends are or why I do what I do in life and I'm in no position to explain myself to you, predominately because in your eagerness to display just how much more you care than everyone else you've completely missed the point of it in the first place.

When I was younger every Remembrance Day I can remember always had a focus on WWI/II veterans. You'd usually see some of them at a memorial of some sort on the news. Obviously with it being currently the centenary of WWI there's been a bit more attention on commemorations which is understandable and is genuinely sombre given the ever decreasing number of veterans from then. Remembrance of mass-conscription wars like the World Wars I'm all for. Ordinary citizens who volunteered or were called to go and defend their country against threats in a situation not seen before or since, the social upheaval which still shapes the country to this day that resulted from them fighting and dying and recovering, they deserve to be thought of with veneration and given support when it is lacking. My main issue with the modern day displays of poppy vigilantism is the re-appropriation of it as a symbol for all armed services, anywhere, ever.

People fighting in World Wars didn't have a choice. They were faced with situations incomprehensible and beyond any description of humanity at any other point in human history. The people who have since voluntarily joined the armed forces, well, no. They've done an extremely difficult, demanding and dangerous job ostensibly for my benefit, if indirectly. That doesn't mean I have to support them or the conflicts my government has sent them into. The entire point of the poppy appeal in the first place was to commemorate/support people who didn't have a choice but to fight against an oppressive, threatening force. Anyone who berates people for not supporting are troops as much as them would no doubt bring up the fact that people died or risked their lives to uphold your right to freedom of expression, blissfully unaware of the irony therein.

I personally am not the most outwardly emotional sort of person anyway, but even if I was fully on board with supporting all of this stuff I would be utterly mortified to be involved in the sort of parades you see at Ibrox every year. Never mind that the fetishisation of the military appears to approach the levels you see in America (where in addition to sports teams regularly having Armed Forces Nights seeing the rappelling personnel and the tearful family reunions on-ice/court/field you have an actual advertising industry encouraging people to join up for much seedier reasons than you do here), it's inappropriate on virtually every level. Never mind that my own focus would be for those I've mentioned who don't have a choice, but the apparent shift from poignant remembrance to celebrating militarism doesn't sit right with me. It's inappropriate and I wouldn't be comfortable with it being done in my name or for my benefit. It somehow is even worse when you see it on a smaller, individual scale. Poppies on car grills, on lorries (I once saw a ghastly tattoo on a bus driver that as best I can remember/describe was effectively a fern leaf made up of silhouettes of soldiers gradually shifting into poppy flowers the further it went up the leaf) and in similar locations just reinforce the increasing sense that public remembrance has become a case of one-upmanship removed from any original intention of it as a symbol.

Now, on the matter of FIFA and the assorted hand-wringing that's resulted, I can sort of see the angle for the Scotland/England game at least. Two distinct footballing nations but with a shared social history concerning their military and the public recognition thereof. I'm sure if England were playing, Say, The Germans Germany nobody would be kicking up this amount of fuss. I do fail to see what the issue people have with it is though. No extraneous political symbols on the strips. It's quite simple and quite understandable. The fact that nobody wailing at FIFA seems to have picked up on their judgement of the poppy as "political" puts the tin lid on pretty everything I have to say about it, though.