UK Remembrance Day Parade Bans Wounded Iraq and Afghanistan Vets

The Guardian

Serving soldiers horrifically injured in the Iraq and Afghan conflicts have been refused permission to join today's main Remembrance Day parade, prompting angry accusations that the government is 'ashamed' to have them seen in public.

Jamie Cooper, 19, the youngest Briton seriously injured in Basra, had hoped to join the march past at the Cenotaph in Whitehall. He is one of a number of young soldiers recuperating from injuries suffered in Iraq and Afghanistan the Royal British Legion had wanted to include in Britain's centrepiece remembrance ceremony.

But Peter Cleminson, chairman of the Legion, later phoned 'apologetically'. Cooper added: 'He said that he wished he could have arranged for Jamie to take part, as well as some of the others who are recuperating at Headley Court. But he said that the government is in charge of the parade guidelines (my em), and the policy is that no serving soldiers can participate.

Send them to get shot up in service of a lie and when they do, don't let 'em be in the parade. Sounds familiar. Notice I didn't say "march in the parade". A lot of 'em can't.

This is kinda special:

The controversy came as the weekend's first remembrance events took place in the capital. The Queen led yesterday's Royal Festival of Remembrance at the Royal Festival Hall before an audience of veterans. Among them was 109-year-old Harry Patch, the last British man alive to have served in the trenches during the First World War, a unique living link with the carnage of Passchendaele (aka "Third Wipers"- G), a name synonymous with the mud and carnage of the conflict.

Speaking before the service, Patch, from Wells, Somerset, said: 'Today is not for me, it is for the countless millions who did not come home with their lives intact. They are the heroes.'

So if you die in Iraq or Afghanistan, you'll be remembered in this parade, but if you just got blown all to shit and survived, the Brit government doesn't want its citizens, sorry, subjects to see you and be reminded that their young men are sacrificing mind and body as lapdog to Bush's lies.

I hope the criminal Iraq clusterfuck is over soon enough that these Brit Vets get to be in the Remembrance Day Parade before they're as old as Mr. Patch.