POBJOY,
Don't get me wrong. I applaud your cheerful willingness to volunteer for tin-rattling duty ! But you shouldn't have to do it.
My point is that our Govenments of every hue, although fulsome in their praise for the Armed Forces and the work they are doing, are strangely reluctant to put their hands in the taxpayer's pocket when it comes to helping ex-members of those same Forces when they are in need. There is no such hesitation, for example, when it is a matter of allocating funds to those Policies which (they calculate) will win them votes at the next Election.
After-care of the Forces is left to Service and private Charities (which respond magnificently). But this is an evasion of Government responsibility, which has a particular duty to look after those public servants who have put their lives on the line, and in some cases lost them, in their Service.
This of course holds true for every Service Charity from the Poppy Appeal onward through the RAF Benevolent Fund and to all the others. Certainly they do noble work ! But it is work which the Government could (and should) be doing. The Charities have simply "let them off the hook", IMHO.
Danny.