Although my Dad was a WWII veteren, and the Legion has done alot of good work, I lost alot of respect for them a few years ago. A good friend of the family was a Air Force nurse for many years and a long time Legion member. When she was diagnosed with breast cancer and undergoing chemotherapy, she choose to wear a turbin-like headcovering to cover her baldness. The Legion where she was a regular member refused to admit her unless she removed her headcovering. (hats are not allowed but really bad toupees are!!) How's that's for a kick in the pants!! She terminated her membership.

I can understand the legion's point of view for sure, but at the same time, there is a distinction between the war thats going on now, and the war that happened a while back. I think it's important to recognize both ideas that are being put forth. The white poppies do not denounce the great sacrifices that our veterans gave for us, they symbolize peace, which in the end is what our veterans were fighting for. No?

I've always felt that Remembrance day had two purposes- firstly and foremostly to memorialize the sacrifices of the brave soliders who fought to defend Canada throughout the last century, but also to gather as a community in sincere hope that their sacrifices need never be made again. I do not think that the ideas of reverence for the past and hope for peace in the future are at cross-purposes whatsoever.

Well, you have to remember that most Veterans are fairly conservative as well as being from a period in Canada's history that isn't very mutli-cultural.
I've often thought that The Canadian Legion SHOULD be called The Legion for White Anglo-Saxon Veterans of wars between 1939-1952, as those seemed to be the only people made welcome there.
Well, eventually, they will be emptied and I doubt that any of my generation will replace them. I can't see myself goingf there when I'm 75, even though i am a combat veteram myself....I just don't see myself as a veteran in the way those guys do and did...I suppose though that had I been in combat for years, rather than weeks and faced death daily on the scale these guys did, then I guess I'd want a place to go where people understood what i went through...

I would love to wear both the red and white flower. I am generally opposed to war, but I am proud as all get out of the men and women who have served our country. I will not wear the white flower and the red flower together, because some of our vets could be offended, but I feel that is a good balance - loving peace, wanting to promote peace, while honoring our vets.

This year I am wearing a wrist band, because they do not fall off easily like the flower does.

Gary

Its disgusting that these extremists even try to mock the veterans using their symbol. I hope the Legion sues them and forces them to pay up or stop. These people have no concept of the sacrifices our ancestors paid to achieve freedom. I shudder to think what we would be like if these nutbars were around during WWII.

To angry ABC, "they" were around in WWII. They were called Mennonites, Quakers, Hutterites, conscientious objectors, etc. All Christians. Wars were not fought to impose your definition of freedom on all of society. If it was, that's another reason to honour peace and to support it's practice.