Within the next week they will start peeping out of men's lapels, be strategically placed on ladies' handbags and big ones will be displayed on the fronts of London's famous black taxis. It's Poppy Appeal time again in Britain and the paper and plastic poppies, sold by the Royal British Legion to raise money for military veterans, will be springing up all over the country on the run up to Remembrance Day on November 11. This year, however, the vibrant red symbol of blood spilled on battlefields from Flanders to Basra is taking on even more significance with debates raging in the papers and in parliament over the treatment of returning vets and soldiers who have died in combat. Earlier this month a mother, whose teenage son was killed by an explosion in Iraq, refused to accept an apology from the Ministry of Defence (MoD) for confusion over the mix up of her son's body parts with another man's limbs. Several families have cried foul over compensation for their injured loved ones; one soldier, who lost both legs and suffered brain damage after he was struck by an IED in Afghanistan, was given a lump sum of just over £150,000 while a Royal Air Force (RAF) typist on a civilian claim received £484,000 from the MoD when she injured her thumb typing.

 These and other examples have caused a furor and veteran's charities are beginning to fight back, launching new campaigns and calling for changes in how veterans and injured soldiers are treated in Britain. The Army Benevolent Fund unveiled a striking ad campaign this month--it's a photograph of a plastic GI Joe figure, dubbed "Out of Action Man",  dressed in fatigues who has lost his leg, walks with a crutch and has a bandaged arm--for their new Current Operations Fund that is raising money solely for soldiers and veterans who have served in Iraq and Afghanistan. In September the British Legion launched the "Honour the Covenant" campaign, which calls on the government to give just compensation for wounded soldiers and requests more of a commitment to support soldiers and their families. So far the campaign has proven to be effective; the MoD announced last week that it would begin compensating injured soldiers for each serious injury they had--but with a paltry cap of £285,000. A newly launched charity, Help for Heroes, is hoping to raise several million pounds to build a new gym at Headley Court, the military's rehabilitation center.

These are all great and good plans but I have to agree with an editorial written this past weekend by a retired colonel, Tim Collins, who states that it is a national scandal the way wounded soldiers are treated in Britain. "I look at the way the US treats its servicemen and I am ashamed of our nation," Collins wrote in the Sunday Telegraph. "I envy America's GI bill that guarantees fair treatment for its service people [and] I doubt we could ever get a bill through [now]." Sadly this pattern of the governmental hands-off approach had been the case for a long time in Britain. "You talk o' better food for us, an' schools, an fires, an all; We'll wait for extry rations if you treat us rational," wrote Rudyard Kipling in his 1892 poem "Tommy." Though British forces are being drawn down in Iraq, troops look likely to be in Afghanistan for at least another decade. Relying on sales of poppies to provide for service personnel is ridiculous--the system needs an overhaul now.