Sir,
I was having a chat with some very old senior pensioners the other day when they started talking about their experiences during the last war and are now getting ready to pay their respect to fallen heroes on this coming 'Remembrance Sunday'.
One pensioner spoke about his father who served in the First World War saying the Liberals treated our demobilised men abominably, with limbless soldiers reduced to selling matches and bootlaces in public. He said ask any severely wounded Second World War serviceman about the humiliation means test they had to undergo to become entitled to a pittance of a pension which could then be revoked if any MoD spy saw them tending their own garden and considered them to be able bodied.
Listening to these old ex-servicemen, to know the contempt with which service personnel are treated in 'peace time' is something that governments should be ashamed of, so when I pay my respects on this Remembrance Sunday I shall remember their sad stories.
Too many of our servicemen and women become forgotten heroes. Serving your country must be one of the most courageous things one can do; they should all be treated with kindness and we should all respect what they did and are still doing for us all.
Bob Lowe,