I will wear a poppy this Sunday.

It is 100 years since the end of the Great War but the poppy has recently become political and polarises opinion.

I will wear a poppy, not to justify or legitimise the action of the British military in the many conflicts in the later half of the 20th century or in the beginnings of this one.

I will wear it to remember those who were killed in their thousands in the Great War. Men who had no choice but to be in the fields of France and Belgium and beyond.

Men who did not start the war and did not take the decisions that led to many being massacred on single days.

I will wear the poppy for those who returned a shadow of the same young men who left Britain thinking, hoping, it would be over quickly.

Men who were promised a land fit for heroes then were rewarded with anything but.

I will wear the poppy for the women who waited at home, many in vain, for a husband or a son to return only to receive the letter to inform them of their death.

While thinking of British men who died hundreds of miles form home in a foreign land, I will also think of those form other countries who suffered the same fate.

Whether allies or enemies they were men sent to dig, live and fight in stinking trenches clinging to the hope they would one day return home.

It was after the Great War or World War I, that the poppy was adopted and the annual act of remembrance started.

Later, it included those who were killed in World War II.

For those who died during the 39-45 war I will also wear the poppy. For the suffering, for the horrors they witnessed of colleagues killed before their eyes.

Others chose not to wear a poppy and not to take part in any act of remembrance.

That is their choice. They are, and should be, free to make it. Some people may wish to wear a white poppy. Equally that is their choice.

My choice is to wear a poppy and to attend a remembrance service. It is a choice thankfully I am also free to make.

I like many others will wear the poppy not to glorify war or killing. But do so in the hope that we will one day end the practice of settling disputes through killing each others populations.

Sadly that day seems a long way off.