With Remembrance Day approaching, we met two veterans at the Royal British Legion’s Poppy Appeal launch at Leeds Civic Hall, which this year highlights the mental scars that can result from experiences in military service.
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00:00My name is Tom Smith. I'm the Poppy Appeal Manager for Leeds. The theme this year for the Poppy Appeal is the
00:07psychological impact on our armed forces.
00:10We're given very good protection such as body armour,
00:15helmets etc, but nothing really can protect the mind and that could be PTSD which is
00:21to a specific incident or general
00:25mental health such as depression,
00:28anxiety etc. I served for 32 years and I've had depression and anxiety myself.
00:35It's an honour. I feel very privileged to have been invited to take part in this launch of the Poppy Appeal in Leeds.
00:43There's only been one year when a
00:47serviceman or woman has not been killed since the Second World War.
00:51So it's just vitally important. This work is continued by the Royal British Legion.
00:59People forget that the Poppy Appeal is
01:02all year round.
01:04They think it happens in two weeks in November and that's the end of it.
01:07We have the march at the Cenotaph in London and locally around the country and that's the end of the Poppy Appeal.
01:13But it isn't. It's something that's necessary
01:16throughout the year and the work of the British Legion is
01:20so, so important.
01:22Remembrance. We remember everybody from the Great War, World War Two, the Falklands and more
01:28recently Iraq and Afghanistan, but from any conflict. And I always like to remember
01:34anybody I served with who died in service. Not necessarily in battle, but in service and our veterans who have
01:43taken their own lives as well.
01:46So it is very poignant and that's what I go through in that two-minute silence
01:51on Remembrance Sunday and on Armistice Day as I go through in my mind all the good, good friends that I've lost.