British Stamps to Honor Fallen
by admin on Jul.15, 2009, under Tribute
BBC News – The Art Fund charity says there is also support for issuing a series of stamps, dedicated to each person who has died, by official war artist Steve McQueen.
Among the 2,082 adults it surveyed in January, 70% backed such an idea.
The Royal Mail has so far declined the idea of issuing the stamps, saying a period of reflection is needed.
Mr McQueen has created the stamps in his work Queen and Country, each dedicated to a member of the armed forces who has lost their life in Iraq.
He is now calling for Royal Mail to issue them for public use.
According to the survey for The Art Fund, seven out of 10 Britons think the stamps would be a fitting way to pay tribute to the 175 British servicemen and women killed in Iraq since the conflict began in 2003.
David Barrie, director of The Art Fund, said: “I very much hope Royal Mail will recognise the strength of support for the issue of the stamps, coming as it does both from the relatives of those who have lost their lives in Iraq and from the wider British public.”
A Royal Mail spokesman said that the role and sacrifice of Britain’s servicemen and women played a key role in its special stamps programme every year.
But he said Royal Mail believed that “a period of reflection would be required to do justice to a subject of such gravity as the current and ongoing conflict in Iraq, and any other conflict”.
An online petition to make the stamps public has been organised by The Art Fund and the Queen and Country exhibition is on display at London’s Imperial War Museum. (source)
I personally think that this is a great idea. We all need to remember these brave people who died for something they believed in. I know there continues to be debate and controversy over whether the war being fought is right or noble. But when these people offer themselves to their home country and they are sent far from home to die in the field, they deserve everything we can give their memory. I think the U.S. should consider doing the same idea (if it hasn’t been mentioned already – a quick Google search didn’t reveal any soldier stamps).
