Not Wearing A Poppy

The Poppy sellers are out in force and already i have had a disagreement with the security guard at work who tried to push a poppy onto me. 
I don't wear a poppy for two reasons, the first being i am continually being told i should do and secondly because i believe that rather than send young men and women off to fight wars and then stand around looking solemn wearing a red flower once a year, just don't send them to fight wars in the first place.
The idea of wearing a poppy seems to have become co-opted by politicians to justify our folly in places such as Iraq, Libya and Afghanistan.
It has become 'patriotic' to wear a symbol which represents the deaths of hundreds of thousands of soldiers but my thoughts are never for the military, the people who make a decision to join the army and go off to fight wars, my thoughts are always for the innocent victims of missiles sent from hundred of miles away, warriors sat behind television screens in far away countries guiding armed drones to destroy villages and pilots dropping their payloads from high altitudes.  
I will not wear something that is used to support wars, either conflicts past or the ones we are currently embroiled in.