Help for Heroes are a ‘fashionable’ charity that DOES NOT help ALL ex-members of the British Armed Forces.

Help for Heroes (otherwise know as Help4Heroes or H4H); at a glance they say that they are ‘supporting our wounded’. However, it is not until you start to dig past the spin and PR in their literature, do you realise that their efforts are aimed to those that served their country post 2001.

They do not give help to those from the Gulf War, Bosnia, Northern Ireland, Falkland War, or any of the countless other wars servicemen and women that have fought in for this country. Hundreds of service personnel died whilst on duty in Northwest Europe during the ‘Cold War’, and many, many more were discharged through injury. In the eyes of ‘Help for Heroes’, these persons are not entitled to be called heroes.

Sign our petition to ensure Help for Heroes, actually helps all our servicemen/women and military veterans, not just a small minority of them spanning the last 100 years.

‘Help for Heroes’ also do not directly help individuals, and they do not aid families of guys killed in action. They leave that sort of work to charities such as Soldiers, Sailors, Airman and Families Association (SSAFA), The Royal British Legion (RBL) and the smaller charities. Who are being slowly starved of funding because the public believe that by backing ‘Help for Heroes’, they are supporting all injured service personnel, due to the hype generated by their PR campaign. The other Service Charities are now having to rely on donations from ‘Help for Heroes’ to carry out their sterling work, but are being restricted by caveats imposed.

Not Forgotten Association – £160,000 – was awarded to the NFA and ring-fenced for those injured post 9/11.

Royal Air Force Association – £54,510 – was used in order to convert an ex-service families accommodation into a Contact House so that families of injured RAF personnel can be near them while at Selly Oak and providing disabled access to the house.

Soldiers, Sailors, Airmen and Families Association – £520,000 – to aid the completion of the SSAFA Forces Help ‘Homes from Home’ appeal which now provides relatives’ houses at Headley Court and Selly Oak.

Personal Recovery Centres – £34,500,00 – help pay for the first four PRC’s. This is an Army led initiative, the PRCs will be available to members of all three Services on a case by case basis (These would not be needed if previous Governments had not sold off the majority of Military Hospitals in the 1990’s).

Within the last year ‘Help for Heroes’ have used of images of previous conflicts to raise money. Once example is a video on YouTube (The Boys from Bahrain – footage of RAF Jaguar’s, Buccaneer’s and Tornado’s, flying from Muharraq, during the 1990/91 Gulf War) which had a banner at the bottom telling people to donate money to ‘Help for Heroes’. The video was originally up-loaded in 2005 by ‘spamblocker’, whereas ‘Help for Heroes’ was not launched by Mr & Mrs Parry until 1st October 2007, and is therefore not morally wrong to use this video in order to raise funds for their charity. ‘Help for Heroes’ also uses/allows the images from the Second World War to promote them selves.

As recently as the 29 August 2011, a picture of two children under the age of 10 that were collecting outside Asda in High Wycombe, was posted on their Face book page. Their supporters don’t seem to know or bother about the Laws regulating Street Collections. For collecting on a street/public place the collectors have to be over 16. Children under 16 can accompany a collector but they should not hold the collection bucket/tin. If it is part of a carnival, collectors can be 14.

What should be appearing prominently in ‘Help for Heroes’ publicity is ‘We only support casualties that occurred after 9/11’.

Article by Ian Beedles from “HELP 4 HEROES – THE REALITY” Facebook page.