Healey highlights the importance of all-year-round support to those willing to serve
Remembrance serves as an important moment to recommit support to honour those willing to serve the nation, the Defence Secretary says.
During a visit to the Poppy Factory in London, John Healey praised workers while highlighting the significance of supporting those "willing to serve, and willing to die to protect us".
Mr Healey told BFBS Forces News: "It's a really important moment for the country to remember that, to honour that, and to, I think, recommit ourselves to the support that those who are in the forces and those who leave may need from the rest of us throughout the rest of the year."
Mr Healey was helped to make a wreath which he will lay at the Cenotaph on Remembrance Sunday.
The Defence Secretary was there to highlight the work of the charity which supports veterans and makes thousands of poppies and wreaths that are sent around the world each year.
He added: "They make these wreaths, they make the poppies all year round, we tend to think of remembrance just in the run-up to Armistice day, but this is a reminder of the work that goes into making the parades, the ceremonies, possible."
Mr Healey says he will be proud to lay a wreath at the Cenotaph, which will be the first time he will do it since becoming secretary of state.
'Proud'
One of the workers who helped the Defence Secretary make a wreath was RAF veteran Steve Pleasants.
"These things are going all around the world, and they mean something very important to people," he said.
Mr Pleasants added: "I often go to war memorials and think 'I may have made that one'.
"It makes you really proud to do that. So when you're making them, you think someone is going to open that on Remembrance Sunday and lay that at the war memorial.
"It's really important to make sure it's right."
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