A teenager recently asked me what the red poppy on my living room shelf was for. It’s one of the simple ones the VFW gives every 11/11. I was surprised and pleased by the question. It’s always a joy to share a little bit of history, particularly one of such importance.
She didn’t know that WWI had been called The Great War. Nor that more than 20 million people had died and that it had devastated Europe. I explained about the horrible trench warfare that had taken so many of those lives. I told her about the hundreds of thousands of men who had fought and died in Belgium and the fields of red poppies they were buried under. Thus, the red poppy was in memory of those men, and also the men and women who have died in the many conflicts since Nov. 18, 1918.
IN FLANDERS FIELDS (1915)
By Lt. Col John McCrae
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Submitted By Kristine Hicken