In Flanders Fields.

[Lunatic Fringe]

Have a great day and take a moment to remember.

In Flanders Fields
BY 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.

 

[nameisbond]

In Canada and the UK, and most of the commonwealth countries, wear poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Wearing poppies was started in the US, after WWI. I'm surprised its not common in the US, anymore.

 

[JDKRXW]

Awesome poem and the author was an understated hero.

 

[monkeyswrench]

In Canada and the UK, and most of the commonwealth countries, wear poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Wearing poppies was started in the US, after WWI. I'm surprised its not common in the US, anymore.

In our town, the VFW has set up tables at the Ace Hardware's, we have three owned by the same family. Every Memorial Day weekend since I moved here, they have their donation tray out, but every one passing is offered a poppy. The past 2 years have been artificial ones, but cool none the less. I would think many here in town don't know why poppies are the flowers of choice.

 

[rrrr]

In Canada and the UK, and most of the commonwealth countries, wear poppies as a symbol of remembrance. Wearing poppies was started in the US, after WWI. I'm surprised its not common in the US, anymore.

When I was a kid in the 60s, the VFW and American Legion chapters sold small poppies made from tissue paper and florist's wire during Memorial Day and Veteran's Day holiday weekends. I think they cost 10¢, and the funds raised helped disabled veterans.

World War I veterans were in their 60s in that decade. I recall seeing them outside grocery and department stores selling the remembrance flowers.

Canadians still consider the poppy as a symbol of honor and sacrifice because many of their fathers, sons, and brothers died in World War I battles fought in Belgium's Flanders region. In the years surrounding WWI, poppies grew profusely in Flanders.

The troops suffered huge casualties during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. After just six months of training, thousands of Canadian soldiers arrived in the Flanders area. Their first engagement was the Second Battle of Ypres, the last Belgian city in Allied hands. On the first day of fighting, the Germans released 160 tons of chlorine gas, killing more than 5,000 soldiers.

The Canadians were also in the line during the horror of Passchendaele, a small Belgian village just north of Ypres that was fought in late 1917. There were many craters left by the millions of huge artillery shells fired during the battle, and thousands of wounded soldiers drowned in them during heavy rains.

'In Flanders Fields' was written by Captain John MacCrae, a Canadian surgeon, to honor a friend killed in the 1915 fighting around Ypres. It has rightly become an anthem of the WWI experience of Canadian troops, and is still familiar to almost all Canadians over a hundred years after it was written.

 

[rrrr]

The poets of World War I wrote of home, family, and love postponed in the first two years of the war, but as the horror of static trench warfare became the fate of the soldier, they began to write of the death and destruction.

'I Have a Rendezvous With Death', written by Alan Seegar just before his death in 1916, is my favorite WWI poem. It captures the fatalistic attitude of the soldier fighting in the trenches, and exposes the futility of war in a way no one but a soldier could have done.

I Have a Rendezvous With Death
By Alan Seegar

I have a rendezvous with Death
At some disputed barricade,
When Spring comes back with rustling shade
And apple-blossoms fill the air—
I have a rendezvous with Death
When Spring brings back blue days and fair.

It may be he shall take my hand
And lead me into his dark land
And close my eyes and quench my breath—
It may be I shall pass him still.
I have a rendezvous with Death
On some scarred slope of battered hill,
When Spring comes round again this year
And the first meadow-flowers appear.

God knows 'twere better to be deep
Pillowed in silk and scented down,
Where Love throbs out in blissful sleep,
Pulse nigh to pulse, and breath to breath,
Where hushed awakenings are dear ...
But I've a rendezvous with Death
At midnight in some flaming town,
When Spring trips north again this year,
And I to my pledged word am true,
I shall not fail that rendezvous.

 

[nameisbond]

When I was a kid in the 60s, the VFW and American Legion chapters sold small poppies made from tissue paper during Memorial Day and Veteran's Day holiday weekends. I think they cost 10¢, and the funds raised helped disabled veterans.

World War I veterans were in their 60s in that decade. I recall seeing them outside grocery and department stores selling the remembrance flowers.

Canadians still consider the poppy as a symbol of honor and sacrifice because many of their fathers, sons, and brothers died in World War I battles fought in Belgium's Flanders region.

The troops suffered huge casualties during the Second Battle of Ypres in 1915. After just six months of training, thousands of Canadian soldiers arrived in the Flanders area. Their first engagement was the Second Battle of Ypres, the last Belgian city in Allied hands. On the first day of fighting, the Germans released 160 tons of chlorine gas, killing more than 5,000 soldiers.

The Canadians were also in the line during the horror of Passchendaele, a small Belgian village just north of Ypres that was fought in late 1917. There were many craters left by the millions of huge artillery shells fired during the battle, and thousands of wounded soldiers drowned in them during heavy rains.

'In Flanders Fields' was written by Captain John MacCrae, a Canadian surgeon, to honor a friend killed in the 1915 fighting around Ypres. It has rightly become an anthem of the WWI experience of Canadian troops, and is still familiar to almost all Canadians over a hundred years after it was written.

When I started elementary school in 1977. We had assemblies in the gym for our version of memorial day, it wasn't a school holiday. We had both WWI and WWII vets speak. They showed films from the big battles, etc. Now its a holiday. But here and in the UK, if a media member or politician doesn't wear a poppy, they are called out on it.

 

[Lunatic Fringe]

This is the Normandy American Cemetery overlooking Omaha Beach.
We spent some time there visiting the various memorials and museum's. The bunkers on the cliffs overlooking the beaches are accessible to walk in and just thinking of what happened there is incredibly sobering.

 

[Lunatic Fringe]

When they were unable to identify the remains, they were buried and marked "Known but to God"