In Flanders Field - Rememberance Day

The reason for this holiday is not to be forgotten. It was at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month in the year 1918 that the guns went silent to end what history terms the Great War, World War 1. Remembrance Day continues to be held in honour of our veterans. Not just the 1914-1918 conflict but also World War II, the Korean War, and the veterans of Canada’s overseas roles in places like Bosnia, Rwanda, and Afghanistan. Let’s not forget either the events of September 11th, 2001 which reminded us that evil still exists in the world and there are those who would like to see our way of life destroyed and then rebuilt according to their barbaric and antiquated perception of how a male dominated, women subjugated, tyrannically religious society should function. Many of us wear red poppies at this time of year, the lasting symbol of November 11th. Tomorrow, the thinning ranks of veterans will don their uniforms and attend ceremonies to remind us of what they fought for, and what many of their comrades died for, which was to preserve our way of life; the rights and freedoms we enjoy to this day. We live in a land of relative freedom and prosperity compared to almost anywhere else on earth you could name.

Honoring those that have served isn’t just another day off to sleep in but rather to pause and reflect that there was a price to be paid for our freedom.

Lest we forget.

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There are several stories I could share however it's a tad of a brain drain but I thought I would place in here a poem called In Flanders Field.

The poem "In Flanders Fields" by the Canadian army physician John McCrae remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915.The most asked question is: why poppies? Wild poppies flower when other plants in their direct neighborhood are dead. Their seeds can lie on the ground for years and years, but only when there are no more competing flowers or shrubs in the vicinity (for instance when someone firmly roots up the ground), these seeds will sprout. There was enough rooted up soil on the battlefield of the Western Front; in fact the whole front consisted of churned up soil.

So in May 1915, when McCrae wrote his poem, around him blooded poppies blossomed like no one had ever seen before. But in this poem the poppy plays one more role.
The poppy is known as a symbol of sleep. Some kinds of poppies are used to derive opium from, from which morphine is made. Morphine is one of the strongest painkillers and was often used to put a wounded soldier to sleep. Sometimes medical
Doctors used it in a higher dose to put the incurable wounded out of their misery.
'In Flanders Fields' is also the name of an American War Cemetery in Belgium where 368 Americans are buried. The cemetery got its name from the poem though. The bronze foot of the flagstaff is decorated with daisies and poppies.
Another reference to the poem can be found on the Canadian War Memorial at Vimy, in Northern France. Between the pylons stands ‘The Spirit of Sacrifice’: a figure holding high a burning torch, obviously referring to the last verse of McCrae's poem.’ In Flanders Fields' may be the most famous poem of the Great War — sometimes only the first two verses are cited or printed. This is not just because of the lack of quality in the third verse, but also because this last verse speaks of an unending quarrels with the foe. And if one thing became clear during the Great War it was this: there was no quarrel between the soldiers (except maybe in the heat of a fight). The quarrel existed mainly in the minds of stupid politicians and generals who mostly never experienced the horror of the battlefield.
But McCrae was not opposed to war and this was not the first time he spoke of a continuing fight. Wars should go on, he thought, until all the wrongs of the earth are righted. In some countries authorities were so pleased with the pugnacious sentiments in the third verse of 'In Flanders Fields' that they exploited these lines in their propaganda. Since then the now widespread custom to honour with poppies those who died so that we could be free, has been, and still is, used and misused to justify wars.
Nevertheless I will give you the full and exact version of McCrae's great poem, taken from his own, handwritten copy. But first, here is the story of how he wrote it — and how the recent death of a dear friend moved him.
The next evening the poem was wrote by McCrae while sitting on the rear step of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Yser Canal, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.
As McCrae sat there he heard larks singing and he could see the wild poppies that sprang up from the ditches and the graves in front of him.

He spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook. The poem originally entitled, "We shall not sleep" was very nearly not published.
Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but Morrison retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England.

In Flanders Fields
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.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=agu6OrflE-E