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In Flanders fields the poppies blow |
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May 22, 2017 |
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You might see folks out and about this week,
older folk mostly, many wearing blue garrison or
baseball caps emblazoned with military badges,
patches and medals, offering small red paper
poppies, asking no set price, but gladly
accepting whatever you offer.
The American Legion recognizes National Poppy
Day this year on Friday, May 26, a day to wear a
poppy to honor those who have worn our nation's
uniform. All donations received are used by The
American Legion for programs that support
veterans, the military community and their
families.
You'll see a lot of those poppies on hats or in
lapels on Friday afternoon and evening across
the country and at U.S. installations around the
world, as American Legion, Veterans of Foriegn
Wars and members of other patriotic
organizations, joined by students, neighbors,
civic and community groups and more, descend on
the cemeteries where those fallen in battle lie,
never forgotten, to place flags on the graves of
those who died in service to their country and
make ready for Memorial Day on Monday, May 29.
At the Memorial Day ceremony at Grandview
Cemetery following the 10 a.m. parade in
downtown Bonners Ferry Monday, you'll notice a
lot of Canadian uniforms and insignia, and
properly so. They are not only our close
international neighbor, but her armed forces and
ours have stood side by side in battle for well
over a century, and many of our traditions are
bound together inseparably.
Take the poppies, for instance, which hearken
back to World War I.
The Second Battle of Ypres was fought from April
22 to May 25, 1915, for control of the strategic
Flemish town of Ypres in western Belgium after
the First Battle of Ypres the previous autumn.
On both sides, 122,223 fell; dead, wounded or
missing.
It was the first battle of the war marked by
Germany's mass use of poison gas on the Western
Front, and despite this, for the first time, a
former colonial force, the 1st Canadian
Division, defeated a European power, the German
Empire, on European soil.
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| Lieutenant
Colonel John McCrae, MD |
Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD, was a
Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and
soldier during World War I, and a surgeon during
the Second Battle of Ypres.
He was born November 30, 1872, in Guelph,
Ontario, and died January 28, 1918, in
Boulogne-sur-Mer, France.
On May 2, 1915, McCrae’s close friend and former
student Alexis Helmer was killed by a German
shell.
That evening, in the absence of a Chaplain at
the battlefront, McCrae recited from memory a
few passages from the Church of England’s “Order
of the Burial of the Dead.”
For security reasons, Helmer’s burial in Essex
Farm Cemetery was performed in complete
darkness.
The next day, May 3, Sergeant-Major Cyril
Allinson was delivering mail. McCrae was sitting
at the back of an ambulance parked near the
dressing station beside the Yser Canal, just a
few hundred yards north of Ypres, Belgium.
McCrae was writing his "In Flanders Fields" poem
as Allinson silently watched.
He later recalled, “His face was very tired but
calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to
time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."
Within moments, McCrae had completed the poem
and without a word, he took his mail and handed
the poem to Allinson.
Allinson was deeply moved.
“The (Flanders Fields) poem was an exact
description of the scene in front of us both,"
he said. "He used the word 'blow' in that line
because the poppies actually were being blown
that morning by a gentle east wind. It never
occurred to me at that time that it would ever
be published. It seemed to me just an exact
description of the scene."
| In
Flanders Fields |
| By Lieutenant
Colonel 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 |
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