Today at 11am, and on Wednesday morning we will stand silently and think of the sacrifices that the men (and women) in the British armed forces, both today and in the past, have lost their lives so we may enjoy our freedom.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. —
Liet.-Col. John McCrae
4 comments:
That was lovely, thankyou. x
I shall be in the car at that precise moment, but I plan to have the service on the radio and pull over at 11am. I have the greatest respect for those who gave their lives and I have been trying to explain to my son this week, how different it could have been. I became particularly interested in WW2 when I started caring for a group of ladies, who had been young wives and munitions workers. I never tire of hearing their stories.
That poem is from WWI. I can remember the old vets selling paper poppies when I was a child. They made them and sold them. The poppy was a symbol of the morphine they got when they had amputations. I guess they are all gone now. You used to donate money to them and you would wear the poppy on a wire in a button hole to show you had donated. But that was just WWI vets that did that. Was that a custom in the UK too? Or just an American thing? We still celebrate Nov. 11, but it is now for all veterans, of all wars, and the living as well as the ones who were killed. A memory.
Nice post Sage. McRae's poem is one of the classic WW1 messages. He was Canadian too!
Relax Max: http://www.britishlegion.org.uk/remembrance
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