Today is Veterans Day and many don’t realize it is associated with the signing of the armistice on November 11, 1918. The poem most associated with the war is “In Flanders Field” by John McRae. McRae was a Canadian soldier, doctor, artist, and poet. His unit was shipped to Flanders in 1915. He was a brigade surgeon so he saw the results of the horrendous Second Battle of Ypres. The battle had one of the first uses of chlorine gas by the Germans. 5,000 Canadians were casualties in just 17 days of hell. McRae remembered: “For seventeen days and seventeen nights none of us have had our clothes off, nor our boots even, except occasionally. In all that time while I was awake, gunfire and rifle fire never ceased for sixty seconds … And behind it all was the constant background of the sights of the dead, the wounded, the maimed, and a terrible anxiety lest the line should give way.” The breaking point for McRae came with the death of a young friend who McRae had to bury in a cemetery where poppies blew in the wind. Poppies became a symbol of death in the war because they thrived in ground that was turned over a lot, which was pretty much the whole Western Front. The day after the funeral, as he sat on the back of an ambulance, McRae was inspired to write the poem. The fifteen line poem took only twenty minutes to write. Subsequently, McRae threw the poem away, but a former newspapers editor recovered it and sent it to Punch magazine to publish. It was immediately acclaimed and was popular in the U.S. Poppies were sold to benefit disabled veterans and the American Legion adopted it as its symbol of remembrance. McRae did not survive the war. He died from pneumonia and meningitis and was buried in a cemetery in France.
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.
https://www.historynet.com/veterans-day-history-of-a-symbol.htm?fbclid=IwAR1bKrM-prDkK2R0sHFRiQ72_An27aoBgfk1pbCAujGc_jQYKfRsYRf91_k / photo from flickr.com
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