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Many countries have a special day to remember those that fell in their wars. Today, we honor and keep alive the memory of those that died in service of their country. In remembering we recognize the tradition of freedom that they fought to preserve. These men and women had faith in the future and by their acts gave us the will to preserve peace for all time. They died for a collection of traditions they cherished and a future they believed in. They made the ultimate sacrifice, they died for us. They died so that we could be free.
The
11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month: Remembrance
Let us never forget.
In May 1915 Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of the Royal Canadian Army Medical Corps was working in a dressing station on the front line to the north of Ieper, Belgium, when he wrote In Flanders Fields. Flanders saw some of the most concentrated fighting of the First World War and although the poem speaks of Flanders fields, the subject is universal - the fear of the dead that they will be forgotten, that their death will have been in vain.
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.
John McCrae (1872 - 1918)
During
the First World War, the battlefields of the Western Front were dug over by
trench digging, shell and mortar fire, etc. Where
trenches had been dug, the area was left completely devastated.
These
sites of devastation were transformed in the spring into a blaze of colour as
the poppies
flowered with
their bright vibrant
colour amongst the mud. Poppies
only flower in rooted up soil
Remembrance, as symbolized by the poppy, is our eternal answer which belies the fear that they gave their lives in vain.
In 1918, Moira Michael wrote a
poem in reply, 'We Shall
Keep the Faith' in
which she promised to wear a poppy ‘in honour of our dead’. This began the
tradition of wearing a poppy in remembrance.
Oh!
you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And
now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
Today we remember