In the United States, we have several observance days that honor our military, past and present, living and deceased. A flower, the poppy, represents two of them- Memorial Day, in May, and Veterans’ Day, in November.
Why poppies?
In the battlefields of Belgium during World War I, poppies grew wild amid the ravages of war. The overturned soils of battle covered the poppy seeds, allowing them to grow and forever serve as a reminder of the bloodshed of war.
The poppies, the wounded, and the dead were honored in a poem about the ravages of war.
A Canadian military physician, Lt. Col. John wrote the now-famous poem, In Flanders Fields.
Dr. John McCrae
Originally from Canada, Dr.McCrae was an English and math teacher, as well as a poet, before he attended medical school. He moved to England and was practicing there when World War I broke out, and he was called to serve as a brigade surgeon.
I suspect that as a physician, he was deeply pained in treating the wounded soldiers, and the loss of those he could not save.
“In April 1915, McCrae was stationed in the trenches near Ypres, Belgium, in an area known as Flanders, during the bloody Second Battle of Ypres.
In the midst of the tragic warfare, McCrae’s friend, twenty-two-year-old Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, was killed by artillery fire and buried in a makeshift grave.
The following day, McCrae, after seeing the field of makeshift graves blooming with wild poppies, wrote his famous poem “In Flanders Field,” which would be the second to last poem he would ever write.”
(from John McCrae at poets.org)
In Flanders Fields
by Dr. 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.
This poem is in the public domain.
Soon after writing “In Flanders Fields,” McCrae was transferred to a hospital in France. Saddened and disillusioned by the war, McCrae found respite in writing letters and poetry, and wrote his final poem, “The Anxious Dead.”
In the summer of 1917, McCrae began suffering from severe asthma attacks and bronchitis. McCrae died of pneumonia and meningitis on January 28, 1918.
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