From Flanders Fields.

This is somewhat a repeat of what I posted on Facebook, but I wanted to still post it in the Blog.  I don't feel that repeating what I said diminished the thought at all.

This is a World War I poem.  Actually written when there was only one Great War.  Little did the world know that we would not learn from this encounter.  It was written by a field surgeon, John McCrae, and was felt to have been written in his response to the death of a young friend,  Lieutenant Alex Helmer, during the second battle of Ypres.

Poppies had long been associated with this area, as Flanders had long been the site of bloody battles.

In 1855 Lord Macaulay, writing about the site of the Battle of Landen (in modern Belgium, not far from Ypres) in 1693, wrote "The next summer the soil, fertilised by twenty thousand corpses, broke forth into millions of poppies. The traveller who, on the road from Saint Tron to Tirlemont, saw that vast sheet of rich scarlet spreading from Landen to Neerwinden, could hardly help fancying that the figurative prediction of the Hebrew prophet was literally accomplished, that the earth was disclosing her blood, and refusing to cover the slain." (from Wikipedia)

John McCrae died himself, of pneumonia while still on active duty January 28, 1918 and is buried in the Commonwealth War Graves Commission section of Wimereux Cemetery where our two great-uncles are buried. (I have a CD of pictures that a cousin of ours took when he was there, if anyone is interested.)

In Flanders Fields

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...

When I began thinking about this post, I was going to do a "Military Genealogy" of our family, but since Memorial Day is to honor those who have died in battle, I decided to wait until Veteran's day. 

I did enter a brief paragraph in Italian for my Italian Facebook friends, and I will repeat it here, because I think it is important, but I do not want it to anyway minimize the Great Sacrifice by men and women in battle since the beginning of time.

Per i miei amici su Facebook Italiani: Questo lunedì negli Stati Uniti è un giorno di memoria per tutti i soldati che sono morti in guerra. Credo che sia importante ricordare che ci sono molti tipi di morte, e molti non possono essere sepolti. Dobbiamo anche ricordare quelli che sono morti dentro. E ricordiamo...e ricordiamo....e non dimenticare mai...

For my Italian Facebook friends:  This Monday in the United States is a day of memory for all of the soldiers who have died in war.  I think that it is important to remeiber that there are many types of death, and many can not be buried.  We must also remember those who have died inside. And remember...and remember...and never forget.

Dee