Armistice Day (100th Anniversary, observed)

The poppies of the poem grow wild in the fields of Flanders.

American graves in the Flanders Field American
Cemetery near Ypres, Belgium.

Plainfield's observance of Veterans (Armistice) Day did the right thing by marking the commemoration on Sunday (November 11), the exact 100th Anniversary of the Armistice that brought the fighting in World War I to an end at the 11th hour on the 11th day of the 11th month of 1918.

Celebrated as Armistice Day from 1918 to 1954, the name was changed by Congress in that year to honor veterans of all American wars.

(It is a complete mystery, however, as to why the flyer marking this event featured the iconic World War II photo of Marines raising the American flag on Mt. Suribachi, the highest point on the island of Iwo Jima. That event marked the planting of the American flag on Japanese soil in the closing months of the Second World War. Taken by photographer Joe Rosenthal, it became the most celebrated photograph of WWII and won the photographer a Pulitzer Prize. The fame of the photograph dogged the three survivors of the Iwo Jima flag raising all the rest of their lives, much to their dismay.)

In observance of the 100th anniversary of Armistice Day, I am reprinting the short poem "In Flanders Fields" that all American grade school children of my generation were required to learn, recite from memory, and be able to explain the meaning of --


    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. 
It was composed by Canadian soldier-surgeon John McRae during the Second Battle of Ypres (in Belgium), and is dedicated to his friend (some say his lover) Alexis Helmer, killed during that battle and whose funeral McRae had conducted the day before.

The Americans and the Canadians fought side by side during the Battle of Ypres.

The Flanders Field American Cemetery near Ypres is one of eight American cemeteries in Europe where the remains of American WWI dead are buried. Nearly 90,000 fallen soldiers are buried or commemorated in the Ypres area.

The poem made the red poppy the symbol of remembrance for those killed in World War I and crepe paper poppies have been distributed ever since 1921 by the American Legion Auxiliary (see here) as a fundraiser for wounded veterans in rehabilitation.

P.S. We also commemorated Armistice Day at Grace Church on Sunday, where our priest, Mother Joyce Scheyer, whose father was on active military duty throughout her childhood, displayed a Gold Star Parents banner from the pulpit and explained its significance during her homily.

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 -- Dan Damon [ follow ]

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