It's Poppy Time Once More
by Mr. Ed — Read all 1,530 poems by Mr. Ed
Friday, May 22, 2015
-->I Got My Buddy Poppy Yesterday;
Our Vets Make Them, For Memorial Day
“In Flanders fields, the poppies grow,
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 was penned by Colonel John McCrae, a surgeon with Canada's First Brigade Artillery, expressing his utter grief over the row upon row of his fellow soldiers’ graves who had fallen on Flanders' battlefields.
His poetic words presented a striking image of the bright red poppy flowers blooming among the many grave markers in Flanders, and they soon became a rallying cry to all who fought in World War I.
In 1922, The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) adopted the Poppy as its official Memorial Day Flower of Remembrance, and this soon led to the idea to use unemployed and disabled veterans to produce poppies.
The first artificial poppy factory was built in Pittsburgh in 1924, and this endeavor provided a practical means of assistance to our veterans, and it also ensured a steady reliable source of Memorial Day Poppies.
Today, veterans at VA hospitals and veterans homes all across the country help assemble these artificial poppies, and each year the VFW distributes over 14 million of them.
The VFW also registered the name ‘Buddy Poppy’ with the U.S. Patent Office. The term ‘Buddy’ was coined by these veteran poppy makers as a tribute to their fallen comrades who never came home.
Profits from these Memorial Day Buddy Poppy sales have helped countless veterans, widows, widowers, and military orphans over the years, and the red poppy itself survives today as a perpetual tribute to those who have so valiantly given their all, for all of us.
Please Buy, and Wear,
A Buddy Poppy,
This Memorial Day Weekend.
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Diana...
i have have used Flander's Field, and poppy wreaths, as part of our Nov 11 tribute to the vets for years in the classroom
this old nam vet's widow, nam vet's wife AND niece of fallen hero, DSC, sleeping so many years beneath one of the many white crosses in France says
THANK YOU!
m
But I beg to differ a bit. When I was placed in the state university hospital for five weeks of observation (and rehabilitation?) they steered me toward crafts and occupational therapy. They wanted me to make potholders by weaving yarn around nails on a board, something my paralyzed hands found very difficult to do. I told them that I wanted to go back to college.
Making artificial poppies once or twice a year for a good cause is noble, but veterans who want nothing more than to be accepted in the workplace, in spite of their physical, and more importantly, mental disabilities are not helped by being relegated to doing craftwork when they want real work and a meaningful life beyond hospitals and VA homes.
The March of Dimes for polio no longer serves its purpose. I understand that the Labor Day telethon for muscular dystrophy is over. Perhaps we need to support our veterans more positively than artificial poppies once a year for Memorial Day.
Ron