This weekend we celebrate Memorial Day. Memorial Day was originally called Decoration Day, because it was a time when people would decorate the graves of those soldiers who has fallen in war to honor and remember them.
In many of the national cemeteries, they still mark all the graves with a flag for this weekend. This makes me feel good, since my baby brother is buried in one of those cemeteries.
I always think of the poem "In Flanders Fields" on Memorial Day because I had to learn it in school and never forgot. The poem has an interesting history.
In 1915, Lieutenant Colonel John McCrea who a poem called "In Flanders Fields" while presiding over the funeral of a fellow fallen soldier who was killed in the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium and buried in Flanders Fields, a field were red poppies grew everywhere. McCrea was not very happy with the poem he wrote and threw it away, but one of his fellow officers saved it. It was published in Punch on December 8, 1915.
In What Have We Learned, Charlie Brown? which was broadcast for Memorial Day in 1983, Linus recites "In Flanders Fields" while the Peanuts gang is visiting the cemetery there:
So, if you see a vet selling poppies this weekend, and you decide to buy one, remember that the money goes towards helping needy veterans. Oh, and by the way, they are made by vet themselves, and although they receive a small amount of money for making poppies, for so many it is their only source of income.
All this being said, have a happy, healthy and safe Memorial Day and have some fun, too.
In Memoriam
FCP 1955-2001
No comments:
Post a Comment