From Flanders Fields

[Subdeacon Joe]

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2055743/Remembrance-Day-2011-UKs-oldest-Poppy-95-yrs-picked.html

 

It became the symbol of remembrance, the vivid red flower found growing on the battlefields of France and Belgium.

 

When Private Cecil Roughton, 17, took the flower during a bloody battle in Arras, France, in 1916, and posted it home, his family treasured it in a notebook.

 

Now it has been revealed as the oldest poppy in Britain and has lovingly been restored after being donated to the Royal British Legion last year.

 

 

Lest we forget.

 

Some perspective on history - a little less than three years to the anniversary of the start of that stupid, bloody, useless War to end War.

[Captain Woodrow Cahill, SASS # 54363]

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

 

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.

[Forty Rod SASS 3935]

In Flanders Fields by John McCrae, May 1915

 

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.

 

One of the world's all-time great poems. Thanks.

[Sergeant Smokepole #29248L]

To those brave souls that fell on both sides..... may you never be forgotten.........

[Abilene Slim SASS 81783]

Here's a pic from the Liberty Memorial in Kansas City, the only museum in the U.S. devoted exclusively to WWI. Pretty moving when you look through the floor of the bridge over the poppy field.

 

Poppy Field

 

Liberty Memorial