In Flanders fields (Armistice Day 2022)

 I present this poem every Veteran's Day, or Armistice Day as it was once known.  More than any other poem, it speaks to me of the horror of war: Germans, French, British, Belgians, Italians, Russians, Austro-Hungarians, eventually Americans - all loved and were loved and now lie under Flanders fields or a myriad of other battlefields scattered across Europe, remembered now only in pictures and gravestones.

May we all see better days.

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.

Lt. Colonel John McCrae 03 May 2015