1. #1
    hotwheelstx's Avatar
    Join Date
    Oct 2000
    Location
    Houston, Texas
    Posts
    8,112
    Thanks
    1,343
    Thanked 665 Times in 406 Posts

    Remember the Poppies-Flanders Field

    In Flanders Fields
    By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
    Canadian Army

    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.

    McCrae's "In Flanders Fields" remains to this day one of the most memorable war poems ever written. It is a lasting legacy of the terrible battle in the Ypres salient in the spring of 1915. Here is the story of the making of that poem:

    Although he had been a doctor for years and had served in the South African War, it was impossible to get used to the suffering, the screams, and the blood here, and Major John McCrae had seen and heard enough in his dressing station to last him a lifetime.

    As a surgeon attached to the 1st Field Artillery Brigade, Major McCrae, who had joined the McGill faculty in 1900 after graduating from the University of Toronto, had spent seventeen days treating injured men -- Canadians, British, Indians, French, and Germans -- in the Ypres salient.

    It had been an ordeal that he had hardly thought possible. McCrae later wrote of it:

    "I wish I could embody on paper some of the varied sensations of that seventeen days... Seventeen days of Hades! At the end of the first day if anyone had told us we had to spend seventeen days there, we would have folded our hands and said it could not have been done."

    One death particularly affected McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieut. Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, had been killed by a shell burst on 2 May 1915. Lieutenant Helmer was buried later that day in the little cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain.

    The next day, sitting on the back of an ambulance parked near the dressing station beside the Canal de l'Yser, just a few hundred yards north of Ypres, McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. The major was no stranger to writing, having authored several medical texts besides dabbling in poetry.

    In the nearby cemetery, McCrae could see the wild poppies that sprang up in the ditches in that part of Europe, and he spent twenty minutes of precious rest time scribbling fifteen lines of verse in a notebook.

    A young soldier watched him write it. Cyril Allinson, a twenty-two year old sergeant-major, was delivering mail that day when he spotted McCrae. The major looked up as Allinson approached, then went on writing while the sergeant-major stood there quietly. "His face was very tired but calm as we wrote," Allinson recalled. "He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer's grave."

    When McCrae finished five minutes later, he took his mail from Allinson and, without saying a word, handed his pad to the young NCO. Allinson was moved by what he read:

    "The poem was exactly an exact description of the scene in front of us both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies actually were being blown that morning by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that time that it would ever be published. It seemed to me just an exact description of the scene."

    In fact, it was very nearly not published. Dissatisfied with it, McCrae tossed the poem away, but a fellow officer retrieved it and sent it to newspapers in England. The Spectator, in London, rejected it, but Punch published it on 8 December 1915.

    I AM THE FLAG OF THE UNITED STATES OF AMERICA
    By Howard Schnauber

    I am the flag of the United States of America.
    My name is "Old Glory".
    I fly atop the world's tallest buildings.
    I stand watch in America's halls of justice.
    I fly majestically over institutions of learning.
    I stand guard with power in the world.
    Look up and see me.

    I stand for peace, honor, truth and justice.
    I stand for freedom.
    I am confident.
    I am arrogant.
    I am proud.

    When I am flown with my fellow banners,
    My head is a little higher,
    My colors a little truer.

    I bow to no one!
    I am recognized all over the world.
    I am worshipped -- I am saluted.
    I am loved -- I am revered.
    I am respected -- and I am feared.

    I have fought in every battle of every war
    for more then 200 years.
    I was flown at Valley Forge, Gettysburg,
    Shiloh and Appomattox.
    I was there at San Juan Hill,
    the trenches of France,
    in the Argonne Forest, Anzio, Rome
    and the beaches of Normandy, Guam,
    Okinawa, Korea, and Vietnam.
    I was there. I led my troops.
    I was dirty, battle-weary and tired,
    but my soldiers cheered me
    And I was proud.

    I have been burned, torn and trampled
    on the streets of countries I have helped set free.
    It does not hurt, for I am invincible.

    I have been soiled upon, burned, torn
    and trampled on the streets of my country.
    And when it's by those whom I've served in battle -- it hurts.
    But I shall overcome -- for I am strong.

    I have slipped the bonds of Earth
    and stood watch over the uncharted frontiers of space
    from my vantage point on the moon.
    I have borne silent witness
    to all of America's finest hours.
    But my finest hours are yet to come.

    When I am torn into strips
    and used as bandages
    for my wounded comrades on the battlefield,
    When I am flown at half-mast to honor my soldier,
    Or when I lie in the trembling arms
    of a grieving parent at the grave of their fallen son or daughter,
    I am proud.

    MY NAME IS "OLD GLORY".
    LONG MAY I WAVE.
    DEAR GOD IN HEAVEN,
    LONG MAY I WAVE.
    Name for a new country song: If I'd Shot You Sooner, I'd Be Out of Jail by Now.

  2. The Following 2 Users Say Thank You to hotwheelstx For This Useful Post:

    fleabones3 (05-24-2009), netsis61 (05-25-2009)

  3. # ADS
    Circuit advertisement Remember the Poppies-Flanders Field
    Join Date
    Always
    Location
    Advertising world
    Posts
    Many
     

Posting Permissions

  • You may not post new threads
  • You may not post replies
  • You may not post attachments
  • You may not edit your posts
  •  

Log in

Log in