England’s Month of Remembrance: A Tradition We Should Adopt
If you’ve ever been to England this time of year, a touching nationwide memorial can be seen everywhere. Red paper poppies adorn lapels, shirts, and dresses in the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day. All across the Commonwealth nations, citizens show their respect by sporting a red and black poppy. Then on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month, moments of silence are observed across Britain in remembrance of the war dead.
You cannot overstate how pervasive the wearing of the red poppy is across British culture. Newscasters, game show hosts, and politicians all sport it. So do barkeeps in pubs and ticket takers at the football pitch. You can buy them everywhere.
All the poppies are made by the Royal British Legion Poppy Factory. The proceeds are used to help disabled veterans. The red paper poppies are charitable symbols as well symbols of remembrance.
In America, we have no equivalent. Indeed, modern America is characterized by the loss of shared experience, shared culture. Common experiences as simple as a massive television audience for a sitcom or a space shot are gone. Even something unifying from a scant 15 years ago, such as a song which everyone knows, are lost. There will never be another Beatles.
Our cultural fragmentation extends to politics, where a polarized base is as useful as a persuasive argument to the middle.
Wouldn’t it be grand if America could adopt a counterpart to the Remembrance Day poppy? Perhaps in the weeks leading up to Memorial Day, Americans could, for a dollar, purchase a similar symbol to wear. How about an evergreen, as was Washington’s symbol on the Washington Cruisers?
Or better still, perhaps a lilac, as Whitman gave us as a symbol of annual remembrance for Lincoln’s sacrifice and also a generation of war dead?
Debris and debris of all the dead soldiers of the war
But I saw they were not as was thought
They themselves were fully at rest—they suffer’d not.
America, even with ongoing wars against Islamic terror, has lost sight of the tragic price in lives in other eras, in other nations. In just the single battle of Passchedaele in 1917, the British lost 300,000 men. Casualties in a single day sometimes were 15,000. The bodies of 42,000 were never recovered. Such losses are unknown in American history.
“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.”
May G-d bless and keep all the veterans and those still serving.
The poem you are quoting, “In Flanders Fields”, was written by a Canadian doctor, Lt. Col. John McCrae, serving in WW I. Canadians also wear red poppies on Nov 11 each year. We call this day Rememberance Day. This is our sole military commemoration; we don’t have anything equivalent to the American Memorial day in the spring.
Um, not sure where in “America” you live, but here in small town Tennessee I fully expect to be sporting a red poppy shortly after I go to Walmart tonight.
There will be a vet or two ourside the doors, and I will drop a few bucks in the bucket and get my red sticky back poppy.
I’ve lived in five states in this nation. Never once have I seen a red poppy. I suspect most readers never heard of it before now. I could walk down the streets of nearly every town in America today and not see one.
Christian,
I lived in the North Eastern part of U.S. all my life (except for my time in The Corps) and I always remember some old soldier “selling” paper poppies on Veterens day and Memeorial day, and Forth of July, usually walking among the crowds at the Parades.
“Selling” of course is not the proper word, they were offering tokens for your contribution to disabled vereran causes. Usually acompanying the poppy was a leaflet explaining is WW1 origin and the tradition. I remember them well.
With a father and uncles from WW2, I had a facination with Military History, so as a kid I always “bought” at least one at every parade from those gentle, modest fellows with the tin can and little flowers.
The story of the Poppie and Flanders Field led to more reading, and that led to more questions to my father, which led to MORE research and, ultimately, more understanding of how this world of ours, and our precious freedoms are defined and DEFENDED, and what path my life would ultimately take
It is true, you do not see them often, or in large numbers. But if you look, you will find them. Perhaps not as prevelant as in England, but they are certainly not “unknown” to may here
I still see them at my local parades…I still buy a poppie, for myself and my son….and I still look up to them, they are still “the grown-ups” to me..
I simply forget that I am now as old as they were, when I was a child.
And I wonder if we really have the strength and character today to be as strong, and modest, as they were.
Actually, Christian, for many years until nasty anti-war activists ridiculed its purpose in the late 60′s, a red poppy in the lapel was pravalent here in the USA, too. Too many young fools didn’t that it was “cool” anymore …, you know, the same retarded mindset that ridiculed the wearing of American flag pins in lapels following our invasions of Afganistan and Iraq?
With good humor to all my Southern patriotic friends, Happy Veterens Day!
I cannot resist my inner R. Lee Ermy to say (affectionately):
“A “Stickey Back” Poppy!?!
What kind of sacreligious nonsensical “New-Corps” bull crap are you jack-wagons pullin down there?”
Poppies have WIRE, numb-nutz, or at least they do up HERE, where REAL veterans struggle to twist that daggone thing into a button hole, and wonder why it keeps falling the fu#k out!! And if you twist it TOO tight, the darn paper tears, like its SUPPOSED to!!
Thats the way its been here up NORTH ever since I was a kid, dammmit, and thats the way it should STAY!!
Remember what I told all my “good old boy” Marines a long, long time ago…
When we get deployed to some overseas Sh#t hole, they aint gonna like NONE of us…
They’ll shout, protest, throw rocks, and carry signs….
And guess what all them signs will say, smartipants?
“YANKEE GO HOME!”
And that means YOU, Bubba!!
Like it or not, YOU’RE A YANKEE TOO!!!
“Such losses are unknown in American history.”
That’s not correct. Our Civil War was about as bloody for us as WWI was for the United Kingdom.
People forget how deadly our Civil War was. We lost over 600,000 soldiers (plus God only knows how many civilians, because nobody was counting). That’s about as many as we lost in WWI, WWII, Korea and Vietnam COMBINED.
And, the United States only had about 31,000,000 people in 1860.
Wikipedia gives British military deaths in WWI as 885,000 out of a population of about 45,000,000.
Boy, the contrarians are really out today! Must be the weather. Putting aside the fact everything that starts, “Wikipedia gives. . . “, my sentance was correct: “Such losses are unknown in American history.” It referred sepcfically to Passchendale; it is undenaibly true that no American lossess ever compared with the carnage of Paschendale – even September 17, 1862. And when talking about Passchendale, you can even forget the statistical trick of proportions as used in the comment above. Nothing compares in American history, period.
“Nothing compares in American history, period.”
Well, you’re simply wrong about that, whether you’re talking about a single day engagement (like Antietam), a multi-month campaign (like Passchendale), or an entire war.
We have suffered similar casualty rates. We do know what it’s like to suffer those kind of casualtes.
The British suffered 300,000 casualties (a reasonable mid-range estimate) in five months at Passchendale, we suffered 89,000 casualties in 40 days at the Battle of the Bulge. The worst battle in the Passchendale campaign might have produced 15,000 British casualties in one day, Antietam (the day you mentioned) produced over 22,000 American casualties in one day. We probably lost a higher percentage of our population in our Civil War, than the British lost in WWI.
If you want to say that the British lost more people in WWI than we’ve ever lost in any single war, that’s correct. If you want to say that we don’t know what it’s like to suffer similar casualty rates or to lose comparable raw numbers of people, that is not correct.
Anyway, since it’s a side issue, and not important to your main argument, I’ll leave it at that.
Just one correction: This doesn’t belong to “England” – it’s a UK wide event. After all its the “British Army” not the English army. Indeed many of the regiments history are attached to a geographical location up until this past generation of military restructuring.
Folks from all over the islands celebrate Remembrance Day. Our kith & kin served over the years & the events of both wars touched all corners of the land as can be seen by all the War Memorials in all the small towns.
WW1 in particular is remembered with deep sadness in Ulster as the cream of a generation were slaughtered at the Battle of the Somme 1916.
Those contrarians again. Note I wrote:
“All across the Commonwealth nations, citizens show their respect by sporting a red and black poppy.”
When I was younger, everyone wore red poppies on Veteran’s Day.
Yep, I did also.
Have not seen any for sale since I moved to NC.
Good for the English Prince for wearing one in spite of Turkey’s protest that it might hurt their feelings.
I remember wearing poppies when I was younger too. Mother would take us out that day, whether it was her shopping day or not and we would each get a poppy to wear. I remember her wrapping the stem of her poppy on her purse strap and pushing it up high so everyone would be sure to see it. We girls put ours in our pony tails and the boys stuck theirs in their shirt pocket button holes. You really didn’t see anyone without them in those days.
But that was before the Vietnam War when it was still expected that you would support the troops.
Here is a link the explaination of the VFW Buddy Poppy.
Their poppies are distributed around Memorial Day as a fundraiser for disabled veterans, not generally Veteran’s Day.
http://www.cal-mum.com/poppy.htm
We don’t? Certainly growing up in a military community we kids used to sell paper poppies to raise funds for disabled vets, and pretty much everyone wore one. I even won a school “Buy a Poppy” poster contest.
England’s RAF are the friendliest group of soldiers I’d meant in the military overseas in the mid 90′s. I’ve adorned the poppy lapel since. The RAF’s MRE’s have wine! A tad better than the Vietnam-era MRE’s we’d had.
God Bless you all. Domestic and foreign brothers and sisters.
The VFW sells “Buddy Poppies” all across the country this time of year and has for at least 62 years, that I am aware of.
Every year the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars) has a poppy drive at this time of year. If you haven’t seen any poppies it means that you do not have a VFW Post in your area.
The American Legion and VFW (JWV and others) no longer have poppy drives? Dad, Mom and us kids would all be on the streets pushing them (although I seem to remember a bigger run-up to Memorial Day than Armistice Day). The crowning event was the sales made at the local parades and ceremonies, where whole towns turned out to honor our surviving vets and those who had fallen. And this was in what are now some of today’s most liberal communities, on Nassau’s Gold Coast. No town didn’t have its own festivities, and some streets like Sunrise Highway would be blocked for hours.
This veteran would rather they just competently teach American History and the US Constitution in our schools again. Perhaps then appreciation would flow naturally from that 24×7, rather than it being a special event that attention must be called to.
OUTSTANDING!
I agree 1000000% !!!
For once I’m in agreement (mostly) with a PJM article. Veteran’s Day has become mostly a trade-off work day for getting the day after Thanksgiving off. While I’ll always consider government misbehavior like the Iraq War to be inexcusable and abominable, soldiers are still soldiers, whether the cause is unmistakeably noble or not, or whether putting faith in their commanders and leaders is justified or not — as has been the case for millenia. They are too often either taken for granted by disconnected, insouciant government leaders or reviled by people who see them as symbols of corrupt wars and leadership, but… they are really, simply doing their terrible, but too often necessary jobs the way soldiers have always done their terrible, but too often necessary jobs.
Okay… I blame it on being in the middle of the desert but I’ve never seen/heard of a “Poppy Drive.” I’ve driven past the local VFW several times as well so I know we have one in the area. Neither Needles, Barstow, or Victorville CA seem to do this so this is the first time I’ve heard about it.
As for the Brittish Commonwealths my wife is an Aussie and I’m asking her if she’s ever done this. (I doubt it as she’s not the most political or patriotic of persons.) I’ll do an update when she replies.
Okay so my wife just replied to me and the comment was very illustriative of the current discussion I had to share it in full:
“dont think so no
we dont celebrate anything that isnt australian or british.”
So yeah, between her lack of cultural attention in OZ and a possible lack of participation by the Aussies I’d say I’m not alone in having no history with this practice.
Another addendum. She sent me a chart showing the national holidays celebrated in NSW (the state that Sydney is in) that she lived in. No Rememeberance day listed. (Not that it’s not celebrated, just not a national holiday)
http://www.legislation.nsw.gov.au/fullhtml/inforce/act+43+1912+FIRST+0+N/
Part 1
The first day of January.
The twenty-sixth day of January.
Good Friday.
The day after Good Friday.
Easter Monday.
The twenty-fifth day of April (Anzac Day).
Christmas Day.
The twenty-sixth day of December.
When the first day of January, or the twenty-sixth day of January, or the twenty-fifth day of April (Anzac Day), or Christmas Day, or the twenty-sixth day of December falls upon a Sunday, the next following Monday shall be a Bank Holiday; and whenever the twenty-sixth day of December falls upon a Monday, the day following shall be a Bank Holiday.
Part 2
The Anniversary of the Birthday of the Sovereign.
The first day of August.
When any of the above days falls upon any day of the week other than Monday, that day shall not be a Bank Holiday, but the following Monday shall be a Bank Holiday in lieu thereof, unless otherwise proclaimed by notice in the Gazette.
I find it funny they celebrate the Queen and such but not the Brittish Military?
For the Australians, Anzac day is the equivalent. It commemorates in particular the Australian and New Zealand losses at Gallipoli in 1916 and other losses since.
“…I’d say I’m not alone in having no history with this practice”
Go to any college campus in America today…
They know more about Che’ than Sergeant York, thats for sure.
But Churchill? Halsey? Eisenhower? Blank stares.
Battan death march, rape of Nanking, V-2′s, Dresden?
Same.
They will light up a bit with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, but you’ll have to actually NAME the cities…They just know we commited War Crimes with nuclear weapons, the details are otherwise fuzzy.
Most couldnt tell you what year(s), or even what CENTURY World War One occured…
OK, “century” was a trick question, with the 1900′s being the “twentieth”, your average ivy league grad student is still scratching his head on that one…
The essential fact of wearing the Poppy is to commemorate the hideous losses the Allies, (largely Empire and Commonwealth), suffered in their AO in World War 1.
It is fundamentally a recognition of human loss, and the loss of the Empire that it presaged.
Americans, as Adams points out, have no such comparable event, although Pickett’s Charge at Gettysburg comes close…for Southerners. (and as far as the War for Southern Independence is concerned, the casualties should be properly referred to as either “Confederate” or “Union”, not lumped together as “Americans”), and so the losses of the “Civil War” are divisive, and not unifying in nature.
As far as it goes, we simply do not prefer to remember our losses as we do our victories.
No one recalls the surrender and loss of the Philippines, or the months-long meat-grinder of the Battle of Hurtgen Forest…even the frozen Hell of the Chosin Reservoir is salved by the “win” of Chesty Puller’s successful retreat.
May we never know a sacrifice so awful that it still inflicts a flinch in our grand-children’s children 100 years afterward.
We shouldn’t WANT to get used to losing so many.
Here in the GREAT WHITE NORTH (Canada) it is common to see American rig drivers at our truck stops sporting a poppy. Perhaps so they fit in….
But then some American journalists were surprised and impressed by the silent tribute of the thousands on 401 overpasses (Ontario’s superslab)silently saluting the cortage which hauls our repatriated fallen from Canadian Forces Trenton to the Ontario Coroners Office. Ontario’s otherwise politically correct Liberal government saw fit to rename that stretch from Trenton to Toronto….THE HIGHWAY OF HEROES.
Here locally, the Nov 11 observances have increased attendence year by year……the local HARVARD CLUB does a low “missing man” fly past with commendable skill. The roar of those big radials is a fitting touch of style and class.
Regrettably, this year there is a new name, carved in stone, on the cenotaph.
WEAR A POPPY!
LOL – How many people will have to correct Christian before he concedes his mistake?
It’s the thought that counts, though. It was a nice gesture by Christian.
Goofy, but nice.
That reminds me:
Have you noticed that all of the pronouncements by this president and his administration are “shovel ready”? Whenever they interview him, members of the MSM must have to wear waist-high wading boots.
Cool segue, huh?
It is not surprising that we don’t see a large number of Flanders Poppies in the US; we weren’t at the battle of the Somme. Personally, I would suggest that we should return November 11 to it’s original designation as Armistice Day. Veterans Day, as a holiday, should be changed to a different day, maybe VE Day or VJ Day. I don’t see WWI as great moment in American history. The US had no business involving itself in World War I. It was not a war against totalitarian expansion: the US was not attacked or invaded. WWI was simply the last great struggle for European imperial hegemony: Older, established colonial powers France and England wanted to prevent Germany from dominating Europe and having an overseas empire as strong as theirs.
I’ll remember the soldiers, and appreciate their sacrifice, but I won’t wear a tribute to imperial monarchies.
I don’t ever remember people wearing poppies on Veteran’s Day, but I grew up in California, which has strange and arcane customs.
“And that means YOU, Bubba!!
Like it or not, YOU’RE A YANKEE TOO!!!”
Sure you said that to Southerners, 83, sure you did…
Just worth noting, although Passchendaele is the name often applied, the casualties you quote make it clear you are referring to the campaign probably best known as “Third Ypres” (at least to the British).Third Ypres was an extended campaign lasting from June (Messines Ridge) until early November (Passchendaele itself) and was a long series of individual battles fought by different British (and dominions, Canadians, Australians, and New Zealanders fought, as did Indian troops) armies under at least two generals (Gough and Plumer). German casualties were never officially announced, the British official history claims they were significantly higher, but more recent research tends to a more even balance.
Another trivial footnote, the armistice was agreed to come into force 6 hours after the agreement was signed. It was however not signed until around 5:30 am on 11 November 1918, but General Foch proposed and the German’s agreed that the official signing time be made 5:00 am so that the armistice would come into effect at 11:00 am on 11 November (French time, the German’s time was 1 hour earlier I believe, so for them the armistice was at 12:00 midday).
I do remember poppies being distributed in compensation for donations to benefit veterans – and I grew up in California, too. But then, my family was mostly English and my great-uncle died on the Somme serving in the Canadian Army. And then I spent twenty years in the military, and the local VFW and American Legion were always collecting, and giving out poppies around Veteran’s day.
Just last weekend, the Disabled American Veterans were collecting donations outside the local Sam’s – and giving out blue ‘forget-me-nots.’ But San Antonio is a military town, so we tend to remember things like this.
http://www.anzacday.org.au/history/ww1/anecdotes/stats01.html
Ausralia and New Zealand the ANZACs had horrendous rates of casualties
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/World_War_I_casualties#Casualties_by_1914_borders
paticularly because of the disasterous Gallipoli Campaign.
They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning,
We will remember them.
For my twin great uncles who died together on the Somme.
There is another side to the experience in the UK, not likely to appear on the BBC or our MSM, burning poppies and all, see
http://goo.gl/Uy4vd
I grew up in southwestern PA and I remember my dad coming home with those red poppies on wires. . . .I also remember going to parades and when the color guard marched by, seeing my father (and other WW2 vets, I suspect) taking off his hat and holding it over his heart, or saluting, if he was hatless. Thanks to all Vets for their service!!!
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.
Lt. Col. 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.
When I was living in a big city Veterans Day was not observed by many businesses, after I moved to a small town every store has a sign thanking the Vets on November 11, and restaurants give free meals to all vets. This may have happened in the big cities I lived in but I never saw it.
“Indeed, modern America is characterized by the loss of shared experience, shared culture.”
Why don’t you all campaign against the racist colonialism laughingly referred to as immigration by the treasonous elite that are waging it instead of wasting your time with paper flowers? Wearing poppies or bringing back the draft or any of the other silly policies conservatives push in their hysterical attempt to avoid the obvious problem isn’t going to do a thing.
The celebration of Remembrance Day has always been a part of life for most countries in the British Commonwealth – however sadly here in Australia it is fading into history as we become more “Americanized” than “British”. And I am a Brit with Dual Citizenship (UK / Oz).
I would applaud the United States adopting this symbol of remembrance also, as we – the USA and the British Commonwealth, are One People!! Under God!!!
I have so many American friends who are True Patriot’s, some of my closest friends.
Under Obama, this will Never Happen, but with Sarah Palin (my preference) or Mike Huckabee as President, there is EVERY Chance!!
America is STILL a Christian Nation, but more, a Christian – Zionist Nation!!
God Bless America, God Bless Israel, and God Bless what is left of the Free World, rapidly allowing Islam to Rule over us…… One God, and He is NOT this Evil Moon God of Islam!!
Although it seems poppies are worn in the U.S i think the author is referring to the mass saturation and events at this time in the U.K.
Honestly it’s a huge deal here.It is taken very seriously.
Newscasters and anyone on the TV has to wear a poppy or there is complaints.
Even the Harry Potter cast had them on because they would of faced a backlash from us and sent to the tower if they didn’t.
There is even big poppies to put on the front of cars.
Wearing a poppy isn’t just to do with funding veterans.
The Country comes to a standstil for a two minute silence at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month-when the guns fell silent on ww1,but it is to remember all lives lost in our wars.
Schools,shops railways,everywhere,it’s very moving.
There has been a record released that is silent and money goes to the poppy appeal.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-11557280
.
There is a service at the Cenotaph,the political leaders stand together.
Also there are ex-Prime Ministers so they have to remember soldiers lost under their watch.
The Queen has a close relationship with the veterans of ww2,she was part of it and it is very moving to see them march and salute her.
For other generations it is important to see William and Harry involved
and laying wreaths for their collegues lost in Afghanistan and Iraq.
This is part of the calender that is passed down and is non political.
It doesn’t matter if you didn’t agree with the war.
It is also in the school curriculum .
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