Another year has passed and I feel it necessary every year on this blog to pay respect and remembrance to veterans around the world. On November 11 in most Commonwealth countries, we call the day Remembrance Day or sometimes Poppy Day or Armistice Day. In the United States it is known as Veterans Day. Whatever the name, the purpose of the day seems to be the same and that is to make sure that we never forget past sacrifices.

Symbol of the poppy

In the United Kingdom, Canada, and other countries around the world, we wear a poppy as a sign of remembrance.

The poppy is a flower found commonly in the fields of Belgium and France where heavy fighting of World War I combined with the poppy’s already strong symbolic connection with sleep, peace, and death elevated the flower to a unique place in the consciousness of nations following World War I.

Popularly quoted during many a Remembrance Day is the poem In Flanders Fields by Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae – a member of the Canadian Expeditionary Force in World War I.

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.

Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae

Take a moment

It is on a day such as today where I encourage everyone to take a moment and think of the soldiers, pilots, medics, planners, doctors, and people in general who fought and died in conflicts past.

We remember. We will not forget.