Remembrance Day is the one day of the year where all of Canada stops and reflects on sacrifices that our vets, and vets from around the world, made during the past century. All those who paid the terrible costs of war fighting for the basic rights and freedoms of people they did not know. It is a day left for their memory … a day to say thank-you.
The following poem was written by a young medical core volunteer during the First World War. First appearing in 1915, it became one of the best-known poems from the war and a piece of the Canadian culture for years to come.
In Flanders Fields
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.
– John McCrae, 1915
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