Memorial Day

We were shopping yesterday and as usual on the weekend before Memorial day the Vet's were out distrubing those paper poppy flowers. The boys wanted to know what they meant. I had heard the history of the poppy before, but it slipped my memory at the time. I told them I couldn't really remember what the poppies stood for, but when we got home I would look it up for them and here is the link that best described it.

http://www.usmemorialday.org/backgrnd.html#1

In Flanders FieldsJohn McCrae, 1915.
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 agoWe lived,
felt dawn,
saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved,
and now we lieIn 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 growIn Flanders fields.