For most Americans these days, the words ‘Memorial Day’ mark the start of a long holiday weekend, full of family and friends and fun. In a Harris poll taken in April, only 55 percent of Americans even know why we mark the day – this Memorial Day commemorating the sacrifice made by others so that we can live in a free and democratic society – free to paddle and picnic.
The poll showed that only 28 percent had attended a ceremony or patriotic event on a previous Memorial Day. Only 22 percent had left a flag or flowers at a grave site or visited a military monument. Only 52 percent said they had ever thanked a veteran for their service. What we fail to remember, we are doomed to repeat.
I grew up seeing old soldiers in their uniforms, going through the cemetery of our country church carefully placing the flags before Memorial Day. Many were bent and frail, their hands gnarled. My home town featured a Memorial Day parade and lots of church dinners where remembrance poppies were sold. When my children were very young, we always drove to Ft. Logan National Cemetery for the Memorial Day ceremonies. I wanted them to remember.
As a grade school student in a rural Wisconsin School, I memorized a poem that for generations came to memorialize the price of war. For me, “In Flanders Field” represents the price that has been paid and continues to be paid, for the freedoms protected by our constitution. That same constitution is now under attack by no less than our executive branch, as it seeks to thwart the legislative branch from executing its Article I constitutional duties to conduct oversight of the executive branch.
“In Flanders Fields” was written in 1915 by Canadian physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae, who died in 1918 before the end of what was called ‘The Great War.’ I had family members who came home from that war, and the next war, and the next one, and the one after that. My husband served. As we know now, World War I was neither the last world war, nor the greatest one.
The experience of burying his friend, a young Canadian artillery officer named Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, killed during the Second Battle of Ypres, prompted McCrae to pen these words:
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 – 1872-1918
‘The Great War’ began in 1914 and quickly engulfed Europe. The Unites States entered the conflict in 1917 and it ended Nov 11, 1918. For more about ‘The Great War’ from the British perspective:
http://www.greatwar.co.uk/poems/john-mccrae-in-flanders-fields.htm
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