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On Veterans Day
Wednesday, November 6, 2002
By Jim Garamone
American Forces Press Service

Congress moved Veterans Day, along with most other federal holidays, to be celebrated on the closest Monday to the traditional date. But soon Congress reversed itself on Veterans Day because of public pressure to honor the powerful symbolism of the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.

WASHINGTON -- AFIS
Up until the 1960s veterans groups used the red poppy as the symbol of Veterans Day. In Great Britain, it still is.

The symbol comes from a poem written by a Canadian doctor John M. McCrae in 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 ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie
In Flanders fields."

McCrae tended to the first victims of a German chemical attack on the British line at the Belgian town of Ypres during World War I. The fields of Flanders, where some of the most horrific battles occurred, are now dotted with cemeteries filled with the war dead. If you fly across France and Belgium, you can still see the remains of the trench systems of the war.
(More: DoD News Source)
2002 © The United States Department of Defense.

Dan