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Buddy Poppy History
In April of 1915 a
battle-weary Canadian soldier viewed the final resting place of thousands of
young men who had fallen in the second Battle of Ypres in Belgium. Despondently
he contemplated the rows o hastily dug graves - each marked by a lonely white
cross.
In a sudden revelation, he heard the singing of larks in the sky, and amid the
graves he saw gay little patches of red - white poppies, struggling through the
battle-torn soil and through the clay mounds of the graves to bring their
message of life among death.
Inspired, Col. John McCrae sat down and penned the three short verse of his
famous poem "In Flanders Fields". Published in PUNCH Magazine a few
months later, the poem brought a message of confidence to millions of people in
the dark hours of World War I and established the Flanders Poppy as a symbol of
faith and hope in a war-torn world.
Although Col. McCrae never lived to see the end of World War I, his poem had
survived in print and in the minds and hearts of generations to whom his
personal battle was mere history. The poppies, which provided his inspiration,
still bloom in Flanders Fields; but their message of hope had become reality
through the Veterans of Foreign Wars Buddy Poppy.
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