For Veterans’ Day:

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

Here’s the story of the poem’s author, Lieutenant Colonel John McRae, a Canadian doctor who wrote the poem after conducting the funeral of a friend killed in battle, and who died of pneumonia in the waning days of WWI.

But most of all, thanks to all our veterans here in the good old USA.