Veterans Day poppies

Twice a year, around Memorial Day and Veterans Day, the Mercer Island VFW Post 5760 solicits donations to help veterans and hands out “Buddy Poppies.” I am always grateful for the generosity of the Mercer Island residents. Last Saturday, we spent a few hours at both the North-end and South-end QFCs. Sometimes we get questions about the meaning of the poppies, so here is a short history.

The red field poppy came to be known as an internationally recognized symbol of Remembrance because of a poem written by World War I Colonel John McCrae, a surgeon with Canada’s First Brigade Artillery. It expressed McCrae’s grief over the “row on row” of graves of soldiers who had died on Flanders’ battlefields, located in a region of western Belgium and northern France. The poem begins:

“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.”

The poppy was adopted as the official memorial flower of the VFW at its national convention in Seattle in August 1922, following the first nationwide distribution of poppies ever conducted by any veterans’ organization.

Today, disabled and needy veterans in VA hospitals assemble VFW Buddy Poppies.

The VFW Buddy Poppy program provides compensation to the veterans who assemble the poppies, provides financial assistance in maintaining state and national veterans’ rehabilitation and service programs and partially supports the VFW National Home For Children.

We live in a great community, thanks for you generosity and compassion.

Robert Harper

Senior Vice Commander

Mercer Island VFW Post 5760