Thanks to our veterans.  Particular thanks to my dad, the Korean War Vet!  Amazing that 2014 marks the 100th anniversary of the start of WWI and that we’re 96 years away from the armistice also celebrated on this date.  My paternal grandfather tried to enlist in 1917 but his first wife (not my grandmother) marched down to the draft board office and said that he was “needed at home” so he wasn’t sent off.  We have a copy of the document with that notation at the bottom.  I think he was trying to both do his duty and escape from his wife who was significantly older than he was.

I wasn’t able to find any VFW members selling poppies today but here’s the poem:

In Flanders Fields
–by John McCrae

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.