Don't forget to hug a vet this week

This was posted on a message board I frequent, and I thought it was worth sharing. I always knew you could buy a poppy, but I never knew why. Now I do.

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.

In Flanders Fields
By: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (1872-1918)
Canadian Army

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.