Veterans Day: The Legacy of In Flanders Fields

"We are the Dead. Short days ago we lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow."

In the spring of 1915, in the middle of the unimaginable carnage of World War I, Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae sat beside the freshly dug grave of his friend and fellow soldier, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer, after presiding over his funeral during the Second Battle of Ypres in Belgium.

It was in that moment of grief that McCrae wrote a poem that would outlive the war itself.

In Flanders Fields gave the world a symbol for the war.

McCrae’s image of red poppies growing between the graves of fallen soldiers transformed the humble poppy into an international emblem of remembrance, worn every year to honor those who served and sacrificed.

McCrae never saw the end of the war he wrote about.

He died in uniform in 1918, three years after writing his famous lines.

On Veterans Day, we remember both his legacy and the millions who served after him — the men and women who fought, the ones who returned home forever changed, and the ones who never came home at all.

Their courage shaped the world we live in.

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

In Flanders fields.

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