By Lieutenant Colonel 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
Composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915
during the second battle of Ypres, Belgium

Tuesday, November 11, is Remembrance Day, recalling the end of hostilities of WWI on that date in 1918.  Hostilities formally ended “at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month”, in accordance with the armistice signed by representatives of Germany and the Entente between 5:12 and 5:20 that morning.
This year is particularly important, as it marks the 100th year, this past summer, since the beginning of the Great War.
This Blog Post By Don Surber explains the significance of the photograph at the head of this post.

Tom Piper is a British theater designer who has captured the heart and soul of his nation this fall with a simple, eloquent and beautiful display of patriotism that combines pacifism with nationalism. The exhibit arrived at just the right moment for a nation ravaged by self-doubts on many fronts.
Collaborating with ceramic artist Paul Cummins, Tom Piper has filled the moat of the Tower of London with red ceramic poppies — 888,246, in all — one to commemorate each of the young boys who died fighting for the Commonwealth in World War I, which began 100 years ago this summer.
He called the exhibition “Blood Swept Lands and Seas of Red.”

Don Surber’s essay is touching not just because we mourn those who died, were wounded, and those who survived but who were forever marked.  This remembrance is important, as Mr. Surber points out, because it reminds us that the British and American people were once willing to recognize an enemy and fight, whether or not you agree that the fight against Germany in the second decade of the last century was warranted or wise.

And the people of Britain know — or should know — all this in a flash. That is what they see pouring out of the Tower of London: thousands of young men willing to die to make men free.
We are in a battle — in a War Against Islamic Militants — whether our weasel leaders, wish to recognize it or not. The Cold War also returned the moment Hillary Clinton hit that damned reset button. Sometimes it seems as if no movement on Earth has killed more people in war than the peace movement.
Along the Thames this weekend and for the rest of the month, the British people are gathering their strength to take up the battle again. Britain is choosing to be Great again. If history is correct, a Winston Churchill or Charles Martel will emerge. For Remembrance Day is not about the dead; like any funeral, it exists for the living.