What an awesome picture Willy....... a moat of poppies, that emote emotion with its crimson red!
The poem that Cypherdragon posted was written by a Canadian military doctor: Lieutenant Colonel John McCrae, MD (November 30, 1872 – January 28, 1918) was a Canadian poet, physician, author, artist and soldier during World War I, and a surgeon during the Second Battle of Ypres, in Belgium. He is best known for writing the famous war memorial poem "In Flanders Fields". McCrae died of pneumonia near the end of the war.
It is a very fitting poem, and this year's Remembrance day ceremony had the somber reminder, where at our National War memorial a soldier standing guard at the tomb of the unknown soldier, was killed in a heinous act by a deluded individual just a mere few weeks ago, that this price of freedom we know, is oft purchased with a sacrafice of life.
After watching this year's ceremony from our war memorial located in Ottawa, I watched a very interesting documentary about our WW2 Canadian Army Film and Photo Unit (CFPU) exploits. It was the first Allied unit to provide film of the assault waves landing in Sicily and Normandy, the first to get still pictures from Normandy onto the front pages of the world press, and the only one to produce colour pictures of Operation Overlord.
Members of the CFPU were often in the front line, sometimes even ahead of it. During the liberation of Dieppe in 1944, as the Manitoba Dragoons awaited orders to advance, members of the CFPU were the first Allied servicemen to enter the town.
In April 1945 the journalist Lionel Shapiro wrote in Maclean's magazine:
"CFPU men were in the thick of every battle, often moving with the most forward units, on a few occasions positioning themselves at a vantage point in no-man's land in anticipation of a clash."
I just noticed that this is my 1500th post. What a fine number to remember it being about Remembrance day.
Go and hug a veteran today!