Veterans Day Post, well really a Link

I couldn't think of anything profound to write about Veteran's Day, but one of those Whapsters posted a poem I just love, primarily because my mother used to go around the house reciting it from time to time.

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.
~Lt. Col. John McCrae, 1872-1918

Years ago a friend of mine was describing how eerie it was to take the train across Europe through all those fields upon fields of poppies. Oh yeah, I nodded, because you think about how many soldiers must have died there, right? She looked at me funny. Of course, I thought that I had a completely normal childhood, and everyone's mothers went about their homes reciting poetry and explained to them the poetic horrors of war. So I said, you know, like the poem, In Flanders fields the poppies blow/Between the crosses row on row....That was met with the blank stare, the type of which I am now so accustomed to. And I further explained about why poppies grew there, and all she could say was that she was very glad she didn't know that at the time, because it would have creeped her out.