Many students have seen people wearing poppies on the ACC campus and in the community and wondered why? It is a symbol with a long history worn in recognition of the sacrifice made by the thousands who lost their lives in service to Canada.
During the First World War more than 650,000 Canadians and Newfoundlanders from all walks of life served in the military. Of these 66,349 lost their lives during the conflict and more than 172,000 were wounded. The fighting ended at 11 am on November 11th 1918. Armistice Day was created in the British Empire in 1919 after the First World War. In Canada Remembrance Day was established as a separate commemoration in 1931. Ceremonies are held in Canada and around the world on the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.
(Royal Canadian Legion, 2018)
The poppy is a symbol that was chosen to commemorate and honour this sacrifice. A Canadian Medical Officer wrote a poem titled “In Flanders Fields”. He is believed to have written it on May 3, 1915 following the death of a fellow officer and close friend during the Second Battle of Ypres in France. The poem was written near a medical station just north of Ypres. Poppies grew wild on the churned-up ground of battlefields and graveyards. Since the poem was published the simple poppy has been adopted as a symbol of remembrance of the sacrifice made by Canadians and Newfoundlanders during the Great War. In more recent times it also honours the more than 120,000 Canadians who lost their lives during the Second World War, the Korean Conflict, as peacekeepers, in Afghanistan and during all of Canada’s conflicts. The poppy is worn from the last Sunday of October until the 11th of November.
– Written by Len Blakely, Students’ Association Council – Accessibility Representative
In Flanders Fields
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.
(As published in Punch Magazine, December 8, 1915)