With Memorial Day upon us, you may notice members of the VFW selling poppies. There are various rumors and myths out there about where and why poppies are tied to Memorial Day. The first is the name, they are not just poppies—they are remembrance poppies. The reason they are tied to Memorial Day is much simpler than you may realize. In 1915, Canadian Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae wrote a poem about the aftermath of battle called “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.
If you see someone selling poppies this weekend, make a donation, and wear it to remember those who will forever sleep in Flanders Fields.
Memorial Day is not a day to celebrate all veterans, it is a day to remember those who are no longer with us. It was originally called Decoration Day after the Civil War, but as is the story in the United States, the North and South had different ideas about the day. The Northern and Southern traditions more or less merged toward the end of the 19th century to become the Memorial Day we know today.
Memorial Day should never be confused with Veterans Day; Memorial Day is a day of remembering the men and women who made the ultimate sacrifice while serving, while Veterans Day celebrates the service of all U.S. military veterans.
I know that Memorial Day is for those who lost their lives in service to their country; however, there are three people who served, but did not die in action, and are no longer with us.
Several years ago, there was an older gentleman that worked in the same building I did. At the time, if I had to guess I would have said he was in his eighties at least. He walked with a cane, and he was hunched over. He moved pretty slow—he had the appearance of a lonely old man beaten down by life. I passed by him dozens of times going in and out of the side door of the north tower—I never really paid much attention to him, he was just some old guy slowing me down on my way to Panera.
Coming back from Panera on a cool crisp fall day, I passed him on the sidewalk; I noticed a little pin on the lapel of his jacket. It was a Marine Corps pin. The next day, as I was leaving for the day I bumped into him in the lobby. I asked him, "I see your pin there, are you a Marine?" (There is no such thing as a former Marine.) In that moment you could see sixty years come off of that old man. He stood up straighter, and you could see a glimmer in his eye that had not been there before. He cracked a smile, and "Yes, I am a Marine." And he introduced himself to me. I told him I had served in the Army. It was then that I found out this old man was in his late eighties, that he went back to work selling insurance after his wife passed away so that he had something to do, and that he had fought and was wounded on Okinawa when he was 19 years old.
From that day forward, I would always greet him, and he would always stand a bit taller and smile when he saw me. A few months after that, I did not see him anymore. I can only assume that he has passed away by now. I am glad though that I was able to recognize him as a veteran, it meant the world to him that I noticed his Marine Corps lapel pin.
In a related vein, when my mom was in a nursing home, my son and I would often go to visit and have dinner with her in her housing area. Her roommate and dinner companion was about my mom's age, in her nineties. She was tall, had very long white hair, and was in very ill health. I only knew her as my mom's roommate; to this day I don't know her name. During dinner one evening she asked my mom what she had done during the war (WWII). My mom had been a Rosie the Riveter, making batteries in the old Rayovac plant on Winnebago St., on the east side of Madison, Wisconsin, right out of high school.
My mom's roommate had a far more interesting life. She had been a WASP (Women Airforce Service Pilots). She ferried B-17 bombers from the United States to England, freeing up male pilots so they could fly combat missions. She had one of the nursing home staff bring out a box from her closet. It was full of photos of her in her flight gear, and in planes from WWII; you could see the years peel off of her, and the pride of what she did during the war. She passed away a couple weeks after that. I am forever thankful I got to hear her story. There were only a little more than 1000 WASPs, to meet one, and to hear her stories, was pretty special.
My dad served in the Navy, in WWII. To look at him, to hear him talk—you would have never known it. If you went to public or parochial school in Madison, Wisconsin, between 1962 and 1982 you probably saw my dad every morning, delivering milk to your cafeteria. You likely had no idea he was a WWII vet.
In 1943 he moved off the family farm in Chatfield, Minnesota, into town so he would lose his farm deferment. He wanted to serve but they would not draft him or take him as a volunteer because he was considered essential personnel on the home front. In 1944, after his deferment ran out, he joined the Navy—the biggest body of water my dad had seen up to this point in his life was Mill Creek, which ran through the farm. He used to say that he joined the Navy because he would not have to wear a tie.
He ended up in Farragut, Idaho, for boot camp, he was supposed to learn flag semaphore and be on a PT Boat in the Pacific Theater. Scarlet Fever changed that and he was hospitalized for over a month. During this time the Port Chicago Mutiny occurred, black sailors refused to work due to poor working conditions (there was an explosion just a month prior that claimed the lives of almost 300 sailors). After the mutiny, the Navy changed several things, one of which was the decision to integrate Port Chicago. I wish I could say it was for altruistic reasons, it wasn't. In the hearings after the Port Chicago disaster, the Naval court found:
"The consensus of opinion of the witnesses, is that the colored enlisted personnel are neither temperamentally or intellectually capable of handling high explosives."
My dad was in what was called the first white draft into Port Chicago. He was one of the first U.S. servicemen on an integrated military base. My dad, a white farm kid from Minnesota, had never even seen an African American person before. When my dad would open up about his time in service you could tell the impact this had had upon him. He would often tear up recounting how horribly the black sailors were treated. They were not even given gloves to load cargo (and at that time, everything was loaded by hand).
My dad did have one source of pride in his time at Port Chicago. After the Atomic bombs were dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki the crew my dad was a part of were told that they were on duty loading ships at the time “Fat Man,” and “Little Boy,” were loaded for the first leg of their journey to Tinian Island. It is very likely that my dad loaded one, or both of them on a ship.
To look at my dad later in life, you would have never known that he may have played a small role in the end of WWII.
On this Memorial Day, whether you are having a barbecue, traveling to see relatives, or just doing a home improvement project, take a moment to remember those who have made the ultimate sacrifice for this nation.