Remembrance Day

Today it is Remembrance Day in Australia. For international readers who don't know it's a memorial day oberved in all Commonwealth countries since WW1 ended in 1918.  This day in Australia has always been held on 11th November to remember our beloved soldiers who died in the line of their duty.

It was quite a shock to read an online news article this morning about an employee who had a written warning to remove his red poppy at work.  Apparently this poppy is an offensive item to other employees at the company.  How can it be so offensive? 

The poppy has become a familiar emblem of Remembrance Day due to the poem "In Flanders Fields". These poppies bloomed across some of the worst battlefields of Flanders in WWI. Their colour is an appropriate symbol for the blood spilled during the war.

The first chapter of In Flanders Fields by John McCrae gives the text of the poem as follows:

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.


Unfortunately today is the day my grandfather was buried 30 years ago.  He was only the grandfather I met and knew until I was 12 years old.  I only got to see him once a year because he lived too far away.  At the time of his death, it was my first time to learn about death of a human being.