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Wednesday, November 1, 1989 TERRACE BAY/SCHREIBER NEWS Page 7 History of the poppy campaign The 1989 Poppy Campaign began October 23 and runs until November 11. Conducted by the Royal Canadian Legion, the Poppy Campaign raises money which is kept in trust and used to assist needy Canadian ex-service mem- bers and their families. Veterans of Commonwealth and allied countries who are residing in Canada may also qual- ify for assistance through the Poppy Funds. The Poppy is a visible reminder of the sacrifice made by some 114,000 men and women who died while serving in Canada's armed forces during the two World Wars and the Korean Conflict. Poppy material is assembled by disabled veterans and their families. This not only provides them with a small source of income, but allows them to take an active part in the tradition of remembrance. During 1988, some $5 million were distributed in accordance with the general bylaws of the Royal Canadian Legion. Each year, over 14 million poppies are worn by Canadians. This symbol of remembrance has been making its annual appear- ance since 1926, and although everybody knows what the poppy means, no one is certain of how it all began; how the poppy became so closely associated with remembrance of the war dead. The association was certainly not new when the poppy was adopted in Canada in 1921. At least 110 years before that time, a correspondent wrote of how thickly poppies grew over the graves of the dead. He was speak- ing of the Napoleonic War and its campaigns in Flanders. But a Canadian medical offi- cer was chiefly responsible for this association, more so than any other single known factor. John McCrae was a tall, boy- ish 43-year-old member of the Canadian Medical Corps from Guelph, Ont. An artillery veteran of the Bocr War, he had the eye of a gunner, the hand of a surgeon and the soul of a poct when he went into the line at Ypres on April 22, 1915. That was the afternoon the enemy first used poison gas. The first attack failed. So did the next and the next. For 17 days and nights the allies repulsed wave after wave of attackers. During this period, McCrae wrote, "One can see the dead lying there on the front field. And in places where the enemy threw in an attack, they lie very thick on the slopes of the German trench- es. " tion on the bank of the Yser Canal, Lt.-Col. McCrae dressed hundreds of wounded, never tak- ing off his clothes for the entire 17 days. Sometimes the dead or wound- ed actually rolled down the bank from above into his dugout. While awaiting the arrival of batches of wounded, he would 'in Flanders Fields "Working from a dressing sta- watch the men at work in the burial plots which were quickly filling up. Then McCrae and his unit were relieved. "We are weary in body and wearier in mind. The general impression in my mind is one of a nightmare," he wrote home. But McCrae came out of Ypres with 13 lines scrawled on a scrap of paper. The lines were the poem which started: "In Flanders field the poppies blow..." These were the lines which are enshrined in the hearts of all sol- diers who heard in them their innermost thoughts. McCrae was their voice and the poem circulat- ed as does a folk song, by living word of mouth - men learned it with their hearts. : In the U.S., the poem inspired the American Legion to adopt the poppy as the symbol of Remembrance. In Canada, the poppy was offi- cially adopted by the Great War Veterans Association in 1921 on the suggestion of a Mrs. E. Guerin of France, but there is lit- tle doubt that the impact of McCrae's poem influenced this decision. The poem speaks of Flanders fields. But the subject is univer- sal: the fear that in death we will be forgotten, that death will have been in vain. The spirit of true Remembrance, as symbolized by the poppy, must be our eternal answer which belies those fears. 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