Most of us are familiar with the red paper poppies given out by VFW members in exchange for a donation on Veterans Day. Many people are not aware of the significance of the poppy.
Poppy seeds can lay dormant for years, only blooming when the soil where they lay is disturbed. During WWI, on the battle fields in Europe, red poppies would bloom in the spring over the graves of fallen soldiers. Southwest Belgium, also known as Flanders, was the site of some of the bloodiest battles of WWI. Tens of thousands of soldiers are buried under the soil of Flanders Field, hence the spring would reveal entire fields full of poppies marking the graves of those soldiers.
Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrea was a Canadian doctor serving in WWI. On May 3, 1915, he was sitting in the back of an ambulance looking out over the fields of poppies adorning the graves of his fellow soldiers. So moved was he by the sight that he wrote the poem In Flanders Fields. The poem became extremely popular in Canada and the United States and succeeded in elevating the humble poppy flower to the symbol for fallen soldiers.
