'In Flanders Fields'

Remembering red poppies and John McCrae's haunting poem on Memorial Day.

The USAA Poppy Wall of Honor, a Memorial Day exhibit consisting of more than 645,000 red poppies, each flower honoring a fallen military servicemember lost since World War I, at the National Mall in Washington, D.C.

By Michael Judge

Outside my local grocery store yesterday a young woman was handing out little red “Buddy Poppies” made by veterans and asking for donations to the VFW (Veterans of Foreign Wars). When I asked her if she knew the significance of red poppies for veterans of foreign wars, she looked me in the eye and said, almost too softly to be heard, “In Flanders Fields.”

Those three words sent me back to my childhood and the red silk poppy my grandfather, a World War II combat veteran who survived the battle of Okinawa (12,000 American soldiers didn’t), wore in the lapel of his U.S. Army uniform when he marched—as he did every year into his 80s—on Memorial Day.

The Buddy Poppy Program has helped the VFW live up to its motto, “to honor the dead by helping the living.” It’s a…