Visit Britain in November and you will see paper poppies being widely worn - a reference to the blood-red flowers which grew on the shell-torn battlefields of Flanders, and to the armistice on Nov. 11, 1918, which ended the First World War. British war losses, at more than 700,000 men, remain the heaviest in the country' history. French and German dead were equally numerous. For Americans, Veterans Day celebrates the survivors of all the nation's 20th and 21th century wars. It was only after the Second World War that the day was dedicated specifically to veterans. In Britain, the rememberance is now for all British and Commonwealth soldiers who have died in wars since then - including those in Iraq. Cenotaphs were built for the "Unknown Warriors" to comfort the bereaved whose relatives had no known resting place.

The great Sunday parade takes hours to pass the cenotaph in London, where the Queen lays the first wreath of poppies. Many Rotary and Inner Wheel Club members will be out with poppies and collecting boxes raising funds for the continuing care of the survivors.

The poem "In Flanders fields the poppies blow" was written by Lieut. Col. John D. McCrae during the second battle of Ypres on April 15, 1915 [for text search Google]. Though the poem attracted no great attention at first, it later became accepted as "perhaps the most famous set of verses written in the English language during the Great War". McCrae died of pneumonia in January 1918 in a field hospital on the French channel coast. After the war, poets all over the world have written replies to McCrae's poem [for examples, e.g."America's Answer" search Google].

[The informations are partly taken from articles by E. Charles (The Rotarian, Nov. 1958) and A. Watson (NYT, Nov. 2008).