THUNDER BAY – Poppies have stood as the official symbol of remembrance for the past century.
In Canada, each fall people from coast to coast don the red and black flowers, pinning them over their left lapels, coming together as one to pay tribute to those who served the nation and those who lost their lives in battle.
Ted Ciotucha, president of the Royal Canadian Legion Branch 219, said the annual two-week campaign, which kicks off on Friday, is important to keep veterans in the minds of the countrymen, moments after joining Mayor Keith Hobbs at city hall to raise the poppy flag.
It’s all about awareness.
“There’s entire generations of school kids who have never had to deal with any war issues because of (the veterans) and we just want to make sure – because our Legion’s main objective is remembrance – that people don’t forget the sacrifices that our veterans made,” Ciotucha said on Thursday.
“That starts with the school kids and their parents.”
The poppy first came to symbolize the soldier’s sacrifice in 1915 during the First World War, when Canadian Lt.-Col. John McCrae penned his iconic poem, In Flanders Fields, following the death of his friend on the battlefield.
Three years later Moina Michael, speaking at the YWCA Overseas War Secretaries Conference, wore a silk poppy on her coat.
She handed out 25 more and successfully argued to make the flower the national symbol of remembrance.
There’s a strong local connection, Ciotucha said.
“The poppy was actually dedicated as a symbol of remembrance at Branch 5,” he said.
Poppies will be distributed to dozens of locations around the city, available to the public to wear, in return for a donation to the local legions.
“They’re not for sale,” Ciotucha said. “They’re for awareness and for donations. Every penny that comes out of that poppy campaigns goes directly into a trust fund and it’s legislated by those legions what those funds can be spent on.
“None of it goes to anything except for veteran’s causes – veterans, their families, their grandchildren and all the programs that we do.”
In Flanders Fields
By Lt.Col. John McCrae (1915)
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
