In an effort to become more globally aware in a positive way, I have decided to start a year-long project toward learning about international holidays. I decided to start with the month of November, since this is the time of year I purchase my calendar for the following year. Having grown up internationally, being married to a "foreigner", and knowing that Americans are frequently accused of ignorance to international customs and traditions - I took the memory of a lovely Christmas gift from a couple of years ago as a token of a(nother) fresh start at broadening my own horizons.
The gift to which I’m referring was a calendar produced by the Peace Corps, in which a friend of mine volunteered for four years in Senegal. Her gift reminded me of my own childhood abroad, and many of the lessons I learned during my early adulthood traveling with the military. As people, regardless of race, nationality, and traditional customs, we have more in common than we have differences.
Perhaps that perspective is naïvely optimistic, but so be it. With joyous holidays facing us, I’ll take naïve optimism hands-down over cynicism every day of the week and twice on Sundays.
One example of an American holiday that is shared by several other countries is Veterans’ Day. This day is also known as Armistice Day and Remembrance Day. In the United States, it is a federally-observed holiday to honor all of our military veterans. This holiday is celebrated on November 11th - a symbolic ending of WWI. The Wiki entry about Armistice Day notes, "It commemorates the armistice signed between the Allies and Germany at Rethondes, France, for the cessation of hostilities on the Western Front, which took effect at eleven o’clock in the morning — the "eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month."
Buddy Poppies are distributed during the days preceding Veterans’ Day (by its many names) by veterans, ROTC and JROTC cadets around the country at grocery stores and other locations. When I was a teenager in JROTC, I did not know the significance of the poppy, or why Remembrance Day is also known casually as Poppy Day. I just knew that I was honoring veterans by standing outside in my cadet uniform, accepting donations, and passing out Buddy Poppies…representing veterans of all foreign wars.
I later learned, while researching information for a different article related to this subject, that the poppies are a reflection to the most famous WWI-era poem, "In Flanders Fields," written by Canadian military officer and physician (Lieutenant Colonel) John McCrae - in honor of his friend whom he saw perish in 1915.
In Flanders Fields
John McCrae (1872-1918)
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.
Sources:
Arlington National Cemetary website - In Flanders Fields, 2008
Wikipedia - Armistice Day, 2009
