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Contents 1 Source 2 Memorable 3 =Poem 3.1 Is this really accurate?

[edit] Source

Cut 'n' paste from [[1]]. Since this is a U.S. government site, is it PD? --Wtshymanski 03:54, 8 Apr 2005 (UTC)

It only has information about American soldiers buried there. I think there were other countries involved in WWI too. --RACETRAITOR 06:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)RACETRAITOR 0607, 15 MAY 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Memorable

I wouldn't neccassarily say that Flanders Field is "the most memorable war poem ever written", sure its famous and all, but I say that such poems as "Bring the Boys Back Home" (Pink Floyd, off of the album The Wall) is far more memorable. Zombiebaron 16:45, 9 April 2006 (UTC)

If you take into account the entire western world, Flanders Fields probably has more influence in most countries. --RACETRAITOR 06:10, 15 May 2006 (UTC)RACETRAITOR 0607, 15 MAY 2006 (UTC)

I don't agree. Flanders Fields is known in the English speaking world, and "heard of" in Flanders, but I don't believe it has any influence in the other parts of the western world.

Pink Floyd's song is only known within a specific sub-culture. --LucVerhelst 06:56, 15 May 2006 (UTC)

The Pink Floyd was a joke (if you check, I'm an uncyclopedian terrorist, that's what we do). I merely included it to point out how wrong the statement is, or at least it has bias. Zombiebaron 02:41, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

D*mn. I'll consider myself as "being had". :-) --LucVerhelst 10:36, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

Not "had" just wrong. :P Zombiebaron 03:58, 19 May 2006 (UTC)

[edit] =Poem

The poem was inspired and written in 1915. The article appears to be about an American cemetary. The U.S. did not enter the War until 1917 so the author did not have any U.S. Casulties in mind when he wrote the poem. Having THAT much content about the poem in this particular article doesn't make a lot of sense. Although a "See Also" link may be valid as the poem has gone on to become a memorial statement about all who went and did not return. Fair Deal 19:55, 17 May 2006 (UTC)

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From The Royal Canadian Legion;

The person, who more than any other, that was responsible for the adoption of the poppy in Canada was a Canadian Medical Officer during the First World War. This person was Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae of Guelph, Ontario.

John McCrae was a tall, boyish 43-year-old member of the Canadian Medical Corps. He was an artillery veteran of the Boer War in South Africa and was described as a person with the eye of a gunner, the hand of a surgeon, and the soul of a poet when he went into the line at Ypres on the 22nd of April 1915.

April 22 was the first time that the enemy used poison gas but the first attack failed and so did the next wave and the next. In fact, for 17 days and nights the allies repulsed wave after wave of the attacking enemy. McCrae wrote - "One can see the dead lying there on the front field. And in places where the enemy threw in an attack, they lie very thick on the slopes of the German trenches."

Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae, worked from a dressing station on the bank of the Yser Canal, dressing hundreds of wounded and never removed his clothes for the entire 17 days. At times the dead and wounded actually rolled down the bank from above his dugout. At other times, while awaiting the arrival of batches of wounded, he would watch the men at work in the burial plots which were quickly filling up. In time, McCrae and his unit were relieved and he wrote home " We are weary in body and wearier in mind. The general impression in my mind is one of a nightmare".

Lieutenant-Colonel McCrae came away from Ypres with 13 lines scrawled on a scrap of paper. The lines were a poem which started: "In Flanders fields the poppies blow..."

These were the lines which are enshrined in the innermost thoughts and hearts of all soldiers who hear them. John McCrae was their voice. The poem circulated as a folk song, by word of mouth and all who hear it are deeply touched. In the United States for example, the poem inspired the American Legion to also adopt the poppy as the symbol of Remembrance.

In Canada, the poppy was officially adopted by the Great War Veterans Association in 1921 on the suggestion of a Mrs. E. Guerin, a French citizen. But there is little doubt that the impact of John McCrae's poem influenced this decision.

The poem speaks of Flanders fields, but the subject is universal - the fear of the dead that they will be forgotten, that their death will have been in vain. Remembrance, as symbolized by the poppy, is our eternal answer which belies that fear.

Sadly, Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae died of pneumonia at Wimereux near Boulogne, France on the 28th of January 1918 when he was 44 years old.

24.66.94.140 20:19, 5 June 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Is this really accurate?

Should the article under the title 'Flanders Field' not talk of the history of the field and its significance in World War One rather than talk of the American memorial?

Should the memorial not be a separate article of part of a larger one on the field?