I have to really hand it to the Brits, they run a really good Remembrance Day. For around two weeks before Remembrance Day there are volunteers from the Royal British Legion in stations around the country selling poppies that you can pin to your lapel in advance of Remembrance Day. You can find the poppies for sale on most reception desks in businesses. The poppies are de rigeur for anyone in a suit and for many others besides. Politicians wear them, news presenters wear them, people on the street wear them. I wear one. My site wears one.
Poppies are the symbol of Remembrance Day because poppies are trash plants that thrive in recently disturbed thin topsoil. When the killing fields like Passiondale finally had a season of rest after World War I, they bloomed a sea of red poppies, their roots in the blood of fallen soldiers.
On the 11th of November at 11am, the country comes to a stop for two minutes of silence and reflection. (This photo of a policeman observing silence supplied by Royal British Legion)
But that's not all. The Sunday closest to the 11th (this year the 13th) is called Remembrance Sunday. On this day, wreaths and crosses are laid for the war dead. There is great ceremony to it all. The Queen, the Duke of Edinburgh, the rest of royal family come out and lay wreaths, politicians of all hues come out and lay wreaths (not Sinn Fein, btw) at the Cenotaph at Whitehall. I've never been out to the ceremony itself, but it is televised and broadcast on the radio. (I always listen to it on the radio). That's just the biggest ceremony, but up and down the land there are local ceremonies to local war dead.
If I had a little niggle about Remembrance Day, it's that it is perhaps too focused on the dead. (But since this occasion has its roots in the often careless slaughter of nearly a million of Britain's sons in WWI, I guess I can understand.) They made the ultimate sacrifice, but many have sacrificed much and many others have served. So, during my two minutes of silence, I pause in reflection and gratitude for all who have served and not just for those who gave all. I particularly think about the sacrifices made by people I know and think about how, fortunately, war has not touched my family as hard as it might have.
Both my grandfathers served in WWII (read my grandfather's story of his war time experiences), and both made it through largely unscathed. My dad was drafted during Vietnam, but spent almost all his tour of duty in Oklahoma. My grandmother's older brother managed to survive WWI, only to catch TB in the trenches,pass it on to one of my great aunts and die of it in Tennessee. But largely we've been lucky. Lots of others haven't.
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