Remembrance Day: 5 Things Men Should Know
Why Poppies For Remembrance Day?
The poem mentions the poppies that bloomed across many of the battlefields in Flanders, Belgium, their vibrant red colour becoming an appropriate symbol for the spilt blood that also stained the earth in those fields.
1 - The timing is significant
Remembrance Day is observed on 11 November to recall the official end of World War I on that date in 1918. The war officially ended "at the 11th hour (11am) of the 11th day of the 11th month" in 1918, when the Germans signed the Armistice, spelling an end to the hostilities. King George V kicked off the tradition in 1919, declaring the anniversary of the signing to be dedicated to a solemn observance of the men and women who were killed during the conflict.
2- Red poppies represent bloodshedThe tradition of pinning a blood-red imitation poppy to one's lapel for the duration of Remembrance Day originates from the poem In Flanders Fields by Canadian physician John McCrae. The poem mentions the poppies that bloomed across many of the battlefields in Flanders, Belgium, their vibrant red colour becoming an appropriate symbol for the spilled blood that also stained the earth in those fields.
3- The IRA used Remembrance Day to blow up 12 peopleThe Remembrance Day bombing, also known as the Poppy Day massacre, occurred on 8 November 1987 in Northern Ireland. Twelve people were killed when an IRA bomb exploded at a war memorial during a Remembrance Sunday ceremony. That night, Irish rock band U2, touring in Colorado, played an historic and stirring rendition of their song Sunday Bloody Sunday, in which Bono angrily condemned the cowardly act: "F*ck the revolution! What's the glory in taking a man from his bed and gunning him down in front of his wife and his children? Where's the glory in that? Where's the glory in bombing a Remembrance Day parade of old-aged pensioners, their medals taken out and polished up for the day? Where's the glory in that? To leave them dying, or crippled for life, or dead under the rubble of a revolution that the majority of the people in my country don't want."
4- The Last Post signals the end of the day in military lifeThe reason behind playing a rendition of The Last Post to precede the minute's silence, originates from its use in British Army camps to signal the end of the day, when the duty officer returns from his tour of the camp and quarters. The name derives from the practice of inspecting all the sentry posts around such a camp at the end of the day, and playing a call at each of them. The "last post" was the tune played at the last point of this inspection, signalling that this post had been inspected, therefore marking the end of the military day. Symbolically, it soon came to signal the end of a soldier's life, and was gradually incorporated into military funerals and later into Remembrance Day ceremonies.