Today in my birth country of the United Kingdom and throughout the British Commonwealth, Remembrance Sunday is being observed. In a nutshell, we remember that at the eleventh hour on the eleventh day of the eleventh month, an armistice was signed. The armistice concluded World War I, also known as The Great War. It was supposed to be the war to end all wars. Every year, this is remembered on the Sunday closest to the 11th of November.
At 11:00 AM, a two minute silence is observed to remember the Armistice and for those soldiers who fell and died in battle.
A poem that has found great popularity is entitled, “In Flanders Field.” It was written by Lt. Col. John McCrae of the Canadian Armed Forces, who served and died during World War I.
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.
Christ Alone Wyoming 
In the United States our educational system overlooks so much world history it is astounding. Just as the last 1,000 years of the Roman Empire (oddly called Byzantium) is ignored, World War 1 is almost totally overlooked in the US educational system. The bloodiest war in US history was the civil war, but the casualties of that war are far fewer than the casualties of only the first 6 months of WW I. We are taught that it was a “quaint” little war where people dug trenches, flew wood-and-canvas airplanes, and on occasion used gas on each other. I actually once had a history professor tell me in lecture that there were no bombers used in WW I.
Americans have absolutely no concept of the horrors of that war.
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Hi Mark
I never did grasp the enormity of human loss in this war until maybe a few years ago, I recall watching a documentary that brought home the tragic waste of many lives that lay buried in fields throughout Belgium and France.Many of our country’s boys and young men volunteered to serve King and country and travelled half a world away on this great adventure , its estimated that 46000 Australians are buried on this battlefield, and I’d guess most had little idea of what they were fighting for.
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