Find out below how to get your poppy.

Remembrance Day is also known as Poppy Day, Armistice Day or Veterans Day. It is a day to commemorate the sacrifices of members of the armed forces and of civilians in times of war, specifically since the First World War. It is observed on 11 November to recall the end of World War I on that date in 1918.

In the United Kingdom, although two minutes of silence is observed on 11 November itself, the main observance is on the second Sunday of November, Remembrance Sunday.

In the lead up to Remembrance Sunday we wear a poppy to remember those who sacrificed themselves so that we may live free.

Why the Poppy?

The poppy's significance to Remembrance Day is a result of Canadian military physician John McCrae's poem In Flanders Fields.

Flanders Fields saw some of the most concentrated and bloodiest fighting of World War 1. There was complete devastation. Buildings, roads, trees and natural life dissapeared. Where once there were homes and farms there was a sea of mud and graves where men continued to live and fight. Only one other thing survived, the poppy. It flowered each year with the coming of the warm weather and brought life, hope, colour and reasurance to those still fighting.

John McCrae, a doctor serving with the Canadian Armed Forces was so deeply moved by what he saw that he wrote the following poem.

In Flanders Fields

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...

An American YMCA Overseas War Secretaries employee, Moina Michael, was inspired to make 25 silk poppies based on McCrae's poem, which she distributed to attendees of the YMCA Overseas War Secretaries' Conference. She then made an effort to have the poppy adopted as a national symbol of remembrance, and succeeded in having the National American Legion Conference adopt it two years later. At this conference, a Frenchwoman, Anna E. Guérin, was inspired to introduce the widely used artificial poppies given out today. In 1921 she sent her poppy sellers to Lonthodon, England, where they were adopted by Field Marshall Douglas Haig, a founder of the Royal British Legion, as well as by veterans' groups in Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Some people choose to wear white poppies, which emphasises a desire for peaceful alternatives to military action.

Wear a poppy as your profile picture to remember those who died so we could be free.

To get your poppy

Right click on my profile picture and select “save as” give it a file name and click save. Then upload it as your profile picture.

Or get it from Google images here:

http://www.legion-aux.org/uploads/im

Sorry, can't seem to get the avatar pic to change. It looks like it has but when I click [save changes] it clicks back the the usual. Seems I've had this problem before, which is why I never change my avatar

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
At the going down of the sun and in the morning
We will remember them.

amen

02:44 UK time

Today is remembrance day. I see a few poppys in the forum. Lets see some more before the day is out.

In memory of those who have fallen so that we all can share in the eternal vigilance of the gift of freedom.
Freedom is a gift bestowed upon us by those who take a stand and especially by those who have fallen in the name of freedom.
May their memories live for all time.

It is the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month.

The Great War is ended.

It is such a pity that it was not the war to end all wars and so many millions have died in conflicts ever since and to this day.

War is the one thing that shames humanity above all else.

I return to my normal self in the hope that something changes in the next 12 months.

@ Thor: I thought that's what all the poppy pics were about, but didn't know, and now I do. My Grandpa was a WWII vet, and used to buy the little "paper poppies" veterans groups sell on the street.

Also, thanks for posting Flanders Field. Although I think about it periodically, I haven't actually read it since I was a kid.

A couple corrections:

1- Sorry it's Flanders Fields, not "field"

2- Now that I re-read Thor's post, he's right the poppies were silk, and not paper.

RIP to all brave veterans worldwide who made the ultimate sacrifice for freedom.