Students Tyler Bix, Karson Oberhauser, Jordan Jenkins, and Karissa Oberhauser shared what they had learned about World War I, and the origin of the poppy being used to honor soldiers. American Legion Post 464 out of Conception performed a ceremony honoring all those soldiers who had never gotten medals or recognition, but who made the backbone of the armed forces over the years.
The American Legion was founded in 1919, and the Auxiliary took on the care of disabled American vets as one of their first projects following World War I. The poppy had become a symbol used to honor fallen soldiers during the war, and they helped disabled veterans who had no other way of making a living to get an income by providing the materials.
Honored at the ceremony were Richard Jobst, Robert Jobst, Ralph Florea, Jim Bliley, Ed Holtman, Coach Michael Trautz, Bill McCrary, James Ward, Bill Spalding, Roger Totten, Harold Gray, Bob Randle, Ron Baldwin, Bill Young, Roger Florea, Earl Schwebach, and Charles Johnson.
The poem “In Flanders Fields” is well-known and still read at ceremonies honoring veterans and fallen soldiers along with MIA’s. Read at Friday’s program was a response to that poem, “We Shall Keep the Faith” by Moina Michael. She was working to help soldiers and their families during the war when she came across “Flanders Fields” and wrote the following response:
Oh! you who sleep in Flanders Fields,
Sleep sweet - to rise anew!
We caught the torch you threw
And holding high, we keep the Faith
With All who died.
We cherish, too, the poppy red
That grows on fields where valor led;
It seems to signal to the skies
That blood of heroes never dies,
But lends a lustre to the red
Of the flower that blooms above the dead
In Flanders Fields.
And now the Torch and Poppy Red
We wear in honor of our dead.
Fear not that ye have died for naught;
We'll teach the lesson that ye wrought
In Flanders Fields.
