At the 2017 20th Annual Memorial Day Veteran’s Program at St. Demetrious Cemetery the Cemetery Board of Managers welcomed and thanked all the folks for coming. They also thanked Father Basil, Father John and guest speaker Adolph (Athanasius) Galonski.

Adolph Galonski was born in Milwaukee Wisconsin, served in the United States Coast Guard for 22 years, including combat duty in Vietnam in 1971.

After retiring in 1991, attended University of New England in Biddeford. He has worked in health care since graduating in 1995 for Columbia/St Mary’s in Wisconsin, St Mary’s in Lewiston and the VA Maine Healthcare system. He is a member of St Alexander Nevsky, Orthodox Church in Richmond, Maine.

In his speech “Placing of the Wreath” he spoke about poppies and the poem “In Flanders’ Field.” It is one of the most popular and most quoted poems from the war.

As I stood listening in the falling mist, my thoughts drifted back many years to other Memorial Days. I recall having to memorize the poem in school. I am sure many of you did too.

“In Flanders’ Field” is a war poem in the form of a rondeau, written during World War I by Canadian Physician Lieutenant-Colonel John McCrae It is believed that the death of his friend, Alexes Helmer was the inspiration for the poem.

As John McCrae was writing his “In Flanders Fields” poem, Allison silently watched and later recalled, “His face was very tired but calm as he wrote. He looked around from time to time, his eyes straying to Helmer’s grave.”

Within moments, John McCrae had completed the “In Flanders Field” poem and when he was done, without a word, McCrae handed the poem to Allison.

Allison was deeply moved: “The Flanders Fields poem was an exact description of the scene in front of them both. He used the word blow in that line because the poppies were actually being blown by a gentle east wind. It never occurred to me at that it would ever be published. It seemed just an exact description of the scene.”

The first verse: Helmer, was the inspiration for the poem.

In Flanders’ Field 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.

“Though poppies grow in Flanders Field” was composed at the battlefront on May 3, 1915 during the second battle of Ypies, Belgium.

The destruction brought by the Napoleonic wars of the early 19th Century transformed bare land into fields of blood red poppies, growing around the bodies of the fallen soldiers.

In late 1914, the fields of Northern France and Flanders were once gain ripped open as World War one raged on through Europe’s heart. Once the conflict was over the area became one of the most devastated regions in the battlefield.

The war turned the beautiful countryside into a field of mud where nothing could grow. But, poppy flowers sprouted on the land of thousands of dead men.

Will there ever be an end to wars?