text: This coming Monday will be celebrated in the US as "MEMORIAL DAY" the day set aside to honor our military servicemen and women who gave the ultimate sacrifice while in the line of duty.
  "Memorial Day was officially proclaimed on 5 May 1868 by General John Logan, national commander of the Grand Army of the Republic, in his General Order No. 11 <http://www.usmemorialday.org/order11.html> , and was first observed on 30 May 1868, when flowers were placed on the graves of Union and Confederate soldiers at Arlington National Cemetery." http://www.usmemorialday.org/
  -- NATIONAL MOMENT OF REMEMBRANCE
  "To help re-educate and remind Americans of the true meaning of Memorial Day, the "National Moment of Remembrance" resolution was passed on Dec 2000 which asks that at 3 p.m. local time, for all Americans "To voluntarily and informally observe in their own way a Moment of remembrance and respect, pausing from whatever they are doing for a moment of silence or listening to 'Taps." http://www.usmemorialday.org/
  -- VFW & SHARING POPPIES
  "In Flander's Field" describes a battlefield of crosses dotted with red poppies. The poem deeply touched the nation and the world, and, from that point on, poppies became known throughout the world as a memorial flower, a reminder of the lives lost in wartime."
  IN FLANDERS FIELDS
  By John McCrae, 1915.
  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.
  "Selling replicas of the original Flanders' poppy originated in some of the allied countries immediately after the Armistice. In 1921, the Franco-American Children's League began the first nationwide sale of poppies to benefit children in the devastated areas of France and Belgium." http://www.vfw.org/index.cfm?fa=cmty.leveld&did=128
  Whatever your circumstances, wherever you live, please take time to remember your friends and neighbors, and your ancestors whose lives have been affected by war. Let the prayer of every loving mother come forth -- that there will be peace in the land, and that her sons and daughters can be recalled from the battlefield.