American Legion Auxiliary Poppy Days will be held Friday and Saturday in Warren County. Residents will be asked to wear a poppy in appreciation of veterans.
Days are set aside each year in observance of Poppy Day.
“This is a voluntary tribute to our dead and disabled servicemen,” said American Legion Post 173 poppy chairperson Pauline Webster. “By accepting one of these poppies from a member of the American Legion Auxiliary or other volunteers, we aid the living victims of past wars.”
Poppies grew in the battlefields of France and Belgium where American servicemen have fallen during world wars. In the years following the first world war, the poppy came to be recognized as nature’s tribute to the war dead, and it was soon adopted as the American Legion and Auxiliary’s official memorial flower.
The poppies worn on Poppy Day have an even greater significance than the flowers which bloomed on the battlefields of Europe.
“These memorial poppies you will be offered have been made in a VA hospital by those veterans who are still suffering,” said Webster. “The disabled veterans who make these flowers are able to gain a dual benefit from their work.”
Webster says, the poppy program gives many veterans their only opportunity to support themselves and their families, as well as offering them a productive pastime to help combat the long hours in the hospital ward.
Volunteers out in the community offering the poppies receive nothing for their work. Their only gain is from the satisfaction of helping the living veteran, as well as honoring the war dead.