November 11 is Remembrance Day in Canada and Veterans Day in the US. In the weeks leading up to Remembrance Day.....the Canadian Legion sells Poppies and its very, very common to see people wearing them. Turn on any newscast here and all the anchors will have one on and all politicians will be wearing them.
http://www.legion.ca/remembrance/the-poppy
In my Province.....Nov 11 is a statutory holiday and you will not find any Malls, Grocery Stores...or even a Walmart open!....and many gather at their local Cenotaph in the Town Square for services at 11am.
But is wearing a Poppy common in the US? We were at an outlet mall in Freeport ME a week ago and a clerk who must have been seeing a lot of Canadians down from the Maritimes shopping....noted that we "must be from Canada" as we had "one of those little flowers" on!
You can find them here, but they're usually just handed out for a small donation on Memorial Day. November 11th here is for the living. Our big version of Remembrance Day is on the last Monday in May, Memorial Day (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Memorial_Day). That started earlier as Decoration Day for the North after the Civil War.
The poppy wearing thing in the USA is far less common than in Canada or the UK. In the USA hand made poppies are used for fundraising by the VFW and are a throw-away arts and crafts type thing (made by disabled veterans) while the Commonwealth versions are larger and more long lasting.
The major battles of the Flanders ("In Flanders fields the poppies grow/Between the crosses, row on row") occurred well before the American intervention in 1918. There is no real association with the symbols of that war in the United States.
My guess is that only a slim percentage of Americans even know that Veteran's Day occurs on 11 November due to the armistice.
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on November 09, 2017, 10:06:03 AM
My guess is that only a slim percentage of Americans even know that Veteran's Day occurs on 11 November due to the armistice.
It's not spelled Veteran's Day.
It's spelled "Hey look! We can prolong the war and make it end on a symbolic date!" Day.
Quote from: NE2 on November 09, 2017, 02:01:23 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on November 09, 2017, 10:06:03 AM
My guess is that only a slim percentage of Americans even know that Veteran's Day occurs on 11 November due to the armistice.
It's not spelled Veteran's Day.
It's spelled "Hey look! We can prolong the war and make it end on a symbolic date!" Day.
Usually when there's an armistice, it's set at a specific time and day so that all lay down their arms at once. The news, especially in the WWI days, didn't travel by the lightning-fast intertubes.
Quote from: Brandon on November 09, 2017, 02:25:27 PM
Quote from: NE2 on November 09, 2017, 02:01:23 PM
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on November 09, 2017, 10:06:03 AM
My guess is that only a slim percentage of Americans even know that Veteran's Day occurs on 11 November due to the armistice.
It's not spelled Veteran's Day.
It's spelled "Hey look! We can prolong the war and make it end on a symbolic date!" Day.
Usually when there's an armistice, it's set at a specific time and day so that all lay down their arms at once. The news, especially in the WWI days, didn't travel by the lightning-fast intertubes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Henry_Gunther
QuoteSubsequent investigations revealed that on the last day of World War I, between the beginning of the armistice negotiations in the railroad cars encampment at the Compiegne Forest, French commander-in-chief Marshal Foch refused to accede to the German negotiators' immediate request to declare a ceasefire or truce so that there would be no more useless waste of lives among the common soldiers. By not declaring a truce even between the signing of the documents for the Armistice and its entry into force, "at the eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month", about 11,000 additional men were wounded or killed - far more than usual, according to the military statistics.[12]
Quote from: AlexandriaVA on November 09, 2017, 10:06:03 AM
The major battles of the Flanders ("In Flanders fields the poppies grow/Between the crosses, row on row") ....
I thought it was "the poppies blow," as printed on the previous version of the $10 bill:
(https://www.aaroads.com/forum/proxy.php?request=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.bankofcanadamuseum.ca%2Fwp-content%2Fuploads%2F2014%2F07%2F2005-10-dollar-verso_David-Dodge-1200x400.jpg&hash=b418e98cdbbfb1e74cf0c15f6e93c3b3d61aa330)
In the US, Veterans Day has sadly become just another day off for many, who don't even appreciate the purpose of the day and what it should stand for.
And, even though Christmas decorations and goods now appear on store shelves as early as late September (a trend that increasingly rankles me), for many years in the US, Veterans Day has been traditionally considered to be the official start of the Christmas shopping season.
As for the VFW poppies, most folks around here attach them to their rear view mirrors for a couple of weeks, then throw them away.
I keep thinking this topic says "Wearing a Puppy", so I keep thinking bandit957 must have created it.
Quote from: roadman on November 09, 2017, 03:38:19 PM
In the US, Veterans Day has sadly become just another day off for many
For many it's not even a day off. I'm going into the office as normal tomorrow.
I always assumed the US had the poppy tradition too, but I guess it isn't as common as here. I always find Memorial Day and Veterans Day confusing (my mind thinks they're the same). Unfortunately most Canadians don't get Remembrance Day off unless it's on a weekend. I only got it off once, when I was doing a co-op term at the MTO (provincial government).
On the topic of poppies, a Timmies in Calgary was selling poppy-shaped donuts:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/09/tim-hortons-store-in-calgary-sells-remembrance-day-poppy-doughnuts.html (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/09/tim-hortons-store-in-calgary-sells-remembrance-day-poppy-doughnuts.html)
University is closed Monday in lieu of Remembrance Day. Guess that will be the day I can catch up on my courses :D
Quote from: roadman on November 09, 2017, 03:38:19 PM
In the US, Veterans Day has sadly become just another day off for many, who don't even appreciate the purpose of the day and what it should stand for.
That's probably because in most people's mind it's "a day in honor of military members", which happens to be the same way most people think of Memorial Day. So the two become kind of redundant, especially with Memorial Day being the bigger holiday to most people. That, and it's pretty close to both Columbus Day and Thanksgiving, so it's not as attention-getting as Memorial Day, which stands alone between Easter and July 4th.
QuoteAnd, even though Christmas decorations and goods now appear on store shelves as early as late September (a trend that increasingly rankles me), for many years in the US, Veterans Day has been traditionally considered to be the official start of the Christmas shopping season.
Whose tradition is that? I remember when Black Friday took on that role, and it seemed too early then, too.
Quote from: 7/8 on November 09, 2017, 08:51:41 PM
Unfortunately most Canadians don't get Remembrance Day off......
Unless you are in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland & Labrador......where Malls, Grocery Stores, offices and most businesses will be closed.
Quote from: 7/8 on November 09, 2017, 08:51:41 PM
On the topic of poppies, a Timmies in Calgary was selling poppy-shaped donuts:
https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/09/tim-hortons-store-in-calgary-sells-remembrance-day-poppy-doughnuts.html (https://www.thestar.com/news/canada/2017/11/09/tim-hortons-store-in-calgary-sells-remembrance-day-poppy-doughnuts.html)
Redemption for the Restaurant owner!
"The restaurant owner, who independently owns and operates this restaurant in Calgary, will be matching and donating 100 per cent of the poppy donut proceeds to the Royal Canadian Legion."
Quote from: ghYHZ on November 10, 2017, 03:55:54 AM
Quote from: 7/8 on November 09, 2017, 08:51:41 PM
Unfortunately most Canadians don't get Remembrance Day off......
Unless you are in New Brunswick, Nova Scotia, Prince Edward Island or Newfoundland & Labrador......where Malls, Grocery Stores, offices and most businesses will be closed.
I'm letting my Ontario bias show again :-D (I should've done a quick search before saying
Canadians).
Quote from: 7/8 on November 09, 2017, 08:51:41 PM
I always find Memorial Day and Veterans Day confusing (my mind thinks they're the same).
IMHO, in the USA, Memorial Day is a major holiday. Originally for honoring war dead, some/most people have expanded it into a day for visiting graves of any dead relative/friend. Most people get the day off. Generally considered the start of summer, end of school year (although most states go past it today into early June), start of vacations, bookended by Labor Day. It is the day for honoring war dead.
Veteran's Day is a minor holiday. Only government offices and banks closed. Generally considered the day for honoring living veterans and current active military.
I get the impression that Canada has conflated the USA's separate "war dead honoring" and "veteran honoring" days into one.
I have off today because my office is in a building primarily occupied by federal tenants, so the building is closed. Otherwise I'd be at work. Since we get the day after Thanksgiving, I tend to view that day as a replacement or makeup day for Veterans' Day, and it's a trade I'll happily make any time.
It comes as news to me that the poppy tradition has as much of a presence in the US as others report. I was actually not aware of it until I moved to Britain and experienced my first Remembrance Day there, although my mother (an English major) immediately recognized the Flanders fields connection.
In recent years it has become more common to wear a poppy that is white (for peace) rather than red, though this still attracts controversy.
British poppy badges are throwaway (tissue paper glued to black plastic clothing button), but the red ones typically signify that a donation has been made to the British Legion. People in public life tend to regard a poppy badge as
de rigueur for avoiding charges of insufficient respect for the war dead, but I have never heard of an ordinary person being asked to justify not wearing one.
Quote from: SP Cook on November 10, 2017, 07:48:26 AMI get the impression that Canada has conflated the USA's separate "war dead honoring" and "veteran honoring" days into one.
In Britain, and possibly also in Canada, there is a May bank holiday that typically (always?) falls on the same day as Memorial Day in the US. Remembrance Day is not a bank holiday in Britain, though there is generally a moment of silence at 11 AM (eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).
The May holiday in Canada is Victoria Day. It's the Monday before Memorial day in the US.
For most of Canada (and specifically Ontario, where I live), Remembrance Day is only a holiday for bankers and government offices. For everyone else it's a normal business day. Most offices, schools, and even radio broadcasts do observe a moment of silence at 11:00 however.
Quote from: AsphaltPlanet on November 10, 2017, 12:27:04 PM
The May holiday in Canada is Victoria Day. It's the Monday before Memorial day in the US.
Queen Victoria's Birthday — May 24th (or the closest Monday) The unofficial start of summer when you head to the cottage after a long winter. (Also known as the May two-four Weekend.... as in pick-up a case of 24 beer before you head to the cottage.....and let the season begin!)
Quote from: Duke87 on November 09, 2017, 07:37:46 PM
Quote from: roadman on November 09, 2017, 03:38:19 PM
In the US, Veterans Day has sadly become just another day off for many
For many it's not even a day off. I'm going into the office as normal tomorrow.
Didn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
Quote from: kphoger on November 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PM
Didn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
Yep. I knew tomorrow was a holiday (never forget the 11K sacrificed to symbolism!) but today? Nah.
Quote from: NE2 on November 10, 2017, 03:15:56 PM
Quote from: kphoger on November 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PM
Didn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
Yep. I knew tomorrow was a holiday (never forget the 11K sacrificed to symbolism!) but today? Nah.
Correction: over 16 million sacrificed over "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans". More than just Americans were there, kiddo.
Quote from: NE2 on November 10, 2017, 03:15:56 PM
Quote from: kphoger on November 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PM
Didn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
Yep. I knew tomorrow was a holiday (never forget the 11K sacrificed to symbolism!) but today? Nah.
Yep. Then there's that. So I guess I do have off work after all! :)
Quote from: Brandon on November 10, 2017, 03:29:40 PM
Quote from: NE2 on November 10, 2017, 03:15:56 PM
Quote from: kphoger on November 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PM
Didn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
Yep. I knew tomorrow was a holiday (never forget the 11K sacrificed to symbolism!) but today? Nah.
Correction: over 16 million sacrificed over "some damned foolish thing in the Balkans". More than just Americans were there, kiddo.
You get out of here with your "logic" and your "reasonable takes" !
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 10, 2017, 12:08:03 PMIn recent years it has become more common to wear a poppy that is white (for peace) rather than red, though this still attracts controversy.
Because the virtue signalling with them is even higher than with the 'wear your poppy with pride' campaigns and such like? Especially as white poppy wearers are like vegans and don't shut up about how much more righteous they are for supporting white poppies instead of/as well as red poppies. :rolleyes:
Also the money can go anywhere with no centralised control over what local vendors do with the money from selling them (it's different to the donate-and-receive approach of the red poppies) - they can keep it, they can fund 'peace' in ways that actually are funding war (sorry, I meant throwing off the yoke of oppression with bombs and guns to bring about peace), and they can actually support stuff that the white poppies are meant to be about like helping non-combatant victims/refugees and promoting peace. I imagine they mostly do the third, but unless they say so, I have no way of knowing.
QuoteRemembrance Day is not a bank holiday in Britain, though there is generally a moment of silence at 11 AM (eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).
Though today, as a weekend, it's less firmly done - which I imagine is one of the reasons why it's not a Bank Holiday: people wouldn't be at work or in school and thus can ignore it as they are at home and no one is watching. I gather schools and stuff held silences at 11am yesterday. There's also the civic services on the nearest Sunday across the land, so as well as the 11th there's generally a silence on that Sunday and the main TV channels, all news channels, etc, will show the silence from the Cenotaph where the state focuses its remembrance. Ironically they are unsilencing Big Ben tomorrow for a short time to allow it to bong eleven times during that silence.
The silence is traditionally 2 minutes, but when I was young the one at school was 1 minute, and those two minutes aren't typically applied to with military precision, especially when not at some civic function with the kinds of people who complain about that sort of thing.
Quote from: kphoger on November 10, 2017, 02:30:58 PMDidn't even know today was a holiday, until I saw this thread yesterday.
For the Wichita Public Library, this is actually a double-width holiday this year: libraries closed on November 10 because that is the observance day for the City of Wichita (of which the library is administratively a part), and again on November 11 for Veterans Day proper. This ensures nobody has to work at the library on either the holiday itself or its observance day, though I get slightly uneasy about having the library closed (meaning ebooks are the only way to get something to read) for two consecutive days.
Quote from: english si on November 11, 2017, 12:04:20 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 10, 2017, 12:08:03 PMIn recent years it has become more common to wear a poppy that is white (for peace) rather than red, though this still attracts controversy.
Because the virtue signalling with them is even higher than with the 'wear your poppy with pride' campaigns and such like? Especially as white poppy wearers are like vegans and don't shut up about how much more righteous they are for supporting white poppies instead of/as well as red poppies. :rolleyes:
Besides the virtue signalling, I've had the impression some (especially on the right) see the white poppies as a slight against those who gave their lives to defeat oppressive regimes, as it obviously was not possible to beat Hitler while remaining pacifist.
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 11, 2017, 01:25:34 PMBesides the virtue signalling, I've had the impression some (especially on the right) see the white poppies as a slight against those who gave their lives to defeat oppressive regimes, as it obviously was not possible to beat Hitler while remaining pacifist.
I think it's less the not possible to not beat Hitler by war, but mostly the falling off the other side of the horse when it comes to the "all sides" nature of the commemoration and going around and talking about 'the victims of British aggression'. It's doubly bad as we're focused on WW1 (though not the Irish front that opened in 1916 and went on for decades after the armistice on the Western Front) and WW2, rather than wars like Iraq and Afghanistan, on Remembrance Day.
The Peace Poppy Charity spent a lot of the 70s and 80s saying that red poppies were Unionist on the Ulster question as (unsurprisingly) only Unionists wore them and they were an alternative. While they insisted they were non-political, people turned them into an anti-Unionist symbol - hence why Thatcher: who had lost friends to assassinations, and nearly was murdered herself, by the IRA, found white poppies repugnant - it was personal.
The wearing of poppies was because poppies grow in Flanders, which was a sector of heavy deaths for the British and commonwealth troops. The poem "In Flanders Fields" further reinforcing the wearing of poppies was by John McCrae, a Canadian. It is not surprising that poppies as a memorial have more meaning to the British, Canadians, and other commonwealth countries.
Quote from: english si on November 11, 2017, 12:04:20 PM
Quote from: J N Winkler on November 10, 2017, 12:08:03 PMIn recent years it has become more common to wear a poppy that is white (for peace) rather than red, though this still attracts controversy.
Because the virtue signalling with them is even higher than with the 'wear your poppy with pride' campaigns and such like? Especially as white poppy wearers are like vegans and don't shut up about how much more righteous they are for supporting white poppies instead of/as well as red poppies. :rolleyes:
Also the money can go anywhere with no centralised control over what local vendors do with the money from selling them (it's different to the donate-and-receive approach of the red poppies) - they can keep it, they can fund 'peace' in ways that actually are funding war (sorry, I meant throwing off the yoke of oppression with bombs and guns to bring about peace), and they can actually support stuff that the white poppies are meant to be about like helping non-combatant victims/refugees and promoting peace. I imagine they mostly do the third, but unless they say so, I have no way of knowing.QuoteRemembrance Day is not a bank holiday in Britain, though there is generally a moment of silence at 11 AM (eleventh hour of the eleventh day of the eleventh month).
Though today, as a weekend, it's less firmly done - which I imagine is one of the reasons why it's not a Bank Holiday: people wouldn't be at work or in school and thus can ignore it as they are at home and no one is watching. I gather schools and stuff held silences at 11am yesterday. There's also the civic services on the nearest Sunday across the land, so as well as the 11th there's generally a silence on that Sunday and the main TV channels, all news channels, etc, will show the silence from the Cenotaph where the state focuses its remembrance. Ironically they are unsilencing Big Ben tomorrow for a short time to allow it to bong eleven times during that silence.
The silence is traditionally 2 minutes, but when I was young the one at school was 1 minute, and those two minutes aren't typically applied to with military precision, especially when not at some civic function with the kinds of people who complain about that sort of thing.
For the first few years after the 9/11 attacks, our local transit system in Boston would stop all trains and buses on all lines at 8:46 am, the time the first plane struck the World Trade Center, for a one minute observance of silence.
I wore a poppy. I knew a fellow who had been gassed in the Great War. I wore it in honor of him.
Back in the Fifties every radio station in the US went silent at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month.
Quote from: 02 Park Ave on November 15, 2017, 01:57:16 PMI knew a fellow who had been gassed in the Great War.
WW1 seems increasingly removed from us nowadays, without connections like this. Especially as we lost the last handful of those who saw warfare in the trenches early this century, with Harry Patch (the last, though he hated that he'd outlived the others) dying in 2009 just after the second-last, aged fittingly with all the ones (like 11am on the 11th day of the 11th month): 111 years, 1 month, 1 week and 1 day.
He especially disliked the attention he got for living so long - he didn't feel he warranted honoring over his brothers-in-arms - he'd take the honours, but stress that he wasn't taking them for him, but as a stand in for all those who weren't there to receive it. He got the Légion d'honneur with all the other survivors on the 80th anniversary, which was bumped from Knight to Officer a couple of months before his death. He got a Belgium knighthood on the 90th anniversary of the Battle of Passchendaele, which he fought in. He got a televised funeral at his local cathedral with various dignitaries (though they did try and obey his wishes so no gun salute as he didn't like guns, nor that much pomp - it was 'just' the Dutchess of Cornwall, rather than her and the Prince of Wales). He got several poems and songs about him, all of which honour him by being immensely sad about friends lost to futility and the horror of war.
3 years ago, I spend 3 hours (it took that long as there were loads of people, and loads of poppies) shuffling around the Tower of London in near silence (along with the other umpteen thousand there that morning) where a poppy had been placed for every British/Commonwealth Soldier who killed in the war. It was unbelievably sad with a moat full of hundreds of thousands of poppies.
(https://c1.staticflickr.com/8/7554/15549809299_bbb4d031db_b.jpg)