Cord Byrd: “I thank the Chair. In Flanders fields the poppies blow Between the crosses, row on row That mark our place; and in the…”

“I thank the Chair. 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. John McCrae, who wrote ``In Flanders Fields,'' was a Canadian physician. He fought on the western front in 1914 before he was transferred to the medical corps and assigned to a hospital in France. He died of pneumonia while on active duty in 1918, and his volume of poetry was published in 1919. This Monday, in veterans cemeteries around the Nation, flags will be placed, tenderly placed--tenderly placed--before gravestones that carefully and simply mark the thousands of enlisted men and officers, soldiers, sailors, airmen and marines who, like John McCrae, did not come home to ticker tape parades but, rather, to slow caissons trailed by weeping families, final gunfire salutes, and the haunting melodies of ``Taps'' played by a lone bugler.”