In The Cause Of The Free

At the eleventh hour of the day on this date in 1918, the guns fell silent on the battlefields of Europe. The war that was supposed to end all wars came to an end. An entire generation would be marked by it- death, long lasting wounds, or the memories that would last a lifetime. And it would only lead to a bloodier war.

We call it different names around the world, but on this date, many commemorate the losses of war. I will be attending the national services here today, and featuring Remembrance Day in my photoblog for much, if not all, of the rest of the month.

John McCrae was a Canadian doctor, officer, and poet who went to the battlefields of Europe to fight in the Great War. He would never return home, dying of pneumonia. And he left behind a legacy in a poem that transcends national boundaries. In Flanders Fields has become a part of our common humanity. McCrae came from the city of Guelph, here in Ontario. His legacy looms large there. I took this shot and featured it in my photoblog a few months back. The poem is inscribed on a plaque at the city's war memorial.

A pair of sculptures of McCrae reside in two places. The artist Ruth Abernethy created these twins. One resides outside Guelph's local history museum.

The other is here in Ottawa, on Green Island, where several other military monuments reside, and where the Rideau River meets the Ottawa River. Abernethy features poppies in the sculpture, and has McCrae holding a copy of his most famous poem.