Helping Military/Veterans’ Children #
The Community Educational Outreach web page on the LVMAC website provides carefully selected links for teachers, counselors and students in the Lehigh Valley as an aid in helping them to understand the value and importance of our military, veterans and their families in our communities. Useful links are also provided to help them understand the challenges that these families – particularly children – may face as members of our school communities.
Learning About the Military #
Today’s Military Website is produced by the United States Department of Defense. This site is more than a recruiting tool for any branch of the U.S. Military. It can be used as a resource for parents, educators, and young adults curious about military service.
The Final Tribute: “Taps” #
We have seen some incorrect stories circulated on the origins of the American version of the bugle call known as “Taps”. Commonly played at Memorial Day ceremonies and over the graves of soldiers and veterans being buried, in addition to being played as the last bugle call of the day at a military installation, it should be of interest how this doleful tune came to be. We consider the VA’s version of the story both authoritative and interesting: click here. The West-Point.org provides adds additional details to the story. To hear the tune and to learn of others, click here or here. These calls have their origins in armies and while there may be a slight variations in the list of calls between the military services, and addition or deletion, for the most part they are the same. Google the Army, Marine, Navy, and Air Force bands to learn more.
Origin of the “Flower of Remembrance”, the Poppy #
The origin the symbolism of the Poppy Flower so often distributed by the Veterans of Foreign Wars (as the “Buddy Poppy”) and the American Legion posts around Memorial Day lies in the Colonel John McCrae’s World War I poem, “In Flanders 
Fields”. MaCrae was a surgeon with Canada’s First Brigade Artillery and did not survive the war, but his poem left an indelible impression on those who survived him. The “loss of a generation” in Europe’s nations — our Civil War had similar effect — had a huge impact on the thinking of that era. For example, the League of Nations, predecessor to the United Nations, stemmed from it and its acknowledged horror. The handing out or the sale of poppies (not a uniquely American tradition by any means) was originally more than act of serious remembrance. It came about as an effort to help orphans and those left destitute or scarred by the war. For more information, consider these two sites to start: the VA’s Office of Public Affairs fact sheet and The Great War.co.uk’s webpage on the subject.
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Last Updated: 22 June 2022 (link updates)
