Fiji's dictator launched the 2013 poppy appeal at Sukuna Park where more than 100 ex-servicemen and their families gathered to commemorate the lives of fallen soldiers.
Fiji has lost sons and daughters who served in the two world wars in Malaya and in UN peacekeeping missions. WHY A RED POPPY? Canadian, Colonel John McCrae first described the Red Poppy, the Flanders’ poppy, as the flower of remembrance. Whilst serving in the First World War, one death in particular affected, then Major McCrae. A young friend and former student, Lieutenant Alexis Helmer of Ottawa, was killed on 2 May. He was buried in the cemetery outside McCrae's dressing station, and McCrae had performed the funeral ceremony in the absence of the chaplain. McCrae vented his anguish by composing a poem. At the second battle of Ypres in 1915, when in charge of a small first-aid post, he wrote in pencil on a page from his despatch book a poem that has come to be known as "Flanders' Field" which described the poppies that marked the graves of soldiers killed fighting for their country. Remembrance Day will be held on 11 November.
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